In the depths of Sarah Sentilles' heart, was a primal longing to become a mother. This yearning was buried beneath the desires & pressures of others. Sarah’s husband, Eric, believed the world was already brimming with children in need of loving homes.  Everyone else, it seemed, whispered doubts into Sarah's ears. Parenthood, they said, would be the end of her cherished life.   But the yearning within her refused to be silenced. It threatened to fracture her marriage, until Sarah &...

Dear friends, brace yourselves for an episode unlike any other. In truth, it’s a conversation that’s been incredibly difficult to prepare for, but one that must be shared. Tonight, as your children lie safely in their beds, enveloped in love & protected from harm, it’s crucial to remember that this isn’t the reality for countless children across the globe. Joining me this week is filmmaker Akhim Dev – or Dev as he’s affectionately known.  Fuelled by a deep concern for the online safety of...

Filmmaker & Changemaker - Ginger Gentile is on a mission to save children from the trauma of high-conflict divorce. Drawing on her own journey as a child torn between two parents, Ginger’s first documentary, ERASING DAD (Borrando a Papa), was instrumental in getting the Argentinian government to pass mandatory co-parenting laws. Her follow up feature documentary, ERASING FAMILY, exposes the heart-wrenching anguish experienced by children when a loving parent is erased from their lives.  ...

When Colin Campbell’s two teenage children - Ruby & Hart - were tragically killed by a drunk driver, he and his wife Gail, were plunged headlong into a grief so devastating they felt they might lose their minds.  One second, they’re going on a family drive to their new holiday home.  The next, their entire world had been extinguished. In his remarkable & courageous book Finding the Words: Working Through Profound Loss with Hope & Purpose, Colin shares their unique journey through...

Imagine the unimaginable: a young girl, only six years old, enduring years of sexual molestation at the hands of her own brother. It's a chilling reality that many find difficult to comprehend. Yet, this form of abuse, known as child-on-child or sibling sexual abuse, accounts for an appalling 40% of all sexual abuse cases against children. Yes, you heard that right. FORTY PER CENT. Complicating matters further, many victims of sibling sexual trauma feel complicit in the abuse, often...

My next guest, formerly Kellie King, was a formidable woman who seemed to have it all. A trailblazing sales executive, devoted mother of three, & a proud member of the LGBTQ+ community.   But at the age of 42, Kellie's world was turned upside down. Urged by her devout Catholic partner & seconded by a health professional, Kellie begins to question her own gender identity.  Kellie comes to believe she’s in fact a man trapped in a woman’s body & decides to undergo a wholesale medical...

As a clinical psychologist & trauma therapist, my next guest, Dr Ingrid Clayton always strived to help others overcome their pain. But, little did Ingrid know that she, too, carried hidden wounds that she’d yet to fully comprehend. A fractured self-esteem, substance abuse disorder, perfectionism, & a series of dysfunctional relationships might have indicated that something was amiss, but having been raised in a bewildering haze of gaslighting, Ingrid found herself constantly...

Sometimes, you’re lucky enough to meet someone who’ll change your life in inconceivable ways.  My next guest (and now forever friend – whether he likes it or not) is one such human. Dr Dinesh Palipana OAM is a Doctor, Lawyer, Disability Advocate & Researcher.  And that’s just the start.  He’s also a philosopher & his astonishing memoir: Stronger: How Losing Everything Set Me Free is an opus of pure inspiration. In a freak accident, three years into his Medical Degree, Dinesh sustained...

For Hollywood royalty, New York Times bestselling author, screenwriter, and playwright - Delia Ephron - life has always offered a rich supply of copy. Bad hair, heartache, chocolate pudding – almost anything could be mined for a book, a screenplay, or a newspaper column. Then when Delia was 72, a time you might reasonably expect the flow of good material to quieten, life delivers her biggest story yet, one she very nearly didn’t survive.  Diagnosed with the same blood cancer that killed...

This is a very unique episode of BRAVE JOURNEYS. We’ve all heard stories of people who lived broken, crime filled lives, who have an epiphany & completely turn their lives around, harnessing the wisdoms & insights they learnt along the way, to educate & rehabilitate others.   But what if the person in question is a one-time Nazi whose raison d’etre for more than three decades was to see an entire people  - your people - wiped off the face of the earth?  Let that sink in for just...

Have we got an extraordinary guest for you today and to be honest, unless this intro runs for the next hour all by itself, I am going to have to truncate the bio of this remarkable human being. I hope she will forgive me… Professor Jessica Stern is one of the U.S’s foremost  experts on terrorism.  She served on President Clinton’s National Security Council Staff, as well as being an analyst at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.  Jessica has lectured at Harvard University’s Kennedy School...

After years of struggling in a tumultuous marriage – successful writer & blogger Rebecca Woolf was finally ready to leave her husband, Hal. Two weeks after telling Hal she wanted a divorce, he was diagnosed with late-stage pancreatic cancer. Four months later, at the age of forty-four, he died. With inordinate courage & candour, Rebecca chronicles the months before Hal’s death — & her rebirth after he was gone.  In her book, All of This – A Memoir of Death & Desire- which is...

