This poem and episode are the last for season 2—we’ll be taking a bit of a break to revamp & rebuild for season 3! Some exciting changes & shifts are in store. Please stay tuned!

Our final episode for season 2 takes a deep dive into the 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 method, which is a grounding technique meant to support you through stress, anxiety, and panic, hopefully guiding you back to the present moment. You begin by identifying 5 things you can see, 4 things you can touch, 3 things you can hear, 2 things you can smell, and 1 thing you can taste. In addition, the poem incorporates some box breathing. As if tracing a box, this practice involves breathing in for 4 seconds, holding for 4 seconds, breathing out for 4 seconds, and holding for 4 seconds (repeat as many times as needed). In the poem, we put a bit of a spin on the word ‘grounding’ by using these mindfulness techniques to follow the journey of a seed being planted and growing into a flower.

Here's an excerpt of the poem (the full written & visually formatted versions can now be found & read at mikbrew.substack.com!):

I see a pair of eyes—one gold & one white— among a blue field of birds & unharvestable cotton. I stretch & slip between two bolls until my stem is parallel; until I can bend it like a back & let them stitch to it, helping me fly as if my leaves were feathers.

Listen to this week's episode to hear the full poem! If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves.

This week's poem and episode explore a story—one of a young person navigating the grief of losing both their mother and their dog. But there is much more to this story, as there are always many layers of grief. This story brings us alongside someone re-writing what love’s residue is and how forgiveness isn’t linear.

Here's an excerpt of the poem (the full written & visually formatted versions can now be found & read at mikbrew.substack.com!):

Love can’t burn—burn away, that is— there’s always something left at the end to remind you that death isn’t your fault.

Listen to this week's episode to hear the full poem! If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves.

This week's poem and episode use a Villanelle, which is a French form of poetry alternating two repeating lines. This episode is inspired by the famous poem, “Do not go gentle into that good night”, by Dylan Thomas. It allows us to think about moments when we’ve been afraid to venture outside, especially at night (literally and of ourselves). More specifically, the poem explores how we hide inside—our home and internally—from what we’re afraid of, thinking that we’re protecting ourselves. Sometimes this is necessary! Fear can be useful fireproofing, but not always. Though it feels safer and warmer indoors, there is much we can only see and experience outside (of ourselves and the literal places we hide in), even after the sun goes down.

Here's an excerpt of the poem (the full written & visually formatted versions can now be found & read at mikbrew.substack.com!):

So hungry, I leave just a sliver of white and feed every memory of when  I’d never been outside at night.

Listen to this week's episode to hear the full poem! If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves.

This week's poem and episode walk alongside someone who has recently experienced sexual assault or violence. When they encounter a kind person in a coffee shop the morning after—who treats them very differently—they wrestle with the many emotions, feelings, and memories that arise.

Here's an excerpt of the poem (the full written & visually formatted versions can now be found & read at mikbrew.substack.com!):

But the boy brought my coffee and held it out with both hands until I took it with both hands

And he spoke,

“You’re b…”

He looked down, 

breathed out, 

and said,

“I love your style”  with the kindest furrowed brow smile I’d felt loved by in a long while.

Listen to this week's episode to hear the full poem! If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves.

This week's poem and episode use a Tanka, a Japanese form of poetry usually a single unbroken sentence with 31 syllables. The number of lines (when these poems are translated into English) is typically 3-5 to spotlight the twist or turn in the last third or so of the poem. With the beginning of a new school year and the approach of fall, I wanted to create an episode that can serve as a sort of reminder/mantra to love and fill ourselves abundantly from the inside out, which, of course, allows us to offer rich and colourful love to others.

Here's an excerpt of the poem (the full written & visually formatted versions can now be found & read at mikbrew.substack.com!):

I offer you as many arms as a tree and I pray you believe in enough  to fill them with your leaves instead of paper…

Listen to this week's episode to hear the full poem! If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves.

This week’s poem and episode explore a student’s experience of feeling overwhelmed nearing back-to-school season.

August is a complicated month—still summer, yet unofficially labelled the ‘get ready’ month, not unlike the end of December approaching New Year’s Resolutions. As a distraction, our narrator visits their town’s annual end-of-summer festival, where they learn that they can’t “overwhelm their overwhelm” with stimulation.

Sometimes, though the best preparation is soaking up every last ounce of summer, we forget that this includes rest (the same way an extra few hours of sleep before an exam will often be more beneficial than a few more hours of late-night studying).

Here's an excerpt of the poem (the full written & visually formatted versions can now be found & read at mikbrew.substack.com!):

We’ll wander around our house thinking about preparing while really, unable to think.

We’ll stand in our shower trying to scrub & rinse away overwhelm by scribbling those three words across the flexible fibreglass in the milky soap-ink of shampoo,  conditioner, hot water & cold: back to school.

Listen to this week's episode to hear the full poem! If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves.

This week’s poem and episode explore the myriad of emotions, memories, thoughts, and feelings that surface and coexist on our birthdays.

Though birthdays are often thought of and marketed as celebratory, this dismisses the many painful ways people encounter their birthday or the fact that not everyone’s experience includes cake, balloons, singing, friends, family, parties, and presents. As with any milestone, birthdays can be marked and haunted by emptiness and feelings that we haven’t accomplished or fulfilled our purpose enough (among other things). This poem attempts to reframe birthdays in a supportive way.

Here's an excerpt of the poem (the full written & visually formatted versions can now be found & read at mikbrew.substack.com!):

And I wondered, what if birthdays were every day rather than once a year?

If every day were one of birth?

Because more days for birth means more soil space for seasonal joy and the way it changes & charges us.

Listen to this week's episode to hear the full poem! If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves.

This week’s poem and episode bring us alongside someone who didn’t know how to help a struggling parent/guardian who offered abundant love, imagination, and play while they were alive. Eventually, the narrator realizes that these gifts—creativity, play, imagination, and love—from their parent/guardian are the very tools they can use to create and offer support, and even though they can’t ‘save’ their parent/guardian, they may be able to help others like them.

Here's an excerpt of the poem (the full written & visually formatted versions can now be found & read at mikbrew.substack.com!):

I knew what I needed to do the moment the headlights came on, after which, it gets to be  later & later— bluer & bluer— reminding me that all windows close & this one especially fast.

Listen to this week's episode to hear the full poem! If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves.

This week’s poem and episode explore the moment we recognize that someone loves us, whether this is a family member, partner, friend, etc.

So often we emphasize the feeling of ‘falling in love’ or loving someone else, without noting the feeling, honour, and privilege of being loved. As it relates to mental health, moments like these have power among deeply entangled struggles with body image, self-worth/esteem, anxiety, and depression, for example. And although knowing we’re loved is necessary but not sufficient, being able to confidently identify someone who loves us is a key piece of any healing journey.

Here's an excerpt of the poem (the full written & visually formatted versions can now be found & read at mikbrew.substack.com!):

My first time feeling alive, if for a moment in time,

was because this baby breathed with what was inside me:

the honour & privilege of looking at someone

& being able to say that which rips our breath away

without it being a question: my stars, you love me.

Listen to this week's episode to hear the full poem! If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves.

This week’s poem and episode explore how to create a safe space in your mind—a place only for you. It also discusses how difficult this can be among so many other thoughts, distractions, and constant content consumption. The poem in the episode is a sestina, which includes a repetitive echo by using the same six end words in different combinations and orders. Our thoughts also create echoes/repetition, so this episode can help us reclaim and create a healthy echo chamber in our minds. The poem allows us to unpack society’s sometimes invasive definition of safety and potentially brainstorm a new one.

Here's an excerpt of the poem (the full written & visually formatted versions can now be found & read at mikbrew.substack.com!):

Where can we be safe when ceilings & walls won’t share? Those in our own brain—not the boundaries of shelter but the exponentially spreading Rubik's cube boxes— apartments plugged with everything but joy. Could we keep just one free? For love?

