Try On These Shoes

What if changing your life begins with changing how you see it? In “Paradigm,” author Tori DaCosta joins Neil to explore the power of a paradigm shift, the stories we tell ourselves, and the lessons behind her book No Name Bastard. Discover why understanding what we can control, manage, and influence might change the way we walk forward. 👟🩵

What if the noise in your life is keeping you from hearing what you actually need? After years of pushing harder, chasing success, and suppressing what was happening beneath the surface, Tom Sö reached a point where he finally admitted, “I need help.” In “Silent Mode,” we explore vulnerability, meditation, mental noise, healing, and what can happen when we become quiet enough to stop simply reacting to life and start truly being present for it.

What if surviving is only the beginning? After growing up under communist rule in Romania and walking through trauma, addiction, and devastating loss, Mia Godfrey shares how faith, therapy, and finally confronting what she had buried helped her discover that being buried is not the same as being broken and that there can still be more to life.

What happens when something that lasted only moments affects you for decades? In “Permanent,” Dean Sikes shares the story of a trauma he kept secret for 22 years and the journey through faith, forgiveness, healing, and hope that followed. Your past may shape your story, but it doesn’t have to define your future. You matter.

What happens when anxiety has been part of your life for so long that you don’t realize how much it is shaping the way you see yourself? In this episode, I sit down with psychotherapist, author, and expressive arts educator Elke Scholz to talk about anxiety, the stories we tell ourselves, and the tools that can help us understand what is happening beneath the surface instead of simply judging ourselves for it. Elke brings both professional insight and personal experience to a conversation about curiosity, creativity, self-compassion, and learning how to become a safer place for yourself. From being your own worst enemy to becoming your own best friend, this is a Lost & Found conversation about what can happen when we stop fighting ourselves long enough to listen.

What if confidence isn’t about proving you have it all together, but believing you’re worthy enough to take the next step? Steve Wormer, founder of the You Are Worthy Network, joins me to talk confidence versus arrogance, empathy, self-worth, and why vision only matters when we’re willing to move, even if that movement begins with one baby step.

What do you do when life doesn’t yell “Fore!” before everything changes? ⛳ 💥 Kym Coco knows that feeling. ❤️ After losing her husband, Steve, Kym was left facing a life that looked nothing like the one they had planned together. Grief changed the landscape, but it didn’t end the walk. 👣 In this episode of Other People's Shoes, Kym shares what it has looked like to keep moving through loss, and how golf has become part of the way she processes, focuses, and finds her footing again. 🏌️‍♀️ 🧭 Because on a golf course, a fore gives you a warning. Life isn’t always that kind. Sometimes the impact comes first. Then you have to decide what your next shot will be. 🎯 🎧 Listen now: https://www.opspodcast.com/ #OtherPeoplesShoes #LostAndFound #GriefJourney #KeepWalking

What happens when the hard in your life isn’t something you chose? In “Choose Your Hard", Cory Young joins Other People's Shoes to share how a surfing accident at just 20 years old left him paralyzed from the neck down and forced him to rethink what life, purpose, and moving forward could look like. As part of our new season, Lost and Found, Cory’s story is a powerful reminder that sometimes what we lose changes everything, but it doesn’t have to be the end. We talk about perspective, resilience, chasing the feeling of being fully alive, and one difficult question: How do you choose your hard when hard has already chosen you? 🎙 "Choose Your Hard" Season 24: Lost and Found | Guest: Cory Young Thank you for walking in Other People's Shoes. 👟🩵

🎙️ "GROWTH" 🌱 The season finale of "The List" brings us to Greg Pihs and a conversation about something that may be harder than forgiveness itself: growing into forgiveness. 📝 Greg is a U.S. Marine veteran, bestselling author, NLP trainer, and founder of the 4th Dimension Mastermind. His story includes a traumatic childhood, multiple combat deployments, and a journey toward understanding how pain can shape our identity without having to control our future. 📝 The person on Greg's list is someone many of us would struggle to forgive. I won't give that part of the story away, but this conversation left me asking the same question I've wrestled with throughout this entire season: "How do you forgive someone when what they did feels unforgivable?" Maybe forgiveness isn't something we suddenly figure out. Maybe it's something we grow into. 🌱 📝 “Growth” closes Season 23: The List, a season filled with difficult names, painful stories, unexpected forgiveness, and conversations tha…

