Who We Become - Life Beyond Change

Amanda Lentz
  • 5.0 (13)
  • Self-Improvement
  • 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. 2d ago

    One Dive Changed Everything

    Will Matay wants you to know something before we begin: his story didn't start with his accident.In this episode, Will Matay — Navy veteran, commercial diver, and author of *Roller Coaster Ride of My Life* — joins Amanda for a conversation about everything that came before and after a diving accident left him paraplegic. Will survived childhood and family trauma, got himself into the Navy at 17, and built a hard-won career as a commercial diver before the dive that changed his life. He talks about the coin toss before that dive, the collapse on the way up, and becoming a paraplegic that day; about being talked through instead of to, and refusing it; and about a years-long fight to be heard — twelve days' notice for major spinal surgery, a record marked "refused" when he asked for time to prepare, and the second opinion he had to fight Congress and the VA to get, which changed everything. Now 80% pain-free, a grandfather, and still in the fight, Will wrote his book so that anyone who lost the life they planned feels less alone. His message: get through it, never give up, fight.This episode discusses trauma, disability, PTSD, and suicide. If you're struggling, you're not alone. Veterans and their loved ones can reach the Veterans Crisis Line by dialing 988 then pressing 1, or texting 838255; anyone in the US can call or text 988.Take care of yourself, take care of each other, and keep becoming who you're meant to be.

    One Dive Changed Everything

  2. 2d ago

    On Their 25th Anniversary, She Became a Widow.

    On Their 25th Anniversary, She Became a Widow. On the morning she and her husband John were meant to leave on their 25th-anniversary cruise, Julie Spokus became a widow. What followed was grief — but not only the missing of him. It was the paperwork, the bureaucracy, the loneliness after everyone else's lives resumed, and the surreal moments of laughing through tears. In this episode, Julie joins Amanda Lentz for an honest, warm, and often funny conversation about the part of grief nobody talks about — and what loss revealed. She shares how she and John met (a newspaper ad and a wedding a year to the date), the morning everything changed, the friend who simply showed up when it mattered most, and how three losses in a handful of years reshaped her relationship with time. A longtime IT project manager who always thought there'd be time "later" for the creative life calling her, Julie stopped asking someday and started asking if not now, when? — leaving her career to study theater and building a life that's finally her own. If you've ever carried a loss the world didn't quite know how to talk about, or you've been saving something for "someday," this conversation is for you. This episode explores grief and the loss of a spouse. However you're grieving is okay — and if you need support, the Crisis Text Line offers free, confidential help 24/7: text HOME to 741741 in the US. 🎧 Who We Become — Life Beyond Change. Keep becoming who you're meant to be.

    On Their 25th Anniversary, She Became a Widow.

  3. Oct 26

    The Finish Line Moved

    She was 35, with two babies at home, when breast cancer arrived — and the finish line kept moving.In this episode, writer Adrienne Hubbard joins Amanda — a fellow breast cancer survivor — for an honest, sometimes darkly funny conversation about what survivorship actually looks like. Diagnosed at 35 while raising two very youngchildren, Adrienne faced years of treatment: chemo, a bilateral mastectomy, radiation, reconstruction, an infection and emergency surgery, a hysterectomy. Every ending turned out not to be one. She speaks about the lump she almost explained away, grieving the body she'd known for 35 years, the loneliness that surprised her once treatment ended, and how she slowly learned to treat herselflike a best friend — discovering, to her surprise, that she really likes who she is now. Her message: you can be grateful, angry, scared, and completely over it, sometimes all in the same day — and still build a really good life from there.Take care of yourself, take care of each other, and keep becoming who you're meant to be.

    The Finish Line Moved

  4. Oct 26

    They Were Being Managed, Not Met. So She Told a Better Story.