Listen to this week's episode to hear the full poem! If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves.

This week’s poem and episode discuss a long, brimming conversation between strangers on a long flight. Near the end of the exchange, someone speaks the phrase, “stay with us,” which, out of context, can be interpreted many ways. In most, it’s an offer of comfort and hospitality, such as, “stay with us when/if you visit, stay at our hotel, or stay the night when there’s is a storm that makes driving dangerous. But in this episode, the poem’s narrator unwinds the words a bit further. As someone struggling with suicidal thoughts, they wonder if the extension of “stay with us” is an offering of safety—what’s requested is not only to stay, but to stay with us.

Here's an excerpt of the poem (the full written & visually formatted versions can now be found & read at mikbrew.substack.com!):

and so I gathered, if anything, that they’d heard, seen, felt, or breathed, 

something in my voice or speech or careful anecdotes breaking, which made them repeat:

stay with us

(please don’t leave this world yet)

Listen to this week's episode to hear the full poem! If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves.

This week’s poem and episode bring us alongside someone going for a walk after a harmful argument. As they process, they find themselves questioning the balance between necessary solitude and approaching apology with vulnerability and openness. There is something to be said for needing alone time and space after a disagreement, especially in reaching the conclusion that we’re the ones who need to apologize, but there is also vitality in re-entering a space with someone heart-first or spirit-first post-argument, even if you don’t have perfectly rehearsed words. Words do matter. Harm matters. Intent does matter (though not to gaslight harm). Love—how we balance these in space and community with others—needs imperfect willingness and courage, keeping in mind that imperfect is not synonymous with flawed, damaged, or defective.

Here's an excerpt of the poem (the full written & visually formatted versions can now be found & read at mikbrew.substack.com!):

& I know that if I hug my body into a curly coil where I can only see myself, I might find solitude but also dark stillness.

If I open my chest & unfurl, I will see light in daring to cross the sidewalk bridge, moving from stillness to slowness.

Listen to this week's episode to hear the full poem! If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves.

This week’s poem and episode are a bit of a mantra/reminder to carry in your pocket, especially as things feel heavy. The month of June is celebratory in many ways, including Pride, Juneteenth, Indigenous History Month, and Men’s Mental Health Month, among many more.

And we know it’s important for joy and advocacy to coexist, especially in our student communities. With this, comes many emotions, and right now, to put it in the simplest terms: things are hard for all of us, and in many ways, feel like they won’t ever change. This poem doesn’t say “It’s going to be okay” but my hope is that it offers you hope, and a new way to imagine/dream—our most powerful skill.

Here's an excerpt of the poem (the full written & visually formatted versions can now be found & read at mikbrew.substack.com!):

Don’t let anyone tell you that imagining &  dreaming is only for children— these are perhaps most powerful when we remember how to wield them as young adults.

The greatest gift you can receive or bestow (upon anyone or anything) is to be believed in.

Listen to this week's episode to hear the full poem! If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves. > >

This week’s poem and episode explore the feelings associated with reconnecting with a mentor, friend, coach, teacher, or anyone who offered guidance to you as a kid or teenager.

The poem takes place after lost contact and many years have passed between these two people, which I think happens more often than we admit. This episode conveys what it means to reach out again (if appropriate and safe, of course), and specifically that remembering doesn’t just mean “not forgetting”—it means saying “thank you” wherever and however we can.

Here's an excerpt of the poem (the full written & visually formatted versions can now be found & read at mikbrew.substack.com!):

What does it mean to remember someone? Not someone who’s passed away, but someone we haven’t spoken to in years who was once a reason we survived? Of course, it means to not forget them, which is to say ‘thank you’ fiercely.

Listen to this week's episode to hear the full poem! If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves.

This week's poem and episode explore memory, especially those valuable to recall as we approach graduation (which I know many of us are at this time), well before the tasks, lists, and thoughts surrounding moving, university, or a first full-time job set in. Think of these tasks, lists, and thoughts as the vertebrae while the potent memories are the spine that allows you movement, feeling, and a rooted way forward.

Here's an excerpt of the poem (the full written & visually formatted versions can now be found & read at mikbrew.substack.com!):

Please, let me back you up a little bit because you’ll need to pack for graduation first, either in a notebook or a branch of your brain,  and on the other  bough-like bookshelves of your mind, you’ll find these the way you might shop from memory & association when  you not only forget the list but forget just how many things you’ve remembered…

Listen to this week's episode to hear the full poem! If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves.

This week's poem and episode discuss climate change anxiety, grief, outrage, sadness, frustration, and the myriad of emotions that come up when we’re worried about our planet.

Most importantly, my hope for this episode is that it conveys the message that making space to feel nature’s pain is love, and love is the prerequisite for just about anything. Feeling this openly and outwardly is necessary—in witnessing climate change or any other loss of life—and not a sign that you’re not doing enough, fighting hard enough, or coping well enough. It’s a sign that you’re willing to be changed. And our willingness to be moved and changed is a powerful catalyst.

Here's an excerpt of the poem (the full written & visually formatted versions can now be found & read at mikbrew.substack.com!):

and what that makes you feel, even if just recognition of their will to turn toward light, is love. And it's always the first step anyway. So feel it. Weep. It's okay.

Listen to this week's episode to hear the full poem! If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves.

This week's poem and episode dive into the common phrase “hindsight is twenty-twenty,” asking us to think about looking back with a bit more nuance.

For example, seeing an experience more clearly in retrospect shouldn’t diminish how it was felt at the time, particularly how these feelings are remembered in the body and soul (when our mind tends to intellectualize memory). The poem is written with a sonnet in mind, which usually follows fourteen lines (three stanzas of four and one of two), ten syllables per line, abab rhyme, and iambic pentameter (da-DUM, da-DUM).

Our poem includes fourteen lines with ten syllables each, but doesn’t rhyme or include a clear meter. Sonnets are often love poems about desire, but here, it’s about the desire to see that looking back at anything thoughtfully is messier than twenty-twenty, while no less meaningful.

Here's an excerpt of the poem (the full written & visually formatted versions can now be found & read at mikbrew.substack.com!):

Nearly always, we see things more clearly after they’ve happened. But why do we see  best when looking behind us, each other? Backward in time? Never ahead, forward?

Listen to this week's episode to hear the full poem! If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves.

This week’s poem and episode discuss the painful feeling of longing to be like someone else, which can often be confused with both looking up to someone and idolizing them. Of course, these are very different things! It’s a wonderful thing to be inspired by someone’s vibe or style, but this can easily trickle into self-worth/esteem/confidence and comparison traps.

Through a more storytelling-focused poem, this episode breaks down what separates us in these ways, specifically how longing to be like someone else (as a tendril of not feeling like we’re enough) is a reflection of both the need to look inward and acknowledging that the other person perhaps needs to do the same (and inviting them to do this with you, if possible).

The poem is about seeing ourselves in others, others in ourselves, and knowing where and how old the walls, buildings, and boxes of comparison truly are.

Here's an excerpt of the poem (the full written & visually formatted versions can now be found & read at mikbrew.substack.com!):

But then, I imagine plucking a brick from the old building like a book from a shelf.

What story would each hold & tell?

There are thousands of brick books per building, so says the internet, gaps to grasp them sealed with mortar until

the grains of stories and truths finally break their bonds free, crumbling the building to bits under their new gas-phase weight

because

the more brick books you free from their shelves, the faster the building falls.

Listen to this week's episode to hear the full poem! If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves.

This week, Mikaela reads a poem about coming home from college/university for the spring and summer (though it can absolutely apply to returning home after having been away a long time, too).

The poem and episode look at the possible tension between the comforts/familiarity of a childhood home and the newfound freedom/independence we seek as young adults, perhaps realizing for the first time that we aren’t merely extensions of our parents or guardians. It’s strange returning to a place that hasn’t changed when we have.

