Death is something we all experience, yet we seem to avoid talking about it until just before we are face to face with death itself. At Stand Up Speak Up, this is a topic close to our hearts. Diagnosed with Stage 4 Breast Cancer in October 2019, our co-founder Karla has been actively trying to find peace with the life she has lived and her eventual death. 

That’s why Karla is bringing her listeners along on her NEW series called “What Happens Next?”

After three years of living with cancer, Karla has hit a roadblock marked by many questions - What happens next? Why am I still alive? What makes a life worth living? Why are we so hard on ourselves? What stops us from finding love, joy, peace? Why is death not talked about more? What happens after we die?

In this series premiere episode, we focus not on death itself, but on preparing for it. We prepare for the arrival of new babies and weddings with showers, and sometimes even throw parties for divorces, so why do we so often leave the plans for commemorating our deaths in the hands of others? 

Come along as your host Karla Stephens-Tolstoy sits down for the first time with Death Doula, Grief Educator and Celebrant Doreen Thibert, who founded One Thread Consulting and offers services for both those preparing for their own deaths as well as for the loved ones they leave behind.

At the age of seven, Doreen experienced her first death: her 80-year-old grandmother. The passing left an immense imprint on Doreen, not only because of the sadness, but because of the community feeling of her loved ones coming together. It was that feeling that would grow into a life-long interest to support others through the dying process and change the narrative surrounding death from one of sadness and fear to one focused on how death is a shared life experience. 

Throughout her 35-year career, Doreen has made a difference in many lives, including working alongside Mother Teresa and the Sisters of Charity in India, fundraising supplies for orphanages in Romania, and providing medical supplies in Afghanistan. Doreen has also worked as a nurse, in key positions with the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, and as Education Coordinator at the Hospice of Windsor and Essex County. 

Host: Karla Stephens-Tolstoy

Editor: Jonnica Hill

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In this episode, your host Karla Stephens-Tolstoy will take you along for her first resonance training & relational neuroscience session with Sarah, a neuroscience educator and author.

Sarah’s dedication to transforming our brains into kinder, cozier places to live began after struggling with depression herself. Before she knew the science, she found herself constantly battling a self-critical inner voice that left her feeling worthless, stupid, unlovable, and thinking it simply meant she was broken. 

In her early studies of nonviolent communication and neuroscience, she was amazed by how much sweetness and self-compassion was possible when you connect to your body sensations, feelings and needs. She then apprenticed for five years with Susan Skye (a psychologist, long-time NVC trainer, and creator of the groundbreaking New Depths Intensive Program) who pioneered the time-travel empathy process.

Now Sarah offers online courses, events, private sessions, as well as meditations, videos and blog posts to help others make sense of their behaviours and get past the stigma that what we’ve seen as emotional difficulties or character defects are actually very normal reactions to relational, cultural and intergenerational trauma. 

She has also published three books, Your Resonant Self, Your Resonant Self Workbook, and Affirmations for Turbulent Times, and offers a Practitioner of Resonant Healing Training and Certification Program. 

Host: Karla Stephens-Tolstoy

Editor: Jonnica Hill

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To most people, Brea seemed to have it all. She was a great student and talented athlete who moved from Ontario to New Jersey following high school to play varsity soccer at Princeton University. But, in the years after graduating, Brea’s journey would become one of pain, isolation and even homelessness. 

Brea’s health seriously declined with insomnia, exertion intolerance, autoimmunity and significant gut issues. Eventually, her health declined further into severe chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), mould illness (CIRS), mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS), food sensitivities and multiple chemical sensitivities (MCS). 

With dozens of debilitating symptoms, including overwhelming fatigue, chronic pain, headaches, face swelling, vertigo and more, Brea was bedridden most days. She never seemed to get any real answers from doctors, despite trying every conventional, holistic and functional medicine treatment available.

