What happens when homeschooling doesn’t just change your child’s education… but exposes your own wounds?

In this powerful conversation, Julieta Duvall shares how what began as a chaotic homeschooling decision during the pandemic turned into a deep personal reckoning. She opens up about anger, control, guilt, perfectionism, and the painful realization that she wasn’t showing up as the safe space she wanted to be for her children.

This episode goes far beyond curriculum and learning styles. It’s about deconditioning the beliefs we inherited about education, success, and parenting. It’s about healing ourselves so we don’t pass down what hurt us.

If you’ve ever felt triggered in motherhood… this one is for you.

[2:30] Julieta’s early life, perfectionism, and how her upbringing shaped her parenting

[5:10] The pandemic shift and how homeschooling exposed her anger

[7:15] “I wasn’t a safe space.” Facing emotional regulation and control

[10:30] Guilt, healing, and the evolving relationship with her oldest son

[16:30] Was homeschooling part of her own healing journey?

[19:00] Deconditioning: questioning the belief that learning only happens at school

[21:30] Redefining education, success, and what achievement really means

[26:30] Homeschooling stigma before and after the pandemic

[30:30] Socialization myths and what thriving really looks like

[38:30] The chaos of leaving traditional school and “deschooling”

[44:00] The fear of meeting state requirements and testing expectations

[48:00] Teaching adaptability in a world where jobs don’t even exist yet

[50:30] Listening to your body, intuition, and raising aware children

[53:00] Julieta’s work helping parents transition into homeschooling

✨Connect with Julieta Duvall:

• The Unschooling Lifestyle Podcast
• Website: https://unschoolinglifestyle.com

✨ Connect with Michele Simms:

• Website: thebeautyinthemess.com
• Instagram: @the.beauty.in.the.mess
• LinkedIn: Michele Simms
• Facebook Group: The Beauty in the Mess Podcast

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Progress doesn’t always look like momentum. Sometimes it looks like losing everything you thought defined you. Starting over. Rebuilding quietly while questioning your own direction, identity, and worth.

In this episode of The Beauty In The Mess, I sit down with Sofia Pedroso, founder of Shiffully. Sofia works with entrepreneurs to address the emotional and nervous-system patterns that often sit beneath inconsistent growth, burnout, and self-doubt. But her work didn’t begin with theory. It began with her own lived experience of losing everything and having to rebuild from the inside out.

We talk about what it means to hit rock bottom, how emotional patterns quietly shape our outcomes, and why traditional strategies often fail when deeper nervous-system patterns are driving our behavior. Sofia shares how she rebuilt her identity, developed self-trust, and began helping others do the same.

This conversation is a powerful reminder that feeling stuck doesn’t mean you’re broken. It often means there’s something deeper asking to be understood.

04:32 — Sofia’s rock bottom and losing everything

08:15 — Moving back in with her parents and rebuilding identity

12:40 — Why progress felt slow and invisible

17:05 — Emotional patterns and nervous-system responses

21:30 — Why strategy alone doesn’t create real change

26:10 — Recognizing the patterns that keep us stuck

30:55 — Learning to rebuild self-trust

35:20 — How her experience led to creating Shiffully

40:05 — Helping others break cycles and grow sustainably

✨Connect with Sofia Pedroso:

• Website: https://shiffully.com
• Unlock Growth Community: https://www.skool.com/unlock-growth-4645

✨ Connect with Michele Simms:

• Website: thebeautyinthemess.com
• Instagram: @the.beauty.in.the.mess
• LinkedIn: Michele Simms
• Facebook Group: The Beauty in the Mess Podcast

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Some of the people who help us most are the ones who have walked through the darkest things themselves.

In this episode of The Beauty In The Mess, I sit down with Stacy Schaffer, MA, LPC, a children’s therapist with over 20 years of experience working with grief, trauma, and anxiety. Stacy is also a survivor of childhood trauma, and she brings that lived wisdom into every conversation she has with families, educators, and young people.

We talk openly about how trauma shows up in kids, why silence in families can be dangerous, and how play, safety, and relationship are often the real medicine. Stacy shares what she wished she’d had as a child, what she now creates for others, and why healing is not a destination but a practice.