The poem is written in a loose sapphic ode (four-stanza sections called quatrains—the first three lines of each have 11 syllables and the fourth has five). This form is usually formal, lyric, and ceremonious, written and recited to celebrate ideas, people, places, etc.

Though I’ve stretched the stitching of the form, I hope it fits as a way to reflect on (and inherently honour) one of the deepest moments of knowing in our lives. Here's an excerpt of the poem (the full written & visually formatted versions can now be found & read at mikbrew.substack.com!):

Where & when are my parents not part of me? In different things, I now see and believe.  I want to feel I’m nearly twenty. Yet, in loving, always we?

Listen to this week's episode to hear the full poem! If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves.

This week’s poem and episode explore parenthood, but in the voice of a toddler who has a new little sibling. Being a parent is a beautiful experience, but it is also exhausting (and equally so at different points while a child grows up). And, perhaps especially when children are very young, it may feel like your physical, mental, emotional, and spirtual work to care for them isn’t quite understood or noticed. This poem seeks to reimagine this, offering a way in which toddlers and infants may communicate how much they love those who care for them during the most vulnerable years of their lives. 

Here's an excerpt of the poem (the full written & visually formatted versions can now be found & read at mikbrew.substack.com!):

What I mean is,  sometimes no smile means you’ve caught humans  loving the very very most that they can. And, I wish Mama & Dada knew that we knew. We see when they don’t smile— out of breath but not of love—trying to balance feeding us, changing us,  watching us, holding up our heads, hearts, souls (and eating, maybe, sleeping, occasionally).

Listen to this week's episode to hear the full poem! If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves.

Our poem & episode this week are special birthday editions for Unsinkable’s 5th anniversary! We so hope you enjoy it. Please be sure to check out the resources, programs, partnerships, and action items shared in this episode. Thank you so much to our podcast guests from season 1 for lending their voices & words to this poem. You can re-listen to their episodes below!

Here's an excerpt of the poem (the full written & visually formatted versions can now be found & read at mikbrew.substack.com!):

Because we’ve braided this  woven raft of 4.1 million people, strong and vast, limbs linked,  lying on our backs and having practiced our breathing in sync, above the waves we float, steer, expand always and all ways.

Listen to this week's episode to hear the full poem! If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves.

This week’s poem and episode explore fears around trying therapy for the first time, juxtaposed with the experience of telling someone you love them.

We step into a stream of consciousness as someone journals their thoughts, navigating hesitancies around how therapy may or may not help them. It’s easy to feel like you have to fit into a box of what’s ‘normal’ or ‘acceptable’ to struggle with (and how this is at odds with what you may actually need to bring to therapy). Woven into our poem is an example of how to show we love someone without ever having said the words.

Here's an excerpt of the poem (the full written & visually formatted versions can now be found & read at mikbrew.substack.com!):

I’m sure my best friend knows I might even bring this moment to therapy, yet they never swayed. Tucking my toes into my boots (and stomping my heel in) I know  I still need therapy and  I’m loved, too.

Listen to this week's episode to hear the full poem! If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves.

This week’s poem and episode unpack “revenge bedtime procrastination.”

Perhaps most importantly, the poem and discussion challenge the colloquial understanding of this experience alongside its common coping mechanisms, questioning the environments that create such behaviour—beyond our intentions and self-regulation. The poem asks us to consider: is this a lack of self-control or am I trying to meet a need the only way I can in my present circumstances and environment?

Here's an excerpt of the poem (the full written & visually formatted versions can now be found & read at mikbrew.substack.com!):

No, I haven’t looked at my screens for over thirty minutes. I read a magazine. I stretched muscles I only found ten minutes ago. I meditated. But for some reason, I’m still holding the closing loop of the box breath (and no, I don’t have hiccups). Rather, I’m stuck on the inhale of an extra cycle and can’t let it go. My body bursts with uncracked glowsticks that could build a seven-eleven and perch it along a deserted two-lane backstretch at midnight.

Listen to this week's episode to hear the full poem! If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves.

This week’s poem and episode explore the relationship between mental health and money. Perhaps especially right now, many of us are feeling pinched by rising costs among much else. In particular, this episode unpacks the complicated common phrase and belief that “money isn’t everything.”

Though it might not be, we need livable wages of it to survive. Within this dynamic (and for the sake of our mental health and well-being), we can still challenge how we think about money, how society worships it, and how not to let it consume our spirit; intentionally disconnecting it from all that truly makes us feel most alive. 

Here's an excerpt of the poem (the full written & visually formatted versions can now be found & read at mikbrew.substack.com!):

Why do we swim, glide, and slide across the Earth? Because we real rich first.  and still are and that is where our fight is when we don’t have responses or answers

like right now as you and I see that this poem didn’t and can’t fix any of the empties. But, it can dream, forcing us to ask where  we will break even, crooked, or fully? But you see,  the greatest power we have is the soul and  heart of each other—where the words of a poem break; cracking the dam to let a river run  right through it.

Listen to this week's episode to hear the full poem! If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves.

This week’s poem and episode explore the idea that living is a sort of contronym—a word with two opposite meanings.

It’s not a perfect contronym, but living your best life is considered both voluptuous and by nature, hidden, since “the best life” is free of the mucky and murky parts of being people. Much of what we attempt to hide—to appear to be living perfectly or fully—is deemed impolite and/or embarrassing.

This poem and episode rips off the bandaid of a few good examples of these (which in truth, make us more human. It’s amusing how desperately we try to conceal bodily functions so deeply out of our control). 

Here's an excerpt of the poem (the full written versions can now be found & read at mikbrew.substack.com!):

But these are life. And perhaps our souls or minds are that thick, soft fog of ripe water  droplets suspended in the air.

Or, as the frozen lake-like lagoon begins its March melt, our souls are the ice crystals—shards of the swamp’s frayed bedsheet at the edges of wet sandy shore— tinkling & twinkling together to make music,  welcoming the rebirth of vivacious life beneath the toy waves and their frosty icing.

Listen to this week's episode to hear the full poem! If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves.

After International Women’s Day on March 8th, this week’s episode is inspired by America Ferrera’s speech in the Barbie movie.

In the format of a pantoum poetic form, which repeats lines in succeeding stanzas, the contradictions women face are perpetually repeated and in conversation with each other—overlapping and taking on new meanings that simultaneously clarify and confuse, similar to how finding an answer/response to our questions opens the door of further questions.

The purpose of this is to create a safe container for the cyclical feelings of overwhelm and exhaustion to be seen, heard, and shared. 

Here's an excerpt of the poem (the full written versions can now be found & read at mikbrew.substack.com!):

and don’t wait to grow old with a little selfish fear and peel back layers of beefy mould soup

and shave it shiny when you fall down & fail rudely because today we will snip the feeding tube

Listen to this week's episode to hear the full poem! If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves.

Our poem and episode today explore longing for words when we don’t have any. One of our deepest aches, especially while navigating the depth of pain or peak of joy, is to have words at our disposal to give shape and meaning to these experiences—for ourselves, our notebooks, our poems, and our explanations to someone who hasn’t experienced what we’re trying to communicate, but is offering support.

As we can be lonely in a crowd, we can feel lonely among language that doesn’t fit, doesn’t exist, or has been stripped from or imposed upon us. It’s often more disheartening to not be able to generate words when we can’t find the right ones in others’ poems, songs, books, therapy, etc. (the places we most often search).

Of course, we do frequently find words in these places and it’s worth considering that some of what we feel may never have adequate words. Even so, part of mental health in relationship with words is considering not just our mind (and the ways in which clinical jargon can isolate if it’s weaponized), but our body, and the intricate language that it offers us—one which we may be out of practice in communicating with. 

Here's an excerpt of the poem:

The language I need is nearly extinct.

Because you, body-brain, gave me my firsts— like language long before words— is it you who offers sounds, words, and sentences, and then clicks them together like looping linked lights swooping across lampposts like jungle vines?