My next guest Adam Frankel grew up idolising his wonderful father and his father’s father, following in their footsteps to become a successful speechwriter.  After graduating from Princeton University and the London School of Economics and Political Science, where he was a Fulbright Scholar, Adam joined Barack Obama’s fledgling presidential campaign in 2007, helping craft those unforgettable “Yes We Can” speeches.   But around the same time, when Adam’s career was reaching its zenith, his...

When Hillary Whittington discovers she’s expecting a baby girl, she and her husband, Jeff, are deliriously overjoyed.  Pink & white nursery – check; endless supplies of dresses and bows – check. Then, only months after Ryland is born, Hillary and Jeff realise something isn’t quite right.  When they call out, Ryland doesn’t respond.  After consulting with specialists, it’s confirmed that their beautiful baby girl is deaf. The miracle that is cochlear implants allows Ryland to hear and...

My beautiful guest today is Annie Whitlocke.  Annie is a death doula.  A What you ask?  40 + years on the planet and this entire profession was completely unknown to me… that is until now.  Like many of you I suspect, the only context in which I’d heard of any kind of Doula was a person who provides emotional, physical and instructive support to mothers before, during and after labour.  Not someone, who assists at the other end of the life cycle. But taking on this noble profession isn’t as...

In 2016, highly respected & award-winning US journalist and former Fox News anchor, Gretchen Carlson, moved from covering the headlines to becoming one herself.  The violin prodigy, former Miss America, Stanford Graduate and acclaimed journalist successfully sued the late CEO & Fox News founder, Roger Ailes for sexual harassment, claiming that she’d been fired for turning down his sexual advances. This landmark case, which inspired the feature film Bombshell – starring Nicole Kidman –...

There are many episodes on BRAVE JOURNEYS where I have cried, but not today.  Today is about celebrating life, love & finding unbridled gratitude & joy in the ordinary. If I told you that my next guest is terminally ill with Stage 4 cancer & has also been diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease, it would be reasonable to assume this is a deeply sad episode of BRAVE JOURNEYS.  But its anything but!!!   In fact, I’ll be amazed if you walk away after listening to this beautiful...

What would you do if your worst private heartache was on the front page of every newspaper around the world?  Kate Nason knows… Seven years into her marriage, Kate discovers her husband was cheating on her with multiple women. Then, the unimaginable happens.  It’s January of 1998 & Kate wakes to the news that one of her husband’s mistresses was having an affair with none other than US President, Bill Clinton. The press surround Kate’s home, clamouring for details about her husband’s...

My next guest, Kenneth Feinberg, literally stopped me in my tracks.   Ken is a prominent attorney, a world-renowned MEDIATOR and the one time chief of staff of the late U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy.  But when we all stood still on 9/11 after one of the most horrific terrorist attacks the world has ever seen, Ken stood up and wanted – indeed asked - to be counted. Ken was appointed as the Special Master of the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund just a few weeks after the attacks on the...

Inspiration comes in many shapes and forms.  One of them, without any shadow of a doubt, is my next guest, the truly inspirational Rebecca Faye Smith Galli.   Just nine days after her divorce was finalised, Becky, a then 38-year-old mother of four, two of whom with special needs, wakes up at 2am with strange, shooting sensations in her legs.  By 9pm, she’s paralysed from the waist down from a condition called transverse myelitis, a rare spinal cord inflammation.  But this isn’t the first time...

By her own account, Carolyn Moor had it all. She & her architect husband Chad, had two gorgeous little girls, their own business & a house they designed & built in Orlando. On Valentine’s Day 2000, they talked over a romantic dinner & fantasized about what dreams would come next.   While they were driving home, a car struck theirs. Chad tragically died from his injuries. And Carolyn was left a 37 year old widow, with two little girls to keep afloat. Dazed, heartbroken,...

TRIGGER WARNING!!! Leslie Morgan Steiner is a New York Times best-selling author, columnist for The Washington Post, consultant and thought leader on women’s leadership, work-life balance, inspirational parenting, overcoming adversity and surviving violence against women.  She is a graduate of Harvard and earned an MBA from the Wharton School of Business. Her corporate experience includes The Washington Post, Johnson & Johnson, Leo Burnett and Seventeen Magazine.  She’s also the survivor...

My next guest, Dr Lucy Hone is a global authority and celebrated Ted Speaker in the area of resilience. Lucy is an Adjunct Senior Professor at the University of Canterbury, a co-director of the New Zealand Institute of Wellbeing & Resilience, a published academic researcher and best-selling author and blogger for Psychology Today. Having been trained at the University of Pennsylvania, Lucy went on to attain her PhD in public health at AUT University in Auckland and now assists...

TRIGGER WARNING!!! Proud Gunaikurnai woman, Veronica Gorrie, had spent a lifetime in fear of the police… and with good reason.   Ronnie's grandmother, Linda, was stolen from her family as an eight-year-old in 1941, along with her three siblings.  And Veronica’s beloved father John was forcibly taken at birth from his then 16-year-old mother Linda & placed in an orphanage. After watching her friends and family suffer under an inherently racist law-enforcement system, Veronica bravely...