This is a tender, honest, and deeply practical conversation for parents, teachers, caregivers, and anyone who cares about breaking generational cycles with compassion instead of shame.

05:10 — Stacy’s childhood story and what shaped her calling

09:25 — How trauma quietly shows up in kids

13:50 — Why family silence keeps wounds alive

18:15 — The healing power of play therapy

22:40 — Grief beyond death and why it matters

27:05 — Warning signs parents should not ignore

31:30 — Repair, safety, and relationship as medicine

36:10 — What Stacy wishes every parent knew

40:55 — How to break generational cycles with love

✨Connect with Stacy Schaffer:

• Book: With Love From a Children’s Therapist: #lessonsihavelearnedalongtheway
• Website: https://authorstacyschaffer.com

✨ Connect with Michele Simms:

• Website: thebeautyinthemess.com
• Instagram: @the.beauty.in.the.mess
• LinkedIn: Michele Simms
• Facebook Group: The Beauty in the Mess Podcast

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Courage doesn’t always look like heroics. Most of the time it looks like ordinary people choosing to do the right thing when it’s risky, uncomfortable, or unpopular.

In this episode, I sit down with John Graham, Executive Director of the Giraffe Heroes Project and known to many online as Badass Granddad. John has lived a life shaped by extremes: war zones, revolutions, a catastrophic shipwreck, and near-death experiences. But the heart of his work isn’t adrenaline, it’s meaning.

We talk about what real moral courage looks like, why stories move people more than speeches, how polarization erodes trust, and why “sticking your neck out” is more necessary than ever. John shares how his own life cracked open, how the Giraffe Heroes Project was born, and why honoring everyday courage can actually change culture.

This is a conversation about responsibility, hope, and the quiet power of people who refuse to stay silent when it matters.

04:10 — John’s early life and experiences that shaped his worldview

07:45 — The shipwreck and what it taught him about risk

11:20 — From adrenaline to meaning

15:05 — How the Giraffe Heroes Project began

19:00 — What makes someone a “Giraffe Hero”

23:10 — Why stories change people more than arguments

27:25 — Courage in a polarized world

31:50 — How ordinary people can practice moral courage

36:15 — What John hopes the next generation learns

40:40 — Why sticking your neck out still matters

✨Connect with John Graham:

• Giraffe Heroes Project: https://giraffe.org
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnagraham1/
• Search “Badass Granddad” on TikTok/Instagram to follow his socials
• 
  

✨ Connect with Michele Simms:

• Website: thebeautyinthemess.com
• Instagram: @the.beauty.in.the.mess
• LinkedIn: Michele Simms
• Facebook Group: The Beauty in the Mess Podcast

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Would you help your Ex if they needed support?

It’s a question that creates an immediate reaction in people, discomfort, curiosity, or a quiet “I don’t know… maybe.” And yet almost no one talks about it publicly.

Today’s guest, Elizabeth Verwey, spent years researching this question and discovered that caring for an ex is more common than most people realize. Through surveys in 21 countries, interviews with 53 people, and 30 deeply personal stories, she uncovered a new and quiet post-divorce stage that sits somewhere between closure and compassion.

In this conversation, we explore the emotional, relational, cultural, and logistical sides of caring for an ex — why people choose to step up, why they stay silent about it, what it means for current relationships, and how these acts can become deeply healing without ever leading to reconciliation.

This episode offers a fresh way of understanding endings, relationships, and the forms of love we rarely have language for.

05:10 — The question that sparked the research: Would you help your ex?

08:45 — Caring for an ex as a new post-divorce stage

12:20 — Why people keep this kind of caregiving private

17:05 — Cultural and gender differences in caregiving

21:30 — Boundaries, current partners, and navigating complexity

26:40 — Does caring for an ex reopen wounds or create healing?