Brea’s health got worse, by 2018, she had moved away from her husband and kids to camp alone in the California desert and chase pristine air. It was during her second time in this desert isolation when her story took an unexpected turn and she was introduced to self-directed neuroplasticity (AKA: brain retraining). 

Brea learned that her symptoms were not caused by the environment but by her brain overreacting to everyday stimuli, called Limbic System Impairment. Following the Dynamic Neural Retraining System (DNRS) program, she was able to rewire her brain and heal her body. Today, Brea is happy, healthy and reunited with her children - and now she’s helping others, including Karla, find the same life-changing healing as a brain retraining coach.

This is an inspiring story of resilience, positivity and fighting the odds. This is Brea’s Story.

Editor: Jonnica Hill

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For the past 30 years, Ashleigh Banfield has been consistently one of the most acclaimed anchors in television news, and one of television’s top crime journalists. In her most recent role, Ashleigh hosted Primetime Justice with Ashleigh Banfield on HLN. Just prior to hosting this program on HLN, she anchored Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield on its sister network, CNN.

She joined CNN in 2011 as co-anchor of the morning news show Early Start. Over the course of her career, she has covered breaking news from across the country and around the globe. Banfield has reported from the scenes of the bombing at the Boston Marathon in Massachusetts and the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Banfield also reported live from the trials of George Zimmerman, Jodi Arias and Casey Anthony, bringing to light the complicated courtroom proceedings of each case, including questions regarding the death penalty.

Banfield was previously a correspondent for ABC News, reporting for Good Morning America, 20/20, World News with Diane Sawyer, and Nightline.

Prior to ABC, Banfield anchored and hosted three programs on TruTV (formerly Court TV) including a daily legal news program Banfield and Ford: Courtside; the weekly evening show Hollywood Heat; and the successful primetime special series that she created and co-produced, Disorder in the Court. In 2008, the Gracie Allen Awards named her Outstanding Anchor, recognizing her achievement at Court TV. Her Banfield and Ford: Courtside program coverage of the – Rhode Island Nightclub Fire — earned a Telly Award in 2007. As a correspondent for NBC News from 2000-2004, Banfield reported for The Today Show, NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw, and Dateline. Banfield covered the terrorist attacks of September 11th, reporting live from Ground Zero as the events unfolded, which earned her an Emmy Award nomination. After nine consecutive days at Ground Zero, Banfield departed for Islamabad, Pakistan to begin covering the War on Terror. From September 2001 to January 2004, she reported live from Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, England, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Saudi Arabia. This work earned Banfield and her team a National Headliner Award.

During this time, she also anchored several primetime series on MSNBC, including A Region In Conflict and Ashleigh Banfield: On Location. Her most noted interviews include Yasser Arafat, Israeli Prime Ministers Ehud Barak and Shimon Peres, Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, members of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, Saudi Prince Al Faisal, Laura Bush, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Martha Stewart, John McCain, Sarah Jessica Parker, Jane Fonda, Ben Stiller, Rosie O’Donnell, Donald Trump, Kevin Spacey and Bryan Cranston.

Prior to MSNBC, Banfield served as the evening news anchor for KDFW-TV, the FOX affiliate in Dallas. While there, she received her first Emmy Award for “Best News Anchor” for her coverage on the “Cadet Killer,” and a Texas Associate Press Award for the series “To Serve and Survive.” Banfield also worked at Canada’s CICT-TV, as a producer from 1992-93 and from 1993-95 as their evening news anchor and business correspondent. In 1994, Banfield earned two IRIS awards for the “Best News Documentary” and “Best of Festival” categories, where she chronicled the life of a homeless man.

Before, and during, her tenure at CICT-TV, Banfield freelanced as an associate producer for ABC’s World News Tonight, where she covered the 1991 Bush/Gorbachev Summit in Russia and the 1992 Clinton/Yeltsin Summit in Vancouver. Banfield received a bachelor’s degree in political studies and French from Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada.

In 1992, she continued her language education in an Advanced French Studies program at the University of British Columbia. In 2009, she earned a Journalism Law School fellowship from Loyola Law School in California.