New Episode! "Why" Close your eyes for a moment. Only do that if you are not driving right now. How do you picture your forever? For Oriana Sparks, forever looked like sitting on a dock, sipping a beer, and growing old beside the man she loved. Then, only weeks after giving birth to their third child, her husband was tragically taken from her. 📝 The dream disappeared in a moment. The future she had pictured was gone. How do you rebuild after that? How do you forgive the person responsible for taking your forever away? When life leaves you asking why, how do you learn to sit still long enough to hear what your heart truly needs? 📝 How do you rebuild when your forever disappears? How do you forgive the person responsible? And how do you keep moving forward without leaving the person you lost behind? 📝 In this week’s episode of Other People’s Shoes, Oriana shares how mindfulness became lifelines through grief. She also introduces the power of the "micro pause": Why am I her…

⚠️ CONTENT WARNING: This post and episode discuss depression, grief, suicidal ideation, and suicide. 📝 🎙️ HATE MYSELF 📝 These are the words I have been avoiding. For years, I sit behind the microphone and ask other people to share the hardest parts of their stories. This time, I give up the host’s chair. For the first time in the history of Other People’s Shoes, my friend Dr. Amy Watson takes the microphone, asks the difficult questions, and invites me to tell the truth about one of the darkest moments of my life. 📝 I return to the beginning of April, when one Sunday morning sends me into a spiral of depression, grief, and self-hatred. One week later, I sit in a hotel room in Portland and confess to my wife, Elizabeth, that I have made a plan to end my life. Those words are not easy to write. They are even harder to say out loud. 📝 The title Hate Myself is inspired by NF’s song because it gives language to something I do not want to admit: The hardest person on The List…

| PARTY | EPISODE 400 🎉 I named this episode “Party” long before I realized it would become the 400th episode of Other People’s Shoes. Funny how that worked out. 📝 Four hundred episodes are worth celebrating, but this conversation is about more than a number. It is about the moments that stop us in our tracks. The words we hear at exactly the right time. The decision to grab a pen, find a napkin, and finally begin telling ourselves the truth. 📝 Shā Sparks shares how something she heard on the radio became the beginning of real change in her life. What followed was not an overnight transformation. It was a journey toward reclaiming her voice, understanding her hurt, and learning to see anger differently. Is anger poison? Is anger a mirror? Could anger actually become a teacher? 📝 This conversation reminds us that anger is not always the deepest emotion. Sometimes it is protecting pain we have never been willing to name. And sometimes the first ste…

🔦 What if the most dangerous lie is the one convincing you it isn’t really that dark? 📝 🎙️FLASHLIGHT 🔦 ⚠️ CONTENT WARNING: This episode discusses depression, grief, suicidal ideation, and suicide. 📝 I start with a simple question: What is the best flashlight on the market? 🔦 According to Ava’s review, the LiteForce produces up to **20,000 lumens**, powerful enough to cut through darkness and help you see what is right in front of you. 📝 But this episode is not really about a flashlight. It is about recognizing when we need one. 📝 Patrick Lomantini describes himself as someone who became a great liar. He lies to others. He creates different versions of himself. And eventually, he begins believing his own lies. 😔 “I’m fine.” 🎭 “I have everything under control.” 🌑 “It isn’t that dark.” 💭 “It isn’t that bad.” 📝 Maybe that is what makes darkness so dangerous. We adjust to it. We hide what we are feeling. We keep walking as though we can still see clearly. Until we realize …

🧱 What happens when the person who is supposed to make you feel safe says, “I don’t know how to be your mom”? For Ann Oickle, that moment became more than words. It became a brick. 💔 A brick of confusion. 😔 A brick of hurt. 🛡️ A brick added to the wall around her heart. 📝 Her mother was carrying grief of her own. Ann Oickle was carrying the emotional weight of being the little girl sitting in front of her. So how do you forgive someone who was hurting... when their hurt also wounded you? 📝 Forgiveness does not erase the impact. It does not pretend the words did not matter. It means deciding the pain will not control the rest of your story. 📝 🎙️ In "Another Brick", Ann Oickle shares how grief, family pain, and difficult relationships shaped the walls she built... and what it took to begin tearing them down. 📝 🧱 One memory. ❤️ One choice. 🙏 One act of forgiveness. 🧱 One brick at a time. 📝 🎧 Walk in Ann’s shoes on this week’s episode of "Other People’s Shoes". #OtherP…

🎙 "POP" Season 23: The List 📋👟 📝 🐏🩵🏀 WHAT IS A TAR HEEL? 🏀🩵🐏 After years of searching, we may have finally found someone qualified to answer the most impossible question of all time. 😂🤔 📝 Terrence Newby played four years at the University of North Carolina, competed in "three Final Fours", and shared the court with Carolina legends like Vince Carter, Ed Cota, and Antawn Jamison. 🏀🔥🏆 📝 That is a whole lot of Carolina blue. 🩵🐏🙌 📝 Terrence also played for one of the greatest coaches in basketball history, the legendary Dean Smith. 🐐🏀 He shares one lesson from Coach Smith that has stayed with him long after he left Chapel Hill: 📝 Four things you do when you make a mistake: 🧠💭 1️⃣ Recognize it 👀 2️⃣ Admit it 🙋‍♂️ 3️⃣ Learn from it 📚 4️⃣ Forget it ➡️ Simple advice. ✅ Much harder to live out. 💯 📝 Because behind the Carolina jersey is a story that goes much deeper than basketball. 🩵👕❤️‍🩹 📝 Terrence opens up about growing up with a father who struggl…

