Ep. 39 - What Happens When You Tell Someone They Matter

Ep. 39 - What Happens When You Tell Someone They Matter

What if the moment you finally decide to give up turns out to be the moment everything begins? Helice Bridges, who everyone now calls Grandma Sparky, talks with host Pam Feinberg-Rivkin about the years before that question found her: a thriving real estate career, a home overlooking the Pacific, two young sons, and a marriage that quietly left her feeling invisible. At thirty-seven, she reached a point where she didn't think she could go on, until a small, unexpected voice told her she still had something to give. She walked away from that life with little more than a potted plant and an idea she couldn't ignore. That idea became a simple blue ribbon, one that says who I am makes a difference, born from her time serving as co-chair of the San Diego Hunger Project, where she realized people everywhere were starving for something money could never buy: to feel seen and valued. Sparky shares the story that became a television movie, about a chain of honoring that reached a father just in time to change everything he said to his son that night. Now in her eighties and still working toward a goal of reaching a billion people, Sparky's life is proof that the smallest gesture, a sentence, a ribbon, a moment of being truly seen, can change everything. Contact Pam Feinberg-Rivkin: Facebook: @FeinbergCare [https://www.facebook.com/FeinbergCare]Instagram: @FeinbergCare [https://www.instagram.com/feinbergcare/]LinkedIn: Feinberg Consulting Inc [https://www.linkedin.com/company/feinberg-consulting-inc/]YouTube: @FeinbergConsulting8059  [https://www.youtube.com/@feinbergconsulting8059]

Ep. 38 - How Do You Find Hope After a Cancer Diagnosis

Sometimes the people who help us heal become part of our story forever. When stage three colorectal cancer returned as stage four with liver metastasis, Pam Feinberg-Rivkin found herself facing a very different journey than the one she had traveled before. Looking for support beyond treatment alone, she connected with Dr. Jen Green, a naturopathic physician and integrative oncology expert whose guidance would become an important part of her path through chemotherapy, recovery, and remission. What unfolds is a thoughtful conversation about what it really means to care for the whole person during cancer treatment. As Jen shares her approach to integrative cancer care, the conversation moves beyond supplements and research into the deeply human side of healing. They explore survivorship, purpose, stress, sleep, movement, meditation, healthy relationships, and the importance of creating a life that supports long-term wellness. Pam reflects on the lessons that emerged from her own cancer journey, including learning how to receive help, embrace community, and step away from the relentless pace that once defined her life. Jen also shares her experience as a cancer survivor, the role of resilience in difficult seasons, and the unexpected ways connection, gratitude, dance, mindfulness, and presence can help carry us through uncertainty. Healing is rarely about one thing alone, but about finding the courage to belong fully to your life again. Contact Pam Feinberg-Rivkin: Facebook: @FeinbergCare [https://www.facebook.com/FeinbergCare]Instagram: @FeinbergCare [https://www.instagram.com/feinbergcare/]LinkedIn: Feinberg Consulting Inc [https://www.linkedin.com/company/feinberg-consulting-inc/]YouTube: @FeinbergConsulting8059  [https://www.youtube.com/@feinbergconsulting8059]

Ep. 37 - Turning 90 and Still Saying Yes to Life

What does it look like to build a full, meaningful life when no one handed you a blueprint for it? Dr. Sonya Friedman grew up in Brooklyn with little money and a father who wasn't present, and she turned every open door into something remarkable. She talked her way into a newspaper column she'd never written before, brought psychology into mainstream media decades before it was welcome there, worked alongside Barbara Walters, became one of the first anchors at CNN, and wrote books about women's self-worth that were ahead of their time. All of it, she says, came down to one word: yes. The conversation with Pam moves through a lot of territory, from Sonya's early books on women's independence and relationship patterns to a jaw-dropping story about filming a Ku Klux Klan meeting in Kentucky as an ABC correspondent. What runs through all of it is a woman who never let her origin story become her ending. She talks about the moment her thinking shifted from "what was wrong with me" to "what was wrong with him," and how that single reframe changed everything. Now approaching 90, Sonya is still seeing clients, still swimming and doing Pilates, and still thinking about what women over 50 need most from each other. Her life is a quiet argument against the idea that where you start determines where you land. Contact Pam Feinberg-Rivkin: Facebook: @FeinbergCare [https://www.facebook.com/FeinbergCare]Instagram: @FeinbergCare [https://www.instagram.com/feinbergcare/]LinkedIn: Feinberg Consulting Inc [https://www.linkedin.com/company/feinberg-consulting-inc/]YouTube: @FeinbergConsulting8059  [https://www.youtube.com/@feinbergconsulting8059]

