Who We Become - Life Beyond Change

Amanda Lentz
  • 5.0 (13)
  • Self-Improvement
  • Updated Weekly

Who We Become — Life Beyond Change is a podcast about identity, reinvention, resilience, and the moments that force us to become someone new. Hosted by Amanda Lentz, the show explores what happens when life breaks, shifts, or unravels — and how people rebuild themselves from the inside out. Each episode features deeply human conversations with guests who have navigated grief, addiction, chronic illness, caregiving, trauma, leadership pressure, military transition, and the quiet identity shifts that happen in the background of everyday life. Visit www.amandalentz.com

  1. 20h ago

    Pamela Sherwood: A Lump in the Road — Surviving Breast Cancer

    She faced breast cancer with grace, sarcasm, and red lipstick to every chemo.In this episode, Amanda — a breast cancer survivor herself — sits down with Pamela Sherwood, who describes cancer as "an uninvited guest who walked in without wiping its feet." Pamela shares the phone call with her mom that saved her life, what it's really like in the infusion chair, and why she worered lipstick even when she was bald — because she refused to let cancer take her feminine side. She speaks openly about the loneliness that lives in your bones, what she wishes people would say instead of "you're so brave," and the community ("Team Pamela Strong") that wouldn't let her quit. Ten years out, she turned her journals and emails into a book, *A Lump in the Road*, to help others feel less alone. Her message to anyone in the chair right now: give cancer back, breathe, and know you will get to the other side.Pamela's book: A Lump in the Road — on Amazon: https://a.co/d/0bJ8WIPt(Includes a caregiver section and a chapter on PTSD)Take care of yourself, take care of each other, and keep becoming who you're meant to be.

    Pamela Sherwood: A Lump in the Road — Surviving Breast Cancer

  2. 20h ago

    The Dispersing Wolf

    The Dispersing Wolf Amanda Heller spent years in rooms where a wrong read was irreversible — federal investigations, national security, the highest-stakes decisions imaginable. What she noticed there was that the most capable people around her were being limited not by knowledge or discipline, but by subconscious patterns built for a different terrain. She was one of them.

    The Dispersing Wolf

  3. Oct 5

    She'd Tried Everything. The Pattern Still Wouldn't Move.

    The therapy, the mindset work, the journaling, the reading — all of it useful, and still the body stays braced and the same dynamic keeps showing up in different clothes. Brittany Schembra works underneath that: in the nervous system and the subconscious, where the body stores what the conscious mind hasn't been able to process. She calls it "spirituality without the woo" — and she came to it through her own healing. In this episode, Brittany joins Amanda Lentz to talk about the losses that broke her open, the moment she realized everything she'd chased to "fix" herself had left her depleted, and the turn that changed everything. A former educator and software engineer who thinks of intuition as "another coding language," she blends neuroscience, subconscious reprogramming, and energy work to help women rewrite the patterns running their lives from the inside out. Along the way: why the body remembers what the mind won't say, why your ego will always choose a familiar hell over an unfamiliar heaven, and how to actually start recognizing a pattern in your own life. If you've done the surface work and something still hasn't moved, this conversation is for you — it's not that you're unfixable. It's that the work needs to go somewhere the talking hasn't reached yet.

    She'd Tried Everything. The Pattern Still Wouldn't Move.