⚠️ LISTENER WARNING: Dr. Carron Silva talks openly about being sexually abused in this episode. This conversation also includes domestic violence, trauma, police brutality, and political violence. Please listen with care. 🤍 🎙 POSSIBLE 📝 Season 23: The List 📝 Is forgiveness possible when the cost is high? 📝 This week on Other People’s Shoes, Neil walks in the shoes of Dr. Carron Silva, whose story began in South Africa under Apartheid and includes deep childhood trauma, painful family separation, abuse, violence, and injustice. 📝 But this episode does not stay in the pain. It moves toward healing. 🌱 It moves toward freedom. 🕊️ It moves toward what is possible. 🙏 📝 Dr. Carron shares what it means to forgive when the wound is personal, why the word **“as”** in the Lord’s Prayer carries so much weight, and what being whole can look like when the past is still part of your story. 📝 Forgiveness is not pretending it did not happen. Forgiveness is not saying it was ok…

🎙 NEW EPISODE: UNFRIEND 👟 📝 We've all unfriended someone. 📱 📝 A classmate. An ex. That random person from high school you haven't talked to in years. 📝 But what if the hardest person to unfriend... ...isn't another person at all? 📝 This week on Other People's Shoes, I walk in the shoes of Willie Blake. 📝 📚 Willie grew up with dyslexia. For years, he believed it meant he was broken. 📝 😔 He tried to catch up. 😓 He tried to hide. 🙍 He tried to become someone he wasn't. 📝 Then everything changed. 💡 Willie realized he couldn't unfriend "dyslexia"... 🙌 But he "could" unfriend the lies it had taught him to believe. 📝 Today, Willie helps people trade self-doubt for confidence. ➡️ Overthinking for clarity. ➡️ Fear of forward momentum. 📝 ❤️ This conversation isn't just for people with dyslexia. It's for anyone who's ever believed a lie about themselves. 📝 🎧 Give it a listen...opspodcast.com 📝 Then ask yourself one question: 📝 Who or what do I need to un…

🎙️ Have you ever been left completely speechless? Not because you didn't have words... But because what happened was bigger than words could ever explain. 📝 💔 A painful loss. 🙏 An unexpected act of grace. ❤️ A love that changes everything. 📝 In this week's episode of "Other People's Shoes", Cristina Simmons shares a moment that left her speechless and how that moment became a turning point in her life. 📝 Together, we talk about faith, healing, restoration, and the powerful truth that our pain doesn't have to be our prison. 📝 ✨ What if the very thing that broke you became the thing that helped someone else heal? 📝 ✨ What if your story isn't something to hide... but something to honor? 📝 ✨ What if grace shows up when you least expect it? 📝 This conversation challenged me, encouraged me, and reminded me once again why I never get tired of hearing people's stories. 📝 👟 Take a walk with us. 🎧 Listen now: opspodcast.com #🎙️OtherPeoplesShoes #📝TheList #🩵Fa…

👻 GHOSTED. One day, they're there. The next day, they're gone. No explanation. No goodbye. No closure. 📝 Most of us have a name on our list connected to that kind of silence. A relationship. A friendship. A conversation that never happened. 💔 📝 This week, I sit down with Gareth Pickering from South Africa to explore what happens when someone disappears from our lives... and whether there's something we can learn from the experience. 🌍❤️ 📝 Can we trust our intuition? Can a breakup become a breakthrough? Can every relationship teach us something about ourselves? 🤔 📝 And here's the question that surprised me the most... 📝 Is it possible to be grateful for being ghosted? 👻➡️🌱 📝 Sometimes the people who leave us behind also leave us with lessons we never expected to learn. 📝 🎧 Listen now: https://www.opspodcast.com 📝 #OtherPeoplesShoes #TheList #Ghosted #Podcast

