What if the most powerful thing you can do today is simply speak up for someone who can’t?

In a world overwhelmed by noise, it’s easy to let heartbreaking stories fade into the background—especially when they feel political or too painful to confront. But some stories demand our attention not because they’re political, but because they’re human. This episode centers on one such story: the voices of the victims in the Jeffrey Epstein case, and the urgent need for transparency, healing, and justice.

• Hear a heartfelt reflection on the impact of this story from a father’s perspective.
• Understand why awareness and collective voices are essential for healing.
• Learn how you can use your voice and platform—no matter how big or small—to advocate for those who have been silenced.

Listen now to honor the victims' stories, reflect deeply, and consider how your voice can become part of a ripple effect for justice and healing.

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With Whole Again: A Fresh Approach to Healing, Growth & Resilience after Physical Trauma through Kintsugi Mindfulness, listeners explore resilience through personal stories of trauma, scars, and injury while learning to overcome PTSD, imposter syndrome, self-doubt, and perfectionism with self-compassion, self-love, and self-worth. Through insightful discussions on building resilience, fitness, and stress management, as well as mindfulness practices and digital wellness, the show offers practical tools such as breathwork, micro-dose meditation, grounding techniques, visualization, and daily affirmations for anxiety relief and stress reduction. Inspired by the art of kintsugi, the podcast embodies healing as a transformative process, encouraging a shift in perspective from worry and overwhelm to gratitude and personal growth. By exploring the mind-body connection, micro-dosing strategies for emotional well-being, and holistic approaches to self-care, this podcast empowers listeners to cultivate emotional resilience and live with greater balance and intention.

 Hey there, it's Michael. Welcome to Whole Again, A show about helping us embrace life with mindfulness and resilience through the wisdom of cons. Sugi, I'm glad you're here and I'm glad you're part of our community who are trying to navigate today's uncertainty with a bit more grace, more mindfulness, and.

More resilience on our way to feeling whole again and the person we are becoming. Today's episode is different. I've been thinking about it for a while, more intensely over the last several weeks. I've hesitated to record it because I've gotten in my own head. Yes, I am human. I talked to myself too, and my big worry was if you record this, Michael, people are going to think it's political, but this is not a political episode.

It's a human one. No other story has impacted me in such a way as this story has. I come at it as a girl dad times two. As someone who has a value of protecting those that need protection. I don't like to see people getting harmed or abused. The story I'm talking about is the Jeffrey Epstein story, and through a lot of the coverage, the focus was on the high powered men who were part of his cabal.

There wasn't much focus on the victims. The young girls who were 13, 14, 15, and 16 at the time who were treated with cruelty. They were dehumanized as they were sexually abused by the wealthiest and most powerful people among us who have yet to be held accountable for their actions. This story does involve political names, but this is not a political episode.

In fact, I'm not going to mention any name 'cause I wanna keep the focus in on the victims who are desperately asking for transparency in hopes that that transparency can help them heal and begin to feel. Whole again, or at least come close to it. So I'm not gonna mention any names. This is not about left versus right or red versus blue.

This is a story about our humanity and how we treat people and how the richest among us treat people. I'm recording this the day after a bunch of new files and emails have been shared, and I don't know clearly what will unfold between now as I record this and when this episode is released. So I sit here holding my breath, hoping our political leaders in the US will do the right thing and give these women.

Who were once 13, 14, 15, and 16-year-old girls, the transparency that they desire. But I have my doubts that that will happen to me. This story is a layup. It's an easy thing to take action on, but so far people haven't taken enough action. Over the last several weeks, I've listened to many of the stories the victims have shared.

As I've listened, I've cried along with them. I can't even begin to imagine what I would feel if this happened to my girls. The women who have come forward have done so with immense vulnerability.

And based on the stories I've heard, they're grateful that they've been able to walk together on this. Unfortunately, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who was one of the first women, if not the first woman, first victim, to speak up and speak out, she wrote the book, nobody's Girl is Not with us anymore.

All of this was too consuming, too overwhelming. I know there's a lot going on nowadays. There's so many different stories. We have breaking news in the palm of our hand. It feels like whiplash. It's hard to make sense of all of this. It feels way too heavy, so it's natural not to pay attention to some stories, especially when.

Your greatest worry is how are you going to put food on the table for your family? So you might have heard about this story over the last several years or the last several weeks, and you might have a perspective, but I think it's also natural to think, well, what can I do about it as I listen to the victims sharing their story and the news coverage?

I wondered that as well. I was like, what can I do? I've called my government representation in DC and at the state level, I voiced my opinion, but also realize I have this podcast. It's a platform. It's not as big as Joe Rogan's, although one could argue that the messages we share here on whole again.

Should be even bigger than Joe Rogan's podcast. But I digress. As I mentioned upfront, today's episode is not a political episode. I didn't wanna share the whole timeline of all the different events go into the legal analysis or the political analysis. I'm gonna let other people do that. I simply wanted to use this platform.

In this episode to bring awareness to the victims because I do believe all of us, all of us, should have an opportunity to heal and feel whole again and to invite you if you're so inclined and you live in the US, to call your representation in DC and at the state level to ask for greater transparency.

In hopes that it will help these women heal. These women are not the only victims, as you know of sex trafficking in the US and worldwide. This is a much larger problem that many of us don't realize how big it is. It's run by men who are powerful and rich, and they use this power. To take advantage of people without such power instead of using their resources to create a world that's more peaceful and compassionate and healing.

Because from that place of healing, we can do other things that create greater. I also want to invite other men and other girl dads specifically. To use their platform. Perhaps you have a podcast, perhaps you have a blog or a men's group, and help create more awareness on this story to keep the pressure on our leaders to bring more transparency because you believe the victim's story, their voice, their lives matter, that you believe we all matter.

Each and every one of us has the right, the birthright to feel whole, to walk this planet feeling healthy and healed and safe and hold those who use their power and wealth in a cruel, dehumanizing way that abuses others to hold them to account. To the responsibility of their actions. So I encourage you to speak up and speak out in the way that you can because it's only through our collective voices that we create change that matters.

And with your voice. Also advocate for leaders who speak to our better angels that find ways for us to come together in our tsui spirit. To help us appreciate that our scars, knowing that the wounds that came before the scars were really painful and that pain may never, ever go away. But our scars are symbols of our strength and resilience that we can mend, we can heal, we can feel whole again, and we can move forward together.

So that is my invitation for today's episode if you've made it this far. Thank you for listening. It's not your typical episode here on whole again. But when I get to the end of my life and I look back, I wish to look back knowing that in moments when others needed people to step up to support them. I can say I use my platform to bring awareness and to invite action that will help those who have been previously marginalized, feel seen.

I don't expect everyone to share all my different perspectives, but I do wish to invite people through this platform to take action. That creates the change they wish to see in the world, to create a ripple effect that helps people feel whole again, because from this place of healing, we can do amazing things together.

As always, thanks for being here. Thank you for being part of our community.

And if you wish to learn more about creating beautiful ripples and how to prevent a bad moment from turning into a bad day, please visit my website, Michael O'Brien schiff.com. And sign up for my newsletter called The Ripple Effect, and join us each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday here at Whole Again, and discover how you can heal, grow, and become more resilient and celebrate our scars as golden symbols of strength and resilience.

Until then, remember, you can always come back to your breath. You've got this. And. We've got you.