  4. Oct 5

    Matt Bright: When Survival Becomes a Habit

    There is a space in human experience that almost never gets named.Not the crisis.Not the breaking point.Not the moment everything is visibly falling apart. It’s the space after — the one where life has technically moved on, but internally something hasn’t. The space where you’re functioning, where you look fine, where you’re doing everything you’re supposed to do… but you’re exhausted in a way that’s hard to explain. You’re running patterns you can’t seem to switch off. You’re quietly convinced that this is just who you are now. My guest today works exactly in that space. In this episode of Who We Become — Life Beyond Change, Amanda Lentz sits down with Matt Bright, a clinical hypnotherapist and strategic psychotherapist based in Australia who specializes in helping people whose systems adapted to survive something difficult — and never got the signal that it was over. Matt describes the clients who find their way to him: high‑functioning, capable, responsible people who are parenting, working, showing up, and taking care of everyone else… while internally living in a state of constant activation. “Eventually something really important happens — they stop calling it a pattern and start calling it their personality.” Amanda and Matt explore the territory of post‑survival — the nervous system that keeps bracing long after the danger has passed, the emotional imprint that becomes familiar enough to feel like identity, and the exhaustion that comes from living in a state of perpetual anticipation. Matt explains why people begin to believe “I’m just an anxious person,” and why that belief is almost never true. “You’re not born anxious. It’s a pattern you learned — and what’s learned can be unlearned.” They talk about the difference between traditional talk therapy and the work Matt does, which focuses less on why something happened and more on how the pattern operates now. Matt explains what hypnotherapy actually is — not mind control, not movie tropes, but a relaxed, permissive state where the subconscious becomes accessible and change becomes possible. He describes the moment clients realize their patterns are not proof of who they are, but evidence of how their system adapted. “The system learned to survive — it just never learned how to stand down.” This conversation is about identity, nervous system regulation, subconscious learning, and the quiet suffering so many people carry alone. Matt shares how patterns can be interrupted, how the body can be retrained, and how people can reclaim agency over reactions that once felt automatic. He talks about the “aha” moment when clients can no longer access the emotional state they arrived in — the moment their system has truly updated. This episode is for anyone who feels stuck in a version of themselves they didn’t choose, anyone who is functioning but not OK, anyone who is tired of feeling like their patterns define them, and anyone who needs the reminder that exhaustion is not a personality — it’s a signal. Matt’s work offers something more useful than reassurance: the understanding that you are not broken. You are not defined by what happened to you. And you can learn to stand down. Matt’s work brings language to the space most people are living in but rarely talk about — the part after survival, where the system is still braced for danger that isn’t there. His insights offer a path toward updating patterns that once felt permanent. If you’re functioning but exhausted, convinced your patterns are your personality, or longing to feel like yourself again, this episode offers clarity, compassion, and a way forward. Subscribe for weekly conversations on identity, reinvention, and becoming.

    Matt Bright: When Survival Becomes a Habit

  5. Sep 28

    We Are Not Our Diagnosis with Linda & Tamara Zoldak

    A mother and a daughter — and a story that began long before either of them ever heard the word "diagnosis." It started with a loss: Linda Zoldak lost her only child. Then, an ocean away, a beginning — a 22-month-old named Tamara, adopted from Bulgaria into Linda's arms. Decades later, Linda was diagnosed with primary progressive multiple sclerosis, and Tamara — a paramedic living with her own fibromyalgia — stepped into caregiving. Two women, two chronic illnesses, one shared refusal to let those labels become the whole story. In this episode, Amanda Lentz talks with Linda and Tamara Zoldak — mother, daughter, and co-authors of We Are Not Our Diagnosis: Life Beyond Multiple Sclerosis and Fibromyalgia — with both of their voices in the room. They talk about grief and starting over, the family that began across an ocean, living as both patient and caregiver, and why they wrote a book together as "a home for the uncertainty." For anyone living with chronic illness, caregiving for someone they love, or learning to hold a hard label without letting it become who they are. Linda & Tamara's book: - We Are Not Our Diagnosis: Life Beyond Multiple Sclerosis and Fibromyalgia Who We Become — Life Beyond Change, hosted by Amanda Lentz. New episodes weekly on identity, reinvention, resilience, and navigating life's transitions. amandalentz.com Shared as their personal story, not medical advice.

    We Are Not Our Diagnosis with Linda & Tamara Zoldak

  6. Sep 28

    Laura Todd: Motherhood Without a Map and the Phone Call You Can't Make

    Today's conversation explores what it means to become a mother without the one person you always expected to guide you through it. My guest, Laura Todd - licensed clinical counselor, perinatal mental health specialist, and founder of Early Bond Therapy - shares her powerful story of losing her mother to breast cancer in 2015 and then becoming a mother herself six years later, during COVID, in isolation, without the support she had imagined. Laura opens up about the shock of her mother's rapid decline, the emotional imprint of grief, and the way loss resurfaced when she entered postpartum life. She talks about anxiety, sleep deprivation, maternal anger, and the quiet ache of navigating milestones her other will never witness. We explore the patterns that form in survival mode, the nervous system's difficulty standing down, and the identify shift that happens when motherhood and grief collide. Laura also shares the work she now does with women in similar spaces - helping new mothers understand their emotional patterns, regulate their nervous systems, and build support even when their village looks different than they expected. This episode is for anyone grieving a parent, anyone navigating postpartum challenges, and anyone trying to understand the layered experience of becoming a mother while still missing one. Laura's story is a reminder that grief and joy can coexist - and that becoming isn't about erasing what happened, but learning how to live with it.