🎙️ Episode: "Password" 📝 🔐 Who has the password to your life? Not everyone deserves access. Not everyone has earned a seat at your table. And forgiveness doesn't automatically mean handing someone the keys back. 🗝️ 📝 This week on 🎙️ Other People's Shoes, Coach Nrgy Abrams joins me for a powerful conversation about forgiveness, trust, boundaries, and the people on our list. 📝 💭 What happens when someone hurts you? 💭 Can you forgive without restoring access? 💭 How do you protect your peace without closing your heart? 📝 In this episode, you'll discover: 🗝️ Why not everyone gets the password ❤️ The difference between forgiveness and access 🚪 Healthy boundaries that protect your future ⏳ The deeper meaning behind "Be patient. Have faith." 🌱 Why lasting change starts with self-identity 📝 One of the biggest takeaways: ✅ Self-identity must change before life can change. ✅ Want the change. ✅ Commit to the change. 📝 If you've ever wrestled with whether someone …

🐅 What if the most dangerous person in your life wasn't hiding in the shadows... 📝 What if they were sitting at the dinner table? 📝 What if they quoted Scripture? 🙏 What if everyone around you trusted them? 🤔 📝 And what if questioning them meant risking your marriage, your family, and even your sanity? 📝 This week on 🎙️ Other People's Shoes, Peter Young shares the unbelievable true story behind his book "Stop the Tall Man, Save the Tiger". 📝 What started as a love story slowly became a battle against manipulation, control, spiritual abuse, and the loss of his own voice. 📝 But this episode isn't just about a cult. It's about something much closer to home. 📝 🚩 How do you know when influence becomes control? 📝 🚩 How do you trust yourself when everyone tells you you're wrong? 📝 🚩 How do you forgive someone who never believes they did anything wrong? 📝 👟 Step into Peter's shoes. 📝 This conversation will stay with you long after it ends. 📝 🎧 L…

💔🥀 UNLOVEABLE FLOWER 🌿👣🎙️ 📝 What happens when betrayal doesn’t just break your heart… …but breaks the way you see yourself? 💭💔 📝 This week on Other People’s Shoes, Brooke Van Doren shares the moment her world completely collapsed after discovering her husband’s affair and how that pain forced her to confront wounds that started long before the marriage ever did. 🥀🪞 📝 This conversation is raw. Honest. Messy. Emotional. And deeply human. ❤️‍🩹 📝 We talk about: 📝 📜 The names we still struggle to forgive 🧠 How imagination can become emotional torture 💍 Whether a marriage can survive infidelity 😔 Feeling unwanted, rejected, and “unloveable” 🌱 Why healing is never clean or linear 📓 How journaling can help reconnect you to yourself 👣 Learning to sit with pain instead of running from it 📝 Sometimes the hardest part of healing isn’t forgiving someone else… 📝 It’s believing you’re still worthy of love after what happened to you. 💔➡️❤️ 📝 If you’ve ever wrestled with heartbreak… anger… trust… anxi…

🎙️ "OUTSIDE" 👟🔥 📝 What happens after the headlines fade? What happens when your worst mistake becomes the thing people remember most about you? 💭 📝 This week on Other People’s Shoes, Matthew Sisneros shares a story marked by regret, consequences, accountability, and the painful road toward redemption. 🕊️ 📝 💔 One decision changed everything. ⚖️ One moment altered multiple lives. 🚔 One choice led to consequences that couldn’t be undone. 😔 And years later… the weight still remains. 📝 But this episode isn’t about glorifying crime. 📝 It’s about honesty. It’s about shame. It’s about facing the wreckage of your choices. And asking if grace can still meet you there. 🙏 📝 This conversation is raw. It’s uncomfortable. It’s emotional. And it might challenge the way you see forgiveness. 👣 Because sometimes the hardest person to forgive… is yourself. 🪞 📝 🎧 Listen now at opspodcast.com 👟 Step into Matthew’s shoes. 📝 #TheList #OtherPeoplesShoes #Forgiveness #Podcast

🎁 New Episode! "Staircase" 🪜 ⚠️ CONTENT WARNING: This episode contains discussions about suicide, trauma, grief, and emotional loss. 🎙️ NEW EPISODE: STAIRCASE 🪜 Forgiveness isn’t a light switch. 💡 It’s a staircase. One painful step at a time. 📝 This week on Other People’s Shoes 👟, Heather Mylan-Mains shares a story marked by heartbreak 💔, loss, faith 🙏, and the difficult climb toward forgiveness after her husband took his own life. Some wounds don’t heal overnight. 📝 Some questions don’t have easy answers. ❓ And some names stay on “the list” longer than we’d like to admit. 📝✏️📓 But what if forgiveness isn’t about letting someone off the hook… What if it’s about finally freeing yourself? 🔓 This conversation is raw. Honest. Heavy at times. But also full of grace, hope 🌅, and the reminder that healing can still happen… one step at a time. 🕊️ 👟 Who’s still on your list? 📝 🎧 Listen now at opspodcast.com 💠🎧 #OtherPeoplesShoes #TheList #Forgiveness #Podcast