Listen to this week's episode to hear the full poem! If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves.

Our poem takes a deep dive into love today, specifically all the things it might and might not be.

How far outside the box can we take the concept of love, especially on the heels of Valentine’s Day and Family Day? Since love is such a critical element of our well-being and mental health, this poem offers a few of my thoughts on what love means, to both broaden and deepen how we think about it—namely as a central current in our lives. 

Here's an excerpt of the poem:

Yet, the question of our lives is always with us: unlike gravity, can we choose to break this law of love? Do we have the choice not to follow it?

Perhaps the true form of loving is agility: never forgetting to ask those two questions and tallying how many times we’ve answered, “Yes, but here’s how many times we haven’t.”

Listen to this week's episode to hear the full poem! If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves.

Today, we’re looking at the acronym HALT through a poem. HALT stands for “hunger, anger, lonely, tired,” and it is often used as a method for checking in with yourself. For example, when you’re feeling activated or dysregulated, stop (halt) and ask yourself if one of these categories is suffering.

The intention is to support folks in getting to the root of what they’re feeling, alleviating any urge to rely on substances to cope. Though this is a helpful framework, sometimes the boundaries we draw between hunger, anger, loneliness, and being tired either have deeper roots or are a bit blurry.

They consistently overlay and can mean something different to each of our mind, body, and soul. Hunger, anger, loneliness, and being tired can also look different through time, such as throughout moments, hours, days, weeks, or years. This week’s poem seeks to explore this nuance, depth, and overlap. 

Here's an excerpt of the poem:

It’s a carpet, you see. Where do my hunger, anger, loneliness, and tiredness live? In my mind, body, and/or soul hungering for earth’s food while on fire with anger, feeling lonely among water life, yet tired of flying through empty airspace crammed with interference. 

Listen to this week's episode to hear the full poem! If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves.

This week’s poem looks at a moment of recognition that a familiar, intimate pain is coming—one that can make us more vulnerable to various forms of relapse.

Through the personification of January and March, this episode is a personal one from me, exploring the pain of remembering a bone-deep pain and what it’s like to prepare for it, such as the anniversary of a loss, birthday, death, suicide attempt, or the beginning of a sobriety journey.

My hope is that the poem allows us to think about the question: “Why wade through the ache and loneliness every year?” Perhaps we were never alone, to begin with. Perhaps we wouldn’t be stronger if we didn’t have to remember. Perhaps we’re stronger if we do remember, together, and fumble forward in a way we wouldn’t have been able to if we didn’t feel.

Here's an excerpt of the poem: > I, March, nod. > “January, I know your waiting > isn’t the same as > November’s waiting— > where the joy is in the waiting > rather than the waiting for joy > to return. If it was ever there.” > > “But don’t forget that > memory doesn’t stop > for death. Nor does the life > of relationship, as known > by looking into a face > and seeing the layering > of ancestral features > that built it.” Listen to this week's episode to hear the full poem! If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves.

This week’s episode looks at some of the ways anxiety shows up in our minds, bodies, and souls—specifically the elements of it that aren’t as frequently spoken about. February 1st/2nd also marked the halfway point between the winter solstice and the spring equinox, which is celebrated through many different cultural traditions.

This episode discusses how even with seasonal shifts—especially the long-awaited ones between winter and spring—anxiety doesn’t always dissipate. Further, I’ve stretched and re-shaped the old villanelle poetic form for this poem. The villanelle, traditionally, offers a frame for struggling with establishing conversational tone and narrative possibility, reading in non-linear circles that resist telling a complete story. This form sounds and feels a lot like the experience of anxiety, and I hope the structure and words capture the mood, emotion, and memory, too. 

Here's an excerpt of the poem:

We talk about aching waking up, but without breathless sensitivity, tents pitched for toilets,  and angry skin, soul, and stomach, unable to speak.

The eye of the storm must be halfway between winter solstice and spring equinox. Headache and dizziness. We don’t talk about aching with each type of waking.

Listen to this week's episode to hear the full poem! If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves.

This week we’re looking at both a childhood and adult memory, between which is a comparison trap and the growing awareness of it. Both moments are set in the same place—among the display rooms of Ikea.

This episode and poem explore how easy it is to construct caricatures or imaginary people from our surroundings who are either better or less than ourselves (particularly the former). There is a delicate balance here between imagining (and moving toward) the life you want to live and romanticizing a perfect version that may never exist. This dynamic can further trap us into a pit of forgetting to be grateful for what’s in front of us, alongside recognizing those things we and others truly don’t have access to (due to financial reasons, discrimination, or other). This is a rich, deep topic and we hope you enjoy the episode! 

Here's an excerpt of the poem:

Crack open your eyes now. Taste lingonberry-soaked soft serve cupped by cold fingers. Argumentative. Drowsy eyes. Stooped, sore neck. Gaze down. Notice the arrows shiver. Blink. You’ve been asleep for a long time.

They’re not real. They’re cast from a projector concealed in the ceiling. Wander to display windows. They’re balconies of pale brick walls closer than any house is allowed to be built. Silly. The pre-constructed persona people with matching puppies from 101 Dalmatians live here, in Ikea.

Listen to this week's episode to hear the full poem! If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves.

For example, carefully choosing a recipe of art, music, joy, passion, humour, social justice, activism, news, media, and environmental advocacy accounts (from diverse voices) for your 50 favourites, and returning to these for most of your daily social media allotment. Of course, this list is not exhaustive but hopefully is inspiring.

Here's an excerpt of the poem: Pluck a slice—a leaf—of mint to nibble,

and climb the creaky ladder to the pantry of cookbooks above the table, stools, and stove. It’s the laminated one— glossy and slick with clear plastic coils

when peeled from its silicone case. Flip to chapter 20, part 24: Infinite Instant Grams Description: a nutritional 50-fragment finger food favourite Prep & cook time: 20-30 minutes.

Listen to this week's episode to hear the full poem! If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves.

This poem is our last of 2023, and because we didn’t have a submission for today, I wanted to write something that will carry you through the next few weeks.

Many of us are venturing into and/or celebrating various holidays, and this poem offers a reminder—for you and me—that whatever we feel amid this season, is well within its right to need space. The season is rich, but not just with joy.

Here's the full poem, because it's quite short:

Be still love, I’ll say. When we listen, all will be felt and is okay.

Now feel dearest one, exactly where you are now. Touch, taste, smell, see, hear.

Even rage, stress, hurt while the raw rye rises ripe. Even forlorn, lost.

Feel those energies within the bravest spirit. I believe it’s yours.

When you can’t believe, hear this spell spoken for two— faith held just for you.

Listen to this week's episode to hear the poem and some comforting notes. If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves.

Today’s poem brings us into a relationship between someone struggling and a friend they find support in speaking with. Because these two people don’t live close to one another—and haven’t met in person—the friend has offered their text chain as a space to write, share, be vulnerable, and journal, even if the friend isn’t always able to reply. This poem is in the voice of the person struggling, who shares their honest, co-existing gratitude for and complicated wrestle with this dynamic. 

Here's a snippet:

But the grass can’t be greener if I’ve never even known grass or green.

It’s in your holding of my hand without absorbing what it holds. In loving the hand itself.

Because all hands are a nebula moulding galactic weather patterns,

“Write here, anytime” is you saying: here is my open hand and though it will never be yours to use you can hold it with one hand while the other keeps writing.

Keeps fighting.

Listen to this week's episode to hear the rest of the poem! If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves.

Today’s poem reflects something that’s been on my heart—the paradox between “tomorrow isn’t promised” and “there’s no rush.” As a young person with dreams, this is difficult to navigate at times, especially since I’ve personally experienced the deaths of several young people in my life, and we’re witnessing mass youth death across the globe.

