Host Dave Roberts introduces the Teaching Journeys podcast and interviews rehabilitation consultant and author Val Walker about her book “Healing Through Wonder: How Awe Restores Us After Trauma and Loss.” Walker describes a lifelong sense of wonder and how neuroscience and positive psychology research validate awe as a healing, resilience-building trait. She outlines the Awe Experience Scale criteria, including vastness, altered time, physical sensations, oneness, inexplicability, and the “small self,” and emphasizes cultivating everyday awe and sharing awe stories for lasting benefits. Walker recounts a pivotal late-1970s moment when a great blue heron interrupted a suicide attempt after domestic violence and grief, inspiring lifelong heron symbolism. She summarizes four profiles in her book involving awe turning points. Walker also discusses her Healing Through Wonder YouTube storytelling channel and provides websites for contact and resources.

Val’s Bio and Contact Information

Val Walker is a rehabilitation consultant and blogger for Psychology Today and the Health Story Collaborative. She is the author of The Art of Comforting, a Nautilus Book Award Gold Winner, and 400 Friends and No One to Call. With a Master of Science degree in rehabilitation counseling from Virginia Commonwealth University, she has led support groups and workshops for twenty-five years for people living with illness, disability, grief, and trauma. She lives in Boston and speaks throughout New England at human services agencies, medical centers, hospices, and universities.

Social Media Links:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/val-walker-11628b21/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61579292450531#

X: https://x.com/ValWalkerAuthor

YouTube Healing Through Wonder Channel:

https://www.youtube.com/@WonderforLiving

Author website: https://valwalkerauthor.com

Healing Through Wonder website: https://healingthroughwonder.com

To connect with Dave, go to davidrobsertsmsw.com

Host Dave Roberts introduces the Teaching Journeys podcast and interviews Becca Pearce, a former Maryland state exchange CEO appointed in 2011 to implement the Affordable Care Act. Becca describes building the agency from nothing, enrolling 300,000 previously uninsured people, then losing her job publicly after an IT system failure, which shattered her identity. Fourteen months later she learned she had a ping-pong-ball-sized brain tumor, underwent a 12-hour surgery, and faced major recovery, which deepened her understanding of vulnerability and prompted her to reassess success and balance. She discusses her book, You Don’t Have to Achieve to be Loved, and explains her coaching approach, emphasizing that time is life’s key nonrenewable resource.

Becca's Bio and Contact Information

Becca Pearce understands firsthand how hard change can be Two life-altering events forced her to realize that what she once wanted no longer felt right. The resulting journey reshaped her path, upending everything she had believed about success and happiness.

Over the last twelve years, Becca has learned the value of vulnerability, the importance of optimism and the imperative to find the life you want to live now because we're never promised tomorrow. A former CEO and state official, she is now the president of Extend Coaching & Consulting, a firm dedicated to helping people find the courage to live the life they've been dreaming of.

Connect with Becca:

Website: morebeccaopearce.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/beccapearce/

To connect with Dave, go to davidrobertsmsw.com

Host Dave Roberts interviews Steve Moore, an award-winning author and licensed clinical professional counselor with 25+ years of experience and 35 years of continuous sobriety. Moore shares his early life in a German orphanage, adoption, abandonment into foster care and a psychiatric hospital, and an abusive childhood followed by life with an alcoholic, PTSD-affected adoptive father. He describes his progression into heavy drinking, Air Force service, and entering treatment on October 10, 1990 after a doctor warned of severe liver damage. Moore discusses his work through moresobriety.com helping people heal emotional wounds, shame, grief, trauma, and core beliefs, reframing relapse as a learning opportunity, and using tools like gratitude lists and the “stop sign” method. He also uses songwriting/poetry for healing, highlights fellowship’s role, reflects on nearly relapsing after his wife’s death in 2024, and explains his book “34 Years Sober” on sustaining long-term recovery.

Bio and Contact Information

Steve Moore is an award-winning author, licensed clinical professional counselor, and Master Addictions Counselor with over 25 years of clinical experience and more than 35 years of continuous sobriety.

Steve is the founder of mooresobriety.com where he helps individuals heal emotional wounds, reduce shame, and build lasting recovery grounded in self-awareness, compassion, and personal responsibility.

He is the author of four books exploring grief, addiction, shame, and family systems, and his work is shaped by both clinical practice and lived experience. At the core of his philosophy is a powerful belief: you can’t go home, until you’ve gone home—a reminder that unresolved childhood experiences often influence adult relationships, self-worth, and coping behaviors.

In addition to his clinical work, Steve is also a songwriter who uses poetry and music as tools for healing childhood trauma, and he teaches clients how to access creativity as a pathway to emotional recovery. His songs can be found on his You Tube Channel “Songs and Melodies Productions”.

A veteran-informed speaker and educator, Steve blends psychology, whole-health recovery principles, and personal narrative to foster clarity, resilience, and sustainable personal growth.

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Website: https://www.mooresobriety.com

Email: serenity_counseling_services@outlook.com

LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/steven-a-moore-lcpc-ncc-mac-506a6034

Facebook Profile: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61578391686586

Instagram Profile: https://www.instagram.com/samwv_u1982/