Heather Holt Podcast Host | Storytelling on Healing, Resilience & Life After Change

Inspiring stories told weekly to help change your perspective — and maybe even leave you smiling.

  • There are certain people who walk into your life and somehow feel familiar. Before you fully understand why. That was Lisa for me. We met in a small corner of the internet by chance, yet within minutes of talking, it felt like we had known each other much longer. The more we shared, the more… Read more

  • , ,

    Some stories are not just about a person. They are about a moment in time and everything that had to change because of it. Ken Kunken’s story is one of those stories. In 1970, when Ken was injured during a college football game at Cornell University, the world looked very different for people living with… Read more

  • , ,

    There are moments in life that don’t just happen, they stay. They settle into you quietly, and over time, you begin to realize they shaped more than just that day, they shaped who you became after it. Recording Scott DeLuzio’s story for Change Happened, Then What? brought me back to one of those moments in… Read more

  • , ,

    There’s something about poetry that I’ve never quite been able to explain and maybe that’s the point. Poetry doesn’t ask you to understand it, It asks you to feel it, and I’ve always loved that. Even if I don’t read it as often as I wish I did. I don’t sit down every night with… Read more

  • Grief has a way of changing shape over time. At first, it feels sharp and immediate—like something you can point to, something you can name. However, as the years pass, it becomes quieter, more woven into who you are. It doesn’t leave. Instead, it settles in beside you. That’s something I’ve come to understand in… Read more

  • , ,

    A Childhood Promise That Shaped Mark Maselli’s Life Sometimes the most powerful change in life doesn’t begin with a diagnosis, a moment, or even a turning point. Sometimes it begins with a decision. When Mark Maselli was just five years old, he watched his grandmother endure dialysis treatments. The machines, the hospital visits, and the… Read more

  • Most of us spend a good portion of our lives trying to plan the future. We map things out carefully.We imagine the life we want to build.We try to move step by step toward the person we hope to become. However, life has a way of reminding us that plans are just that — plans.… Read more

  • , ,

    I Wasn’t Supposed to Be That Person There are certain lines we draw in our minds about who we will never become. I wasn’t supposed to be someone who struggled with opioids.Not supposed to be someone who knew that quiet, seductive relief.Definitely not someone who understood how quickly “just this once” becomes something else entirely.… Read more

  • , ,

    For most of my life… For most of my life, I didn’t know I was dyslexic.I just knew that reading and writing felt harder for me than they seemed to be for everyone else. It wasn’t until my junior year of high school that something happened—unexpected, uncomfortable, and oddly clarifying—that changed how I understood my… Read more

  • , ,

    There’s a particular kind of silence that follows medical trauma. It’s the silence that comes after you’ve survived.After the scans, the surgery, and the words benign, you’re lucky, and it could have been worse.After everyone around you exhales—sometimes before you do. When I spoke with Rachel Stone, I realized just how familiar that silence felt.… Read more