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Human trafficking is a hard conversation to have, as most of us would like to think we have nothing in common with people who sell other people or those that exploit humans in any way. But, the reality is that this is a thriving business throughout the world, in every country, state and many communities that otherwise seem safe and quiet.

We try to get into the minds of the players in the sex trade - from the pimps that find and exploit people, to johns that buy sex, to people involved and forced into the trade. 

Host: Karla Stephens-Tolstoy

Co-Host: Matt Cundill

Co-Producers: Danielle Gallagher, Jessica de Bruyn

Editors: Cesar Del Castillo & Matt Cundill

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Karla Stephens-Tolstoy, the founder of Stand Up Speak Up, continues to share her fight in battling Stage 4 cancer. She courageously shares Karla’s medical journey from all sides of the disease, her life, and her extensive support group of devoted family and friends. But even as she continues the struggle for her life, Karla also continues her concern for foster care reform, a passionate cause that she can’t let go of.

Karla reveals both good news and bad news concerning her diagnosis. She talks about the medication she’s had to endure, the medical trials she’s been a part of and even the use of cannabis as part of her treatment. And she manages to talk about it all while maintaining her sense of humour throughout. Also maintaining a sense of humour is her nurse, Erin DeJong, who once again conducts the conversation as it unfolds.

Executive Producer: Karla Stephens Tolstoy

Interviewer: Erin DeJong

Narrator: Peter Anthony Holder

Production Editor & Sound: Peter Anthony Holder

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Karla's favourite skin line: https://www.madeforskin.com/ - This is not a promo plug, Stand Up Speak Up does not benefit at all from any purchases.

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Welcome to My Boobs Are Killing Me. A podcast brought to you by Stand Up Speak Up founder Karla Stephens-Tolstoy who shares with us the journey of her life with stage four cancer and the amazing individuals that inspire her along the way.

Looking at Sandra Doweck, one would think she has it all – a thriving business, a community ambassador, a gorgeous family and looks like she has had an easy life. Sandra does have it all, but it has been hard to get to where she is today. Sandra’s journey to where she is today is nothing short of a struggle. She had a tough childhood – a disciplinarian father, a mother with a disability that was never recognized or diagnosed and a past victim of sexual abuse.

Sandra shares with Karla that living by the rule of not blaming anyone and knowing it is up to her to make the necessary changes is why she is where she is today. Despite Sandra’s hardships, she is a motivated go-getter and will not accept anything mediocre in any part of her life.

A podcast interview to inspire anyone to not let life’s past challenges determine your future and learn that taking care of yourself is key to leading the life you want.

Executive Producer: Karla Stephens Tolstoy

Interviewer: Sandra Doweck Production

Editor & Sound: Amanda D'Souza

Narrator: Amanda D'Souza

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Karla Stephens Tolstoy believes in revealing the truth and getting the real story out there. For the past two years, her Stand Up Speak Up Podcast has told the stories of those who had been neglected or forgotten by mainstream society. While recording these episodes, Karla was fighting her own battle to be heard against doctors and medical professionals. She knew something was wrong but couldn't get answers beyond "it is all in your head". Finally, in October 2018, Karla was told her own truth - She had Stage 4 Breast Cancer and it had spread throughout her body.

My Boobs Are Killing Me is a no-holds-barred, raw account of what it is like to live with cancer. Karla brings her fierceness and no-f*cks-given humour to conversations about the worst and best that this journey has brought to her life.

Sit back and enjoy as Karla sips her chemo cocktail and chats with her nurse, Erin DeJong. Karla has told many people’s stories in podcast form. This story is her’s.