With this in mind, I’ve caught myself asking: how dare I take my time with a project that might be needed yesterday. But I also know that intentionality, thoughtfulness, and patience are deeply essential responsibilities. And they require space and rest. This poem walks between these lines, even though I don’t have an explicit answer. I hope you enjoy it.

Here's a snippet:

But I do know, at just 25, that chasing dreams demands delay if we rush— if we believe that we’re only worthy of them  if we witness their birthright inhale faster.

Listen in to this week's episode to hear the rest of the poem! If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves.

This week’s poem pilots us into an argument between a child and their father that has soured, where he has reverted to hurtful, personal attacks.

The voice in this poem carries us deeper into this instance—the child’s acknowledgement of overwhelm; a moment of mindful connecting to their five senses; and a deep compassion and awareness of the seed of their father’s hurt. At the end of the poem, there is a call—the narrator speaking to themselves—to understand the root of rot, boundaries, and capacity to both hold space and invite those who have caused harm into it—if they’re willing.

Here is a snippet of Drawing Lines:

There was a time I thought my own mental, spiritual, and physical shame needed forensics when there was no crime. They just needed love, breath, and space.

I cannot force you to change your mind, but I can offer safety for openness to having your mind changed.

Listen in to this week's episode to hear the rest of Drawing Lines. If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves!

This week’s poem welcomes us into a family during the years-long process of writing a will, which in turn, requires a hovering awareness of death. This family’s experience asks us to redefine what hovering means, and how we choose to greet something that we’ve been taught to fear or feel uncomfortable about. It emphasizes the need to make space for conversations, thoughts, feelings, and emotions well in advance of death. 

Here is a snippet of My Family Writes a Will:

Though seemingly dark, body-shaped coffins, shadows are, rather, a place for life’s quiet, rebirth, rest, and growth because, if we love death thoroughly, they will say: by the love you’ve left, I’m deeply impressed, by not fearing me, I offer you the sea, or perhaps a tree, or anywhere else you wish to be free

Listen in to this week's episode to hear the rest of My Family Writes A Will. If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves!

This week’s poem excavates the complicated nature of receiving and replying to messages from someone who knows we're struggling and is lovingly checking in on us. It unpacks the nooks and crannies of this dynamic—such as the tension between gratitude and somatic reactions—and why responding is not as simple as it seems. 

Here is a snippet of Stuffed Silence:

I’m impotent. Can’t generate letters, words, sentences, paragraphs, but a bare-boned poem. Anxiety splashes and churns acid up the walls of my stomach reading your worry. Overwhelm casts cross, sweeping shadows against uncapacious chest walls writing a response. Panic squeezes breath & blood from my heartbeat—a bean crushed by knife face— tapping send. 

Listen in to this week's episode to hear the rest of Stuffed Silence! If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves.

This week’s poem expands a simple moment—gathering breakfast early in the morning of October 28th—by juxtaposing it with deeper reflections. Here is a snippet of Morning Moons: 

The blueberries thawed, too. So even in a muted blackout, the moon is relentlessly bold, blood cascades thick, and pistachios rupture shells— ripe, rich, raw, and ready.

Listen in to this week's episode to hear the rest of Morning Moons! If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves.

Welcome to Season 2 of the Braving the Waves Podcast! This season, we're adding a new layer to storytelling: an anonymous memory box. 

To complement the storytelling program at Unsinkable (www.weareunsinkable.com) & Resolvve's (www.resolvve.ca) work supporting students, Mikaela will be offering another way to Brave the Waves: crafting words for moments that feel like they don't have any, especially for those who don't feel comfortable writing, speaking, or publicly sharing. 

You'll have the opportunity to submit anonymous voice notes, memories, journal entries, photos, drawings, or anything that you feel captures a specific, meaningful moment in your life:

• They may reflect your most painful battle or bouquet of joy. 
• They can landscape profound memories: events, first dates, breakups, losses, weddings, birthdays, divorces, first therapy sessions, vacations, etc. 
• They could share simple moments: a walk between phone calls, pouring coffee (or spilling it), the first time a book spoke to you, or learning something new. 

Each week, Mikaela will gather materials from each submission in the memory box (tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves). She will then allow them to inspire a poem, which she will write and read aloud on the podcast each week. Alternatively, you're welcome to share writing/audio files that you'd like used verbatim. For example: a written piece that you'd like Mikaela to read aloud as is, or an audio file that you'd like us to weave into an episode. 

As you listen to our weekly episodes, listen carefully: one will feature the experiences you shared. We hope that this will craft a comforting way to pause in a moment, preserve a memory, and feel seen/heard in it as it's given words and read aloud. 

If you'd like to share, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves to read more & submit. :)

We've reached the end of the first season of Braving the Waves and we will be continuing onward with a new format very soon. But for now, it is back to your regularly scheduled show notes!

"See, I told you that you could do it."    This week, Mikaela speaks with Stephanie, an elementary school educator in Ontario. When not teaching, she enjoys cosplaying at conventions, watching shows and films with her husband, travelling the world, and attending theatre. She enjoys assisting others in the neurodivergent community and advocating for mental health.   In this episode, we reflect on music, magic, solo travel, the paradox of time travel, how to actually glow up, and water as a metaphor for nearly everything. Here are a few tidbits of our conversation: 

• Being a role model and giving back to organizations & community create incredible connection points.
• Using and exploring water as a metaphor for everything, especially unpredictability in life, struggle, and triumph.
• Thinking about glowing up beyond the physical attributes—feeling better rather than looking better. We 'glow' differently when we're healthy & mentally well. This energy is transferred—others notice! Glowing up is not always something you see but something you feel.
• Pause to ask, find out, or think about if someone needs help, even if their behaviour makes us uncomfortable. 

Disclaimer: This Podcast, along with Resolvve’s & Unsinkable’s mental health learning, educational content, and storytelling is not therapy and is not a replacement for therapy. Please seek professional help if needed.

Go to www.resolvve.ca or weareunsinkable.com to get the support you need. Mikaela offers 1:1 peer support here.

Follow Resolvve on Twitter (@Resolvve_Inc), Instagram (@resolvvementalhealth), and YouTube (@resolvvementalhealth).

Follow Unsinkable on Instagram (@unsinkableyouth), TikTok (@unsinkableyouth), and YouTube (@unsinkable).

We're back with the penultimate episode of this season of Braving the Waves.

This week, Mikaela speaks with Arielle, a young woman who grew up in a small town and lived a fairly simple life until she reached adulthood. A mom, a wife and a Human Resources Specialist who has decided it's time to share her horrific story with the world. A loving mother who will do anything in her power to help end the stigma of mental health so that her children grow up in a world where people talk about their mental health and are not shamed or judged. A passionate writer who has been writing her novel for five years in hopes of making a difference in the world.

In this episode, we reflect on motherhood, finding the right medications, family support, postpartum depression, navigating psychosis, and completing your self-care puzzle. Here are a few tidbits of our conversation:

• Complete your self-care puzzle, with pieces like exercise & journaling.
• You can be a parent who lives their life and shares their dreams.
• Being mindful of our words and delivery is crucial, especially when discussing diagnoses & symptoms.
• Vulnerability & courage coexist—moving through fear is the ultimate bravery.
• Work towards understanding yourself, your warning signs, and your regulation. For ex: when are your medications needed vs. another form of support?
• Medications won't cure you, and they take time (not like Advil!). They're one piece of the equation and aren't a one-size-fits-all.
• There is often fear around making time back when you're struggling as a mother.
• Don't live in darkness alone—even if one person doesn't connect with you, others will. Don't feel embarrassed or ashamed—you didn't choose to struggle.
• When you're accountable for something, think about what you're going to do about it vs. how you're going to attack yourself about it.

Disclaimer: This Podcast, along with Resolvve’s, Unsinkable’s mental health learning, educational content, and storytelling is not therapy and is not a replacement for therapy. Please seek professional help if needed.

Go to www.resolvve.ca or weareunsinkable.com to get the support you need. Mikaela offers 1:1 peer support here.