    They Were Being Managed, Not Met. So She Told a Better Story. Marysue Moses grew up in a Scrabble family, loved words, and spent her youth as a devoted theater kid — playing Gertrude and Hamlet, learning to inhabit other people's stories. She had no idea she was building a kind of creative empathy she'd need in a completely different context. Then her mom was diagnosed with dementia. In this episode, Marysue joins Amanda Lentz on the day of her book launch for a conversation about how a daughter's love became a life's calling. She shares what troubled her in those early caregiving rooms — the tragedy narrative, the empty calendars, the sense that people were being managed rather than met — and how a trunk full of props and Shakespeare launched two decades of dementia care. Along the way: why a diagnosis is not the end of the story, the three words a resident named Mona taught her, and her steady conviction that the person is always still there. As she puts it, it's not the brain we need to be fully human — it's our heart, our spirit, and the energy we share. Whether you're a caregiver, a care partner, or simply someone who loves an aging parent, this conversation offers something rare: hope. Marysue's book, Looking Past Dementia, is available now — find it at lookpastdementia.com or wherever you buy books. Connect with her on LinkedIn and Facebook (Marysue Moses). 🎧 Who We Become — Life Beyond Change. Keep becoming who you're meant to be.

    They Were Being Managed, Not Met. So She Told a Better Story.

  5. Oct 19

    Nobody Gave Her the Solo. So She Sang One Anyway

    Paula C. Snyder grew up without her mother's belief. She was good enough to blend into the chorus, but no one offered her the solos — and her high school advisor steered her toward occupational therapy instead. So she went. And then she taught herself to sing solo anyway, taught herself guitar and piano, and wrote her first song while hitchhiking across the country with $50 in her pocket. In this episode, Paula joins Amanda Lentz for a conversation that spans seven decades of choosing herself over and over when no one else did. She shares the mother who never believed in her and the father who kept music alive in the house, the 1971 hitchhike that became a lifelong lesson in facing the unknown, the marriage that walked away, and the daughter who called her back to music at sixteen. Now 74 and still performing — while caring for a 98-year-old mother and a husband with medical challenges — Paula is living proof that a creative life isn't a gift that arrives when conditions are right. It's a decision you make in spite of them. If you've ever set down the thing you love and wondered if it's too late to pick it back up, this one's for you. Find Paula's original music anywhere you stream under Paula C. Snyder, her kids' music as Grandma Paula, and everything she creates at pcsnydercreativeoffices.com. 🎧 Who We Become — Life Beyond Change. Keep becoming who you're meant to be.

    Nobody Gave Her the Solo. So She Sang One Anyway

  6. Oct 19

    Tara Accardo: Losses Become Gains

    Today’s conversation explores something universal and yet rarely examined openly: loss, and more specifically, what becomes possible in its aftermath. My guest is Tara Accardo, the voice behind Losses Become Gains, a platform dedicated to helping people transform life’s most difficult experiences into clarity, growth, and purpose — even when they couldn’t imagine that possibility in the middle of their grief. This isn’t a conversation about “moving on.”It’s a conversation about moving through, and about who we become when we do. Tara shares the deeply personal story that shaped her work: losing her mother to esophageal cancer in 2019, navigating anticipatory grief, and then losing her father just six months later during the height of COVID. She describes the emotional whiplash of grieving two parents, the loneliness of being an only child, the logistical chaos that grief creates, and the way loss reshapes identity from the inside out. She talks about the moment she realized she wasn’t just grieving her mom and dad — she was grieving them together, and grieving the family unit she once had. She also opens up about the relationship that fell apart under the weight of grief, the unexpected healing that followed, and the eventual reconnection with the partner who is now her husband. Amanda and Tara explore the turning points that led Tara toward her work: the self‑development practices that grounded her, the spiritual experiences that helped her feel connected to her parents, and the moment the phrase “losses become gains” surfaced — a phrase that would become her mission. This conversation is about identity, resilience, and the quiet, nonlinear work of rebuilding a life after profound loss. It’s about the gains that don’t erase grief but grow alongside it: awareness, compassion, empathy, patience, and a deeper understanding of what truly matters. It’s for anyone navigating grief, anyone rebuilding after loss, and anyone searching for meaning in the aftermath of a life they didn’t choose.

    Tara Accardo: Losses Become Gains

  7. Oct 12

    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

  8. Oct 12

    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
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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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