    Laura Todd: Motherhood Without a Map and the Phone Call You Can't Make

  7. Sep 21

    Dr. Kasi Lacey: On Toxic Leadership, Burnout, Reinvention & Reclaiming Confidence

    They Said He'd Hire a Man. She Told Him He'd Hire Her Instead. Dr. Kasi Lacey moved out on her own at 16. School was her safe place, so she chased stability the only way she knew how — through her grades, her degrees, and fifteen years climbing higher education all the way to a president's cabinet. She had the title, the influence, the seat at the table. And then she named the environment for what it was: an abusive relationship. In this episode, Dr. Lacey joins Amanda Lentz for an honest conversation about high achievement as survival, the imposter syndrome that almost cost her the job she was born for, and what it actually takes to walk away from an identity you built your whole life on. A psychologist who had to become her own patient before she could do her best work, Dr. Lacey shares how she rebuilt — losing the golden handcuffs, finding her voice, and creating the confident, purpose-led life she wants her two daughters to grow up watching. If you're a high achiever who's ever quieted your own inner voice to keep the peace, this one's for you. Your worth was never up for a vote. Dr. Lacey is a psychologist, keynote speaker, executive confidence coach, and author of Your Confidence Comeback. Find her at kasilacey.com and get the book at yourconfidencecomeback.com. 🎧 Who We Become — Life Beyond Change. Keep becoming who you're meant to be.

    Dr. Kasi Lacey: On Toxic Leadership, Burnout, Reinvention & Reclaiming Confidence

  8. Sep 21

    Our Bodies Whisper Until They Shout

    For years, the labs kept coming back "normal" — while Ashley lived in a body that felt anything but. 35 pounds of unexplained weight gain, joint pain, brain fog, crippling fatigue, and a changing voice. Doctor after doctor sent her home. Then she stopped waiting for someone else to figure it out. In this episode of Who We Become — Life Beyond Change, Amanda Lentz sits down with Ashley Cruz Arata — integrative hormone health specialist and founder of Ashley Cruz Arata Wellness — about what the standard medical system so often misses for women, and what it actually takes to heal. After a partial thyroidectomy that left her feeling worse instead of better, Ashley went deeper than the standard labs, became a certified integrative health practitioner, resolved her symptoms, and lost the 35 pounds — all while working 50-hour weeks, traveling, and grieving two profound losses. Then she built the practice she wishes she'd had. In this conversation, we explore: - Why "your labs are normal" doesn't mean nothing is wrong - How repeated dismissal quietly erodes a woman's self-trust - The 3 buckets of hormones — thyroid, sex, and stress — and how they work together - Why the standard TSH test can miss most of the picture - Root-cause vs. symptom management: what functional testing looks for - "Ones and twos equal tens" — how small changes add up, even when life is lifing If you're a woman who's been told your labs are normal while living in a body that doesn't feel normal, this conversation offers both language and permission. You're not making it up. You're not too sensitive. Your symptoms are real. — Connect with Ashley — 🌐 ashleycruzarata.com (Cruz with a Z) 📸 Instagram: @ashleycruzarata 📄 Free Essential Hormone Lab Guide — linked in the episode show notes — Who We Become — Life Beyond Change — Hosted by Amanda Lentz 🌐 amandalentz.com ▶️ Subscribe: youtube.com/@lifebeyondchange New conversations weekly on identity, reinvention, resilience, and navigating life's transitions. This content is for educational purposes and is not medical advice. Always consult a qualified provider about your own health. #WhoWeBecome #LifeBeyondChange #HormoneHealth #ThyroidHealth #FunctionalMedicine #WomensHealth #SelfAdvocacy #IntegrativeHealth #HealingJourney

    Our Bodies Whisper Until They Shout
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About

Who We Become — Life Beyond Change is a podcast about identity, reinvention, resilience, and the moments that force us to become someone new. Hosted by Amanda Lentz, the show explores what happens when life breaks, shifts, or unravels — and how people rebuild themselves from the inside out. Each episode features deeply human conversations with guests who have navigated grief, addiction, chronic illness, caregiving, trauma, leadership pressure, military transition, and the quiet identity shifts that happen in the background of everyday life. Visit www.amandalentz.com

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