Follow Resolvve on Twitter (@Resolvve_Inc), Instagram (@resolvvementalhealth), and YouTube (@resolvvementalhealth).

Follow Unsinkable on Instagram (@unsinkableyouth), TikTok (@unsinkableyouth), and YouTube (@unsinkable).

Kelli's six-word story: “Acceptance allows you to move forward.”

Listen in to hear more of Kelli’s story!

“Back then I asked “Why me? Why did this happen to me?” And now, it’s “Why not me?” How can I use my story and telling my story to others, in a way where they can take something away from my recovery, lessons, and insights.”

This week, Mikaela speaks with Kelli Chu, an Adversity & Resilience Keynote Speaker and a Mindset Coach with past clients like TEDx and San Diego State University. She brings her vulnerability, inspiration, and resilience strategies to create a safe and impactful space for listeners. Her motivating and empowering story is a transformative experience for audiences looking to navigate life’s unexpected challenges, improve self-esteem and purpose building, and adapt a more forward-thinking mindset.

In this episode, we reflect on acceptance, the connection between mental & physical healing, communication, owning your authentic self, and much more. Here are a few tidbits of our conversation:

• Dealing with what happens to us (and accepting it as it is) can be the most freeing thing—make space to feel while moving on in a way that helps you heal.
• Mental and physical healing are connected—recovery from a physical injury can take a mental toll (and vice versa).
• It’s easy to become trapped in the victim mentality, allowing anger & guilt to take control. Allow your feelings to evolve!
• Trauma can impact our support system in different ways—sometimes they’re more in the dark than we are. It can be more difficult to verbalize what you need when you’re struggling, and those who care about us the most often ask what we need the most frequently (and we don’t always have an answer). Communication is key, and support doesn’t need to be words!
• Journalling doesn’t need to fit pen & paper (or follow a specific format). It can be any way you move through & with your thoughts.
• Going back in time to an experience and finding ease in coming in and out of that place (seeing it from bird’s eye view rather than re-living it) is the ultimate sign of healing.
• Own your authentic self & your journey!

Connect with Kelli here!

• Instagram: @itskellichu
• Website: kellichu.com
• LinkedIn: @kelli-chu-speaker-coach

Disclaimer: This Podcast, along with Resolvve’s & Unsinkable’s mental health learning, educational content, and storytelling is not therapy and is not a replacement for therapy. Please seek professional help if needed.

Go to www.resolvve.ca or weareunsinkable.com to get the support you need. Mikaela offers 1:1 peer support here.

Follow Resolvve on Twitter (@Resolvve_Inc), Instagram (@resolvvementalhealth), and YouTube (@resolvvementalhealth).

Follow Unsinkable on Instagram (@unsinkableyouth), TikTok (@unsinkableyouth), and YouTube (@unsinkable).

Pamela's six-word story: “Peace. Courage. Proud. Independence. Support. Dream." Listen in to hear more of Pamela's story!

“The best part of our stories is that I tend to pull out stuff in an effort to relate to people close to me, people going through things, people sharing, or people I’m working with, and I think that’s the beautiful thing about life and keeping our stories nice and close to us, is it’s probably going to offer something to someone else, or an opportunity to connect with someone, help a community or help yourself.”

This week, Mikaela speaks with Pamela Fitzgerald. After 15 years in the fitness industry studying and teaching human anatomy, wellness and nutrition, Pamela left a life in the city to fully embrace nature and rediscover her childhood obsession with horses.

Her purpose in this space is to inspire each person to connect deeply to what makes you feel passionate, alive and joyful. She hosts retreats in Canada and Costa Rica so that you can step outside of what you "do" and take time to connect with who you are.

Pamela is a certified yoga instructor with very extensive knowledge of the human body and nervous system. She teaches regular classes and continually explores yoga philosophies to help her and her students live a mindful and joyful life.

Pamela offers experiential learning, wellness, mindfulness, and connection opportunities with our equine friends. Horses offer a very different lens with which to take in this world and she invites you to experience this magic.

In this episode, we reflect on re-defining exercise & movement, horses, being aligned creatively, honouring your courage, building a life soundtrack, and creating safe spaces and so much more! Here are a few tidbits of our conversation:

• There is a difference between keeping the peace and creating peace in our lives.
• Recognize what support looks like from other people & who you want to collaborate on a support system with.
• Build a creative reality that you’re aligned with!
• Just because we’re comfortable sharing our stories doesn’t mean everyone will be comfortable hearing them or ready to receive them.
• It’s okay to not take the path that is expected of us (we don’t need to step into spaces just because others value them).
• Some stories become less prevalent through time, though we will carry them with us forever. You’re not defined by any one story.
• Redefining exercise: movement is an expression of your soul, spirit, and mind.
• There is a difference between physical fitness and using your body as a vehicle to connect to everything you’re thinking & feeling.
• Connect with land, movement, and animals.

Connect with Pamela here!

• Website: pamelafitzgerald.ca
• @pamelafitzgerald.ca on Instagram
• @pamelafitzgeraldwellness on Facebook

Disclaimer: This Podcast, along with Resolvve’s & Unsinkable’s mental health learning, educational content, and storytelling is not therapy and is not a replacement for therapy. Please seek professional help if needed.

Go to www.resolvve.ca or weareunsinkable.com to get the support you need. Mikaela offers 1:1 peer support here.    Follow Resolvve on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. 

Follow Unsinkable on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.

Ryan's six-word story: “Regular person struggles through difficult times.”

Listen in to hear more of Ryan's story!

“One of the biggest things about learning experiences is that they come at the expense of someone else, because that’s how we truly learn. As a man that’s also really important to understand.”

This week, Mikaela speaks with Ryan Forsyth, an award-winning mental health speaker, advocate, fundraiser, an Unsinkable Community Champion, and Founder of The Gentle-Man’s Club. Ryan is passionate about helping men open up about their mental health struggles and helps educate men on the harms of toxic masculinity and the patriarchy.

In this episode, we reflect on exploring mental health as we grow up, unlearning, understanding diverse aspects of mental health (for everyone), healthy masculinity, tough conversations, when to use your voice (and when not to), and how accountability and caring for your mental health coexist. Here are a few tidbits of our conversation:

• Gratitude, privilege, and pain coexist—no one is immune to mental health struggle.
• What we see on TV isn’t always representative of our experience—we can easily self-stigmatize.
• Education & communication go hand-in-hand.
• We must be mindful of the difference between labels & language for experiences.
• When reflecting on our past, consider how the ways we’ve been hurt and ways we’ve hurt others are intertwined. We can both hold ourselves accountable and have compassion for the moments that we may not have had the same info, thoughts, empathy, compassion, and knowledge that we do now.
• You can’t have a conversation about men’s mental health without including women & nonbinary people! Men’s mental health affects the whole world. We’re at a junction where men are being asked to both be accountable and better themselves, which can sometimes clash. Men have a responsibility to heal internally, externally, and communities. Being held accountable isn’t always personal—it’s an opportunity for incredible good.
• Mental health allows us to walk into the necessary difficult conversations.
• With mental illness, you’re not always the best version of yourself—you don’t show up the way you want to, you’re MIA, or you don’t have the capacity to maintain the relationship because you can’t maintain the relationship with yourself. We have to recognize the grace and care that our people have granted us through this.

Connect with Ryan here!

• gentlemansclubcanada.com
• @bigrigredryan01 on Instagram

Disclaimer: This Podcast, along with Resolvve’s & Unsinkable’s mental health learning, educational content, and storytelling is not therapy and is not a replacement for therapy. Please seek professional help if needed.

Go to www.resolvve.ca or weareunsinkable.com to get the support you need. Mikaela offers 1:1 peer support here.

Follow Resolvve on Twitter (@Resolvve_Inc), Instagram (@resolvvementalhealth), and YouTube (@resolvvementalhealth).