31:15 — The difference between reconciliation and compassion

36:00 — What people gained from saying yes to helping

40:50 — How this research changed Elizabeth’s view of endings

45:30 — What she hopes listeners will reconsider about love

✨Connect with Elizabeth Verwey:

• Website: https://www.elizabethverwey.com
• Book: Brave New Endings
• Programs & Workshops: Listed on her site

✨ Connect with Michele Simms:

• Website: thebeautyinthemess.com
• Instagram: @the.beauty.in.the.mess
• LinkedIn: Michele Simms
• Facebook Group: The Beauty in the Mess Podcast

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Most of us learned as kids what was “real” and what wasn’t. We were taught how to behave, how to fit in, and where the limits of possibility lived. But what if those limits were never real to begin with?

In this episode, I’m joined by Dr. Deborah Ann Baker, a researcher, artist, and author whose work explores the intersection of neuroscience, creativity, consciousness, and childhood development. Through her books There Is No Such Thing as Purple Trees and Quantum Rebellion, Deborah makes a compelling case that we lose something essential when we disconnect from imagination, curiosity, and wonder; the very capacities that fuel healing, innovation, and deeper human intelligence.

We talk about:

• the moment a teacher shut down her creativity with one sentence

• why children are wired for multidimensional thinking

• how neuroplasticity allows adults to reclaim what they lost

• the bridge between science and spirituality

• why healing requires permission to be messy

• and what it means to remember what we forgot as we “grew up”

This episode is for anyone who senses there’s more to being human than productivity and perfection — and who is ready to reclaim the parts of themselves they once shut down to fit in.

03:40 — The purple tree story and the wound of conformity

07:15 — Childhood imagination as cognitive intelligence

11:50 — Neuroplasticity and why adults shut down curiosity

16:20 — Science and spirituality begin to converge

21:10 — Cancer, creativity, and the “black paint moment”

27:45 — Why messiness is required for innovation

31:30 — Quantum thinking and multidimensional reality

36:05 — How children teach us what we unlearn

41:20 — What Deborah hopes adults remember

✨Connect with Deborah Ann Baker:

• Books: There Is No Such Thing as Purple Trees & Quantum Rebellion
• Link Hub: https://linktr.ee/thepurpletrees

✨ Connect with Michele Simms:

• Website: thebeautyinthemess.com
• Instagram: @the.beauty.in.the.mess
• LinkedIn: Michele Simms
• Facebook Group: The Beauty in the Mess Podcast

💬 Rate & Review

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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Most people imagine PTSD as something tied to combat or emergency work. What often gets overlooked are the quieter stories. The ones with the survivors who walk back into ordinary life with extraordinary wounds no one can see. In this episode, Christiane Scarpino, author of Missing Pieces, shares her experience surviving a terrorist bombing at 21, the aftermath of FBI and NYPD interrogation, and the 49 years of PTSD that followed.

We talk about what PTSD actually feels like inside the body, how triggers show up in everyday life, the years she spent blaming herself for symptoms she didn’t understand, and what healing looks like for someone who never expected to live through the initial event, let alone the decades afterward.

But this is not just a trauma story. It’s a resilience story. Christiane has built a life filled with advocacy, service, marriage, humor, and Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retrievers. She is proof that healing is not about going back. It’s about learning to live forward.

Whether you’re navigating trauma personally, loving someone who is, or working in a field where these experiences show up quietly, this episode expands the conversation around PTSD in an honest, compassionate, and human way.

05:10 – Surviving the terrorist bombing and the moment everything changed

09:40 – Three years of FBI and NYPD interrogation

14:15 – PTSD: symptoms, fear, and “feeling crazy” before diagnosis

18:25 – How triggers hide in plain sight

22:50 – Why PTSD doesn’t follow a timeline or expiration date

27:40 – The stigma of “you should be over this by now”

32:05 – Marriage, dogs, and rebuilding joy in a nervous system that never forgets

36:30 – Advocacy and why awareness still matters

40:50 – Writing Missing Pieces and telling the truth without sensationalizing

45:15 – What she wants PTSD survivors to hear right now

✨Connect with Christiane Scarpino:

• Book: Missing Pieces (memoir available via her site)
• Upcoming Work: PTSD self-help guide (in development)
• Website: https://www.christianescarpino.net

✨ Connect with Michele Simms:

• Website: thebeautyinthemess.com
• Instagram: @the.beauty.in.the.mess
• LinkedIn: Michele Simms
• Facebook Group: The Beauty in the Mess Podcast
• 
  

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