Ep. 36 - When the Voice in Your Head Is the Loudest Thing in the Room

Dr. Steven Klein came to addiction medicine through an unusual convergence of paths. A physician and scientist triple board certified in addiction medicine, pediatrics, and medical genetics, he also carries lived experience in recovery that shapes everything about how he shows up for his patients. He speaks openly about his own relationship with substances, with food, and with the kind of internal noise that most people in active addiction know intimately. That noise, what he describes as a hierarchy of craving that drowns out everything else, is at the center of his clinical work. Much of that work now centers on GLP-1 receptor agonists, medications most people associate with weight loss, that are showing remarkable promise in quieting the craving signal in people struggling with alcohol, opioids, and other substances. Steven describes it not as a cure but as a way to lift the needle off the record long enough to learn a new song. Recovery still has to be built. But these medications may be buying patients something that's always been in short supply, time. Pam and Steven also explore the genetics and epigenetics of addiction risk, why relapse is better understood as a neurobiologic stage than a moral failure, and what it means to finally have a tool that could shift care from reactive to preventative. There is something quietly revolutionary happening at the intersection of science and compassion, and this conversation sits right in the middle of it. Contact Pam Feinberg-Rivkin: Facebook: @FeinbergCare [https://www.facebook.com/FeinbergCare]Instagram: @FeinbergCare [https://www.instagram.com/feinbergcare/]LinkedIn: Feinberg Consulting Inc [https://www.linkedin.com/company/feinberg-consulting-inc/]YouTube: @FeinbergConsulting8059  [https://www.youtube.com/@feinbergconsulting8059]

Ep. 35 - What Is Missing In Life Being a Functional Alcoholic

What does it look like when someone spends decades performing function while quietly falling apart on the inside? Brad Walsh grew up in a small Illinois town where drinking was woven into every family occasion, and by sixth grade he was already the ringleader with a box of liquor and a habit of filling bottles back up with water. What followed was decades of being the life of every party and the loneliest person in the room. Ski weekends, bartending shifts, a short marriage, OWIs, a boot camp in Montana, a stint at ASU, and a seizure in the middle of a trade show floor in Chicago. Through all of it, Brad held onto one identity above everything else: functional alcoholic. He could do the work, ace the class, show up. He just couldn't slow down long enough to ask himself why he was running so fast. The intervention that eventually changed things didn't feel like a turning point. It felt like a trap. Brad walked into what he thought was a workday and found his parents, his sisters, a close friend, and a stranger all waiting for him around a conference table. He was furious. He left. He came back a week later, not because he was ready, but because the one thing he couldn't afford to lose was his job. What Pam and her team had set in motion became the thread he followed, even when he didn't believe in it yet. Five years of weekly family coaching calls, treatment at Hazelden's Center City campus, a daily checklist that starts with prayer and ends with Spanish study, and a retreat in Costa Rica that turned into a permanent life. Brad is now engaged, expecting his first child, and living somewhere quieter and truer than he ever imagined reaching. Some people have to go through all of it before they can finally stop running from themselves. Contact Pam Feinberg-Rivkin: Facebook: @FeinbergCare [https://www.facebook.com/FeinbergCare]Instagram: @FeinbergCare [https://www.instagram.com/feinbergcare/]LinkedIn: Feinberg Consulting Inc [https://www.linkedin.com/company/feinberg-consulting-inc/]YouTube: @FeinbergConsulting8059  [https://www.youtube.com/@feinbergconsulting8059]