Follow Unsinkable on Instagram (@unsinkableyouth), TikTok (@unsinkableyouth), and YouTube (@unsinkable).

Follow Unsinkable on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.

Jan's six-word story: “Persevere through the toughest of times.”

Listen in to hear more of Jan's story!

“You are your children’s champion & hero—you are more than enough.”

This week, Mikaela speaks with Jan Stewart, a highly regarded mental health governance expert and advocate. Growing up in New York and moving to Toronto after marrying a Canadian, she was untouched by major adversity throughout her youth and imagined a similar, happy life for her children. In her raw and emotional book Hold on Tight: A Parent’s Journey Raising Children with Mental Illness, she candidly describes the shock she and her husband faced when each of their two young children started exhibiting troubling behaviours.

While it took time to find the right doctors, diagnoses and treatments, Jan’s roller coaster journey with the children’s multiple mental health disorders taught her to insist on an integrated partnership approach with all those involved and propelled her to help parents of children with similar challenges. Her book gives readers invaluable insights and advice to become empowered and inspires them to persevere and never give up. It also importantly serves to better educate health care professionals on the parental perspective, as well as families, friends, educators and employers of those affected by these challenges.

While Jan takes great pride in her business career, the majority of which was spent as a senior Partner with the global executive search firm Egon Zehnder, it is her mental health governance experience that has been the most meaningful to her. This includes currently Chairing the Board at Kerry’s Place Autism Services, Canada’s largest autism services provider, and previously serving as Vice Chair at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.

She also served on the Parent Advisory Council at Mass General Hospital’s Department of Neuropsychopharmacology, the Advisory Council of Access Open Minds, the Advisory Board of LIGHTS, and the Board of Directors of the former Ontario OCD Network. In addition, she co-founded the OCD Parent Advisory Group at SickKids Hospital. Jan is a Diamond Life Master in bridge and enjoys genealogy, fitness and dance.

In this episode, we reflect on Jan’s role as a caregiver and parent, how she takes care of herself, the mindset shifts needed in the mental health care system, and more! Here are a few tidbits of our conversation:

• It is okay to get through minute by minute when we’re in survival mode—we don’t always have words in these moments
• Focus on connectivity—better education & providing emotional support amongst one another.
• The patient is the whole family—we need more family-centered approaches in the mental health care system
• Forgive yourself for your mistakes
• When we share our stories, we have to be mindful of how we represent others.
• Hold on tight!

Taking care of the caregivers goes way beyond healthy eating, exercise, and sleep:

• Connect with other parents
• Find humour
• Carve out time for yourself (away from your kids & partner)
• Give your partner & support system the benefit of the doubt

Connect with Jan here! · Website: janstewartauthor.com @janstewartauthor on Instagram & Facebook

Disclaimer: This Podcast, along with Resolvve’s & Unsinkable’s mental health learning, educational content, and storytelling is not therapy and is not a replacement for therapy. Please seek professional help if needed.

Go to www.resolvve.ca or weareunsinkable.com to get the support you need. Mikaela offers 1:1 peer support here.

Follow Resolvve on Twitter (@Resolvve_Inc), Instagram (@resolvvementalhealth), and YouTube (@resolvvementalhealth).

Follow Unsinkable on Instagram (@unsinkableyouth), TikTok (@unsinkableyouth), and YouTube (@unsinkable).

Rohit's six-word story: "Comfort. Resilience. Love. Growth. Learning. Sadness."    Listen in to hear more of Rohit's story!    "It’s enough to put something on a piece of paper. Don’t fabricate your words—base them on true, raw, authentic experiences. They’re the best. That’s your story."    This week, Mikaela speaks with Rohit Doel. Rohit is an Autistic Content Creator who creates content speaking and sharing their experiences of what it's like being autistic. He also creates content on his big interests, which are Sonic The Hedgehog and music. He writes film/TV reviews as well.

Rohit is also an advocate for mental health and speaks passionately about mental health, specifically in the Asian community and other marginalized areas about what needs to change. His dream ultimately is to work in film/television either as a scriptwriter or as a development researcher, as he wants to inspire and make people happy through creativity and brilliant storytelling.  

In this episode, we reflect on poetry, music, and making time for ourselves. Here are a few tidbits of our conversation: 

• We can grow with our younger selves.
• The process of crafting poetry as a puzzle/sequence to getting unstuck—a means of sharing your story by connecting words with thoughts & feelings.
• Be creative no matter what! You don’t have to be a “perfect poet.” 
• Explore music’s ability to transport us to memories!
• Celebrate with & seek support from people you care about (and who you want to build good memories with). Be mindful of who you share your story with and who you let into the deeper layers (sometimes this isn't your family/who you’re told it should be, and that's okay).
• Mental health doesn’t discriminate—nobody is immune. 
• It is valid to feel anything you’re feeling right now. 
• Figuring out therapy takes time.

Connect with Rohit here! 

• @neurodivergent_dimension - Instagram 
• @RohitDoel - Twitter 
• @neurodiverse_dimension - TikTok 
• YouTube 

Disclaimer: This Podcast, along with Resolvve’s & Unsinkable’s mental health learning, educational content, and storytelling is not therapy and is not a replacement for therapy. Please seek professional help if needed.  

Go to www.resolvve.ca or weareunsinkable.com to get the support you need. Mikaela offers 1:1 peer support here.    Follow Resolvve on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. 

Follow Unsinkable on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.

Hailey's six-word story: "The outside never captures what shines within."****

Listen in to hear more of Hailey's story!

"Nothing is ever linear. Just because we hear a story from beginning to what feels like a potential end—it isn't an end. There isn't just 'now I'm good and none of these thoughts will ever come back into my mind'."

This week, Mikaela speaks with Hailey Hechtman, Unsinkable's Executive Director! Hailey is a social impact leader who has dedicated her career to empowering people to see their potential. She has spent 8+ years leading social service organizations and is passionate about mental health, youth wellness and taking a strength-based approach to community development.

Some of her career highlights include founding the Yukon Distress & Support Line, establishing a collective impact strategy for northern disability-serving organizations, creating foundational training for front-line workers in the territories and becoming a thought leader for mental health in the workplace and inclusive hiring.

She holds an honours degree in Psychology from Queen's University and a postgraduate certificate in Nonprofit Management from Simon Fraser University. Hailey is also a contributing writer to KBI Inspire Magazine, a digital publication focused on youth mental health and a coach for the Fora Network for Change Rise on Boards Program.

In this episode, we reflect on body image, how stories move through time, finding joy, awareness of our mental energy consumption, and so much more. Here are a few tidbits of our conversation:

• We interpret our stories differently through time—that's how we grow.
• When we're fixated on certain thoughts, we may miss the memories & joy that we hope to remember years later.
• Sharing your story with a broader audience is powerful, but reading the story of someone close to you can create a deeper sense of connection & understanding—it allows people to get to know you better (they may not have known what you were thinking when they were sitting directly across the table from you).
• Small moments in time can shift us in ways we can't predict!
• Realize where your mental energy is being spent (and seek help to redistribute it if you need to!)
• Let's move away from making assumptions/comments/judgements about body changes—validate who someone is and the person they show up as rather than how they look. 

Connect with Hailey @hailey.hechtman on Instagram!

Disclaimer: This Podcast, along with Resolvve’s & Unsinkable’s mental health learning, educational content, and storytelling is not therapy and is not a replacement for therapy. Please seek professional help if needed. Go to www.resolvve.ca or weareunsinkable.com to get the support you need. Mikaela offers 1:1 peer support here.

Follow Resolvve on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.

Follow Unsinkable on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.

Angelica's six-word stories: "Learning to live with clinical depression" + "Overcoming adversity and finding my purpose"****

Listen in to hear more of Angelica's story!

"If you're going through a difficult time right now, it is going to end eventually. The sun will come again."