Executive Producer: Karla Stephens Tolstoy

Interviewer: Erin DeJong

Production Editor & Sound: Peter Anthony Holder

Narrator: Peter Anthony Holder

Music: Carl England - HitWorksWest / caroline_joy

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Dr. David Bernstein is a well-respected, highly educated professional who has held appointments at Yale University School of Medicine, where he completed his doctoral internship, and Harvard University Medical School, where he completed his postdoctoral residency in Forensic Psychology in the Department of Law and Psychiatry. Anyone who has come into contact with him can be forgiven for thinking that this highly intelligent professional probably grew up in a life of privilege which enabled him to go to the best schools. 

But the reality is this strong advocate for working to correct the Foster Care System is himself a product of it. David’s life started as an abandoned child, discovered on a New York City park bench in his infancy. He became a Ward of the State, going from foster home to foster home, often running away from the abusive situations where he actually felt safer living on the streets or in abandoned buildings.

The Foster Care System is often been referred to as a vicious cycle of abuse and neglect. It’s known to be difficult to leave the world of poverty, teen pregnancy, sex abuse and crime behind. Those who manage to escape its harsh grip rarely look back. 

But David Bernstein did. He has confronted his past and is trying to make a better future for those who currently follow in his foster care footsteps. He consults with federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies. He’s an expert in threat assessment and violence, able to tap into the instincts he honed as a child growing up homeless.

Host: Karla Stephens Tolstoy 

Co-Producer: Jessica de Bruyn

Production Editor & Sound: Peter Anthony Holder

Narrator: Peter Anthony Holder

Music: What You’re Mad Of by Kayla Diamond www.slaightmusic.com/music-we-dig#!kayla-diamond

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This is the second part of a two-part series featuring the charismatic founder of The Club Kids, Michael Alig. 

The Club Kids were a group of young, flamboyant New York City underground dance club personalities in the late 1980s and early 1990s, who were also heavily involved in the drug culture.

Alig spent 17 years behind bars for his part in a brutal drug-induced murder in 1996 when he and roommate Robert "Freeze" Riggs murdered a third roommate, drug dealer Andre "Angel" Melendez, using a hammer. They poured drain cleaner down his throat and kept the lifeless body of their roommate in their apartment for days before finally getting butcher knives to dismember him, disposing of the body in separate locations in the river.

That murder and the partying lifestyle that led up to it was the subject of the movie, Party Monster, starring Macauley Culkin as Alig. 

In this second part, Alig recounts his relationship with his mother, discusses what kind of person he would like to be in a relationship with, talks drug use, and also his creative plans for the future.

Host: Karla Stephens Tolstoy 

Co-Producer: Jessica de Bruyn Production

Editor & Sound: Peter Anthony Holder

Narrator: Peter Anthony Holder

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Michael Alig is a complex character. He’s the charismatic founder of the Club Kids, a group of young, flamboyant New York City underground dance club personalities in the late 1980s and early 1990s. They wore outrageous costumes and were on the scene to be seen, setting an artistic standard for the fashion-conscious youth culture.  But they were also part of the drug culture, with many of the Club Kids becoming addicted. The party-hardy heavy drug use caused a spiral in Alig’s life. 

In 1996, he and roommate Robert "Freeze" Riggs killed a third roommate, drug dealer Andre "Angel" Melendez during an argument over drugs. Alig and Riggs brutally murdered Melendez with a hammer. They poured drain cleaner down his throat and kept the lifeless body of their roommate in their apartment for days before finally getting butcher knives to dismember him, disposing of the body in separate locations in the river. But they were eventually caught, partly due to Alig’s bragging about it openly. 

He spent 17 years behind bars. Now a free man and back in New York, we catch up with Alig as he tries to rebuild his life. 

In this first part of a two-show series, Michael discusses the notoriety he’s achieved, both as the founder of the Club Kids and also his incarceration for murder, plus he delves into his life behind bars and his attempts to creatively turn his life around.

Host: Karla Stephens Tolstoy 

Co-Producer: Jessica de Bruyn

Production Editor & Sound: Peter Anthony Holder

Narrator: Peter Anthony Holder

Music: Evil I Know by Ascot Royals www.slaightmusic.com/music-we-dig#!ascot-royals

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