May 13, 2026

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 ex-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

⚠️ CONTENT WARNING

This episode contains discussions surrounding suicide, trauma, grief, and emotional loss that may be difficult for some listeners.

Listener discretion is advised.

If you or someone you know is struggling, please know you are not alone. In the United States and Canada, help is available by calling or texting 988 for the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.

There is hope.
There is help.
And your story is not over.

🎙 STAIRCASE

THE LIST

We all wish forgiveness happened in a moment.

One apology.
One prayer.
One decision… and suddenly the pain disappears.

But forgiveness usually doesn’t work like that.

It’s more like climbing a staircase.

One step forward.
One hard conversation.
One choice to let go… even when part of you still wants to hold on.

Some days you feel like you’re making progress.
Other days you feel stuck on the same step you’ve been standing on for years.

Because forgiveness isn’t easy.
Especially when the wounds run deep.

Sometimes the wounds come from betrayal.
Sometimes from loss.
Sometimes from tragedy so heavy it changes everything that comes after it.

This season, we’re stepping into stories about the list the people, the moments, and the pain we carry and what it really looks like to begin crossing names off one step at a time.

👣 GUEST INTRODUCTION

Heather Mylan-Mains knows forgiveness is not a straight line.

It’s a climb.

A process built one painful, intentional step at a time.

Heather often says she has a “PhD in life,” because she’s survived more hard days than she can count. Through family fractures, heartbreak, loss, and unimaginable tragedy, she discovered something life-changing:

We are not defined by what happens to us… but by how we choose to respond.

In this deeply honest conversation, Heather shares about surviving the trauma of her ex-husband taking his own life by shooting himself in the head a moment that forever altered the course of her story and forced her to wrestle with grief, pain, anger, questions, and ultimately forgiveness.

Rather than allowing bitterness to define her, Heather chose to begin the difficult climb toward healing.

Her journey eventually led her to create a seven-step forgiveness framework rooted in faith, healing, mercy, and grace through Jesus Christ’s atonement.

In this episode, Heather shares how forgiveness transformed her relationships, her outlook, and even the way she sees suffering itself.

She’s the author of Unwrapping Forgiveness: The Gift of Mercy and Grace, where she openly shares her story and the lessons she learned while learning to forgive.

Professionally, Heather helps organizations and teams solve complex problems with a background in accounting and an MBA but her deepest work may be helping people untangle the weight unforgiveness leaves behind.

From Des Moines, Heather lives with contagious gratitude, unwavering optimism, and a belief that even the hardest moments can still become opportunities for healing.