This week, Mikaela speaks with Angelica Galluzzo, a mental health advocate, TEDx Speaker, safeTALK Trainer, and Podcast Host of The Revolutionized Mind. After battling depression and suicidal ideation for many years, she became passionate about making an impact, using her voice to create positive change, and normalizing the struggles that many of us go through. Angelica graduated with an Honors Specialization in Psychology at Western University and has also completed her safeTALK, ASIST, and Mental Health First Aid certifications.

She currently works full-time for Jack.org, a national charity that focuses on improving youth mental health and dismantling barriers such as stigma, access to resources, and more. Additionally, Angelica spent fifteen years of her life as an elite athlete. Her most notable achievements include winning two provincial championships, two national championships, and earning a scholarship to a Division 1 school in the United States. Through this experience, she has learned a great deal about dealing with adversity, working with others, and extending these lessons to life outside of sport. She loves the quote, "There is always a light at the end of the tunnel, even if you can't see it right now!"

In this episode, we reflect on the ebbs and flows of your mental health journey, appreciating a moment, making space for anger, and unpack the notion of "everything happens for a reason." Here are a few tidbits of our conversation:

• Some days are okay, some aren't, and sometimes we need to take a step back—especially as advocates & storytellers!
• Appreciate a moment while you're in it—gratitude & pain coexist.
• It is okay to feel anger alongside finding joy!
• Look at yourself as a person first—balance is important when our identities are so dynamic.
• Don't forget the impact you have and who your words reach!
• Let other people see you (and what you're going through).

Connect with Angelica:

• Socials: @therevolutionizedmind (Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube)

Disclaimer: This Podcast, along with Resolvve’s & Unsinkable’s mental health learning, educational content, and storytelling is not therapy and is not a replacement for therapy. Please seek professional help if needed. Go to www.resolvve.ca or weareunsinkable.com to get the support you need. Mikaela offers 1:1 peer support here.

Follow Resolvve on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.

Follow Unsinkable on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.

Mikaela's six-word story: "I still fing fight every day."*

Listen in to hear more of Mikaela's message. 

"If there is a story there, your pain doesn't end when you choose to give it words."

This week, Mikaela checks in with you and herself. She shares thoughts about not being okay right now, telling the truth, and the intricacies of stories and storytelling.

Disclaimer: This Podcast, along with Resolvve’s & Unsinkable’s mental health learning, educational content, and storytelling is not therapy and is not a replacement for therapy. Please seek professional help if needed. Go to www.resolvve.ca or weareunsinkable.com to get the support you need. Mikaela offers 1:1 peer support here.

Follow Resolvve on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.

Follow Unsinkable on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.

Steven's six-word story: "Pushing forward even though it's hard" Listen in to hear more of Steven's powerful words!

"We were meant to heal in order to connect. That's how I want to present myself to the world—as someone who believes that. In everything I do, I try my best to understand that I'm dealing with a person at the end of the day, no matter what's going on and that I'm respecting them as people first and foremost because it's what I want."

This week, Mikaela speaks with Steven Sharpe Jr., a Brooklyn-based style and wellness content creator. As a proud Afro-Latino, plant father of 20, and a member of the LGBTQ community, Steven uses his platform to exemplify "rest over hustle”—it means understanding that prioritizing rest, wellness, and caring for one’s mental health is just as important as working hard and achieving success. With this as the cornerstone of his work, he’s been able to lend his voice to many mental health initiatives. Through his content work, he’s been fortunate to partner with incredibly successful businesses—including Meta, Target, Primark, and more. His ability to meld a brand’s priorities and his creative perspective into thoughtful media has allowed him to be a reliable creator; and his authenticity and integrity on his public platform has garnered trust with his online community. 

In this fun episode, we reflect on healing, telling the truth of our stories, embracing the soft life, prioritizing rest, and so much more. Here are just a few tidbits of our conversation:

• Reflect on your healing—see where you never allowed yourself to break.
• Remember when you dreamed of the pieces of your life you're living and worked hard for!
• Language is essential in storytelling—for our own & others' stories. There is value in how we say things!
• You don't have to sacrifice your well-being to be successful.
• People are valuable. You never have to justify your worth. Feeling safe is not a privilege it's a right. 
• Don't be afraid to ask for things—say yes to what you like & no to what isn't beneficial.
• You will achieve so much more if you put your phone down, close your laptop, and make time for rest!
• Don't be afraid of owing people things—accept support! Ask for clarity if you're not sure if the person wants something in return. When you give people a chance to support you, they will surprise you!

Connect with Steven:

• Socials: IG & TT @stevensharpejr
• Websites: stevensharpejr.com (personal); nobiuscreative.com (business); stevensharpejr.myportfolio.com (portfolio)

Disclaimer: This Podcast, along with Resolvve’s & Unsinkable’s mental health learning, educational content, and storytelling is not therapy and is not a replacement for therapy. Please seek professional help if needed. Go to www.resolvve.ca or weareunsinkable.com to get the support you need. Mikaela offers 1:1 peer support here.

Follow Resolvve on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.

Follow Unsinkable on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.

_Lauren's six-word story: "Turning pain into passion and purpose."

Listen in to hear more of Lauren's beautiful words. This is a heart-filled episode! "So let us embrace our grief with all its pain and all its relief. Grief is a reminder that love never dies and that our loved ones are forever by our side."_

This week, Mikaela speaks with Lauren Urie, the wonder behind Resolvve's social media! Lauren is a social worker, MSW candidate, and the creator of The Advocacy For Change Project on Instagram. Alongside her lived experience with trauma and mental illness, she's passionate about inclusive mental health education and developing meaningful relationships in her local and online community. In February 2021, she started an Instagram page in hopes of building mental health awareness and a safe space where people feel less alone.

In this episode, we explore self-disclosure as a social worker, relationships with our therapists, and the depth of our connection with pets. Lauren also reads us an original poem about grief. Here are just a few tidbits of our conversation:

• A meaningful symmetry of experiences between client & therapist can be a valuable part of therapy.
• Grief & anticipatory death anxiety—we don't 'get over' these, we continue to grow around them.
• Unconditional love from animals.
• Poetry as the perfect homemade gift!
• Speaking our stories out loud allows us to be more compassionate with ourselves.
• Birthdays aren't always happy—sometimes they're painful.
• Unpacking social work: storytelling as the space between policy & mental health care.

Disclaimer: This Podcast, along with Resolvve’s & Unsinkable’s mental health learning, educational content, and storytelling is not therapy and is not a replacement for therapy. Please seek professional help if needed. Go to www.resolvve.ca or weareunsinkable.com to get the support you need. Mikaela offers 1:1 peer support here.

Follow Resolvve on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.

Follow Unsinkable on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.

Noah's six (or seven) word story: "You need meaning. You need to matter."  Listen in to hear more of Noah's wise words. This episode is a game-changer!

"I am not about myself...the more stories you're a part of that are BIG and transcend yourself—that you get to participate in—the more rich life is in context."

This week, Mikaela speaks with Noah Tile, co-founder of Resolvve, about why this podcast is needed now (and from Unsinkable & Resolvve in particular). We explore Noah's incredible six-word story, rooted in Jewish culture & religion, transcendence of time and space, and choosing to see our lives as part of the stories in our past, present, and future. Here are just a few tidbits of our conversation:

• Your ideas and wisdom are offspring.
• What does collecting living memories look like?
• It's dangerous not to care what people think—expand your celebration of someone beyond praise! 
• Youth may tell their stories differently (and older doesn't necessarily mean wiser).
• We are living in a crisis of meaning—root yourself in something slower, other than 2023 (stories!).

Disclaimer: This Podcast, along with Resolvve’s & Unsinkable’s mental health learning, educational content, and storytelling is not therapy and is not a replacement for therapy. Please seek professional help if needed. Go to www.resolvve.ca or weareunsinkable.com to get the support you need. Mikaela offers 1:1 peer support here.

Follow Resolvve on Twitter, Instagram, and Youtube.

Follow Unsinkable on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.