It’s the Season 1 Finale!

Here’s your chance to meet the super star behind this podcast’s theme song, Hardcore Believer!

Courageous, smart, and ebullient, Courtney Santana joins Co-Hosts Andrea Palm and Aaron to talk about Courtney’s new album, Living Through It All – get this album! We also hear about Courtney’s decades of activism for survivors of intimate partner violence and her harcore resilience.

In a two-fer, this week, you get two final segments.

First, Gamer Corner features Drew Crecente speaking with game designers Damian Hadyi and his daughter Miranda Hadyi Olmedo from 2GEN Team about their award winning game Wasteland of Eloquence.

Last, in the Teacher Hot Tip, Stephanie Yuen (a previous guest and my sister!) offers advice on prioritizing the journey over the goal; how’d she get so smart?

Cynthia Caro built her career on helping victims of violence get safe and helping to hold offenders accountable. As important as those roles are, she still ranks Mom as her most important.

Listen to how she developed an informed point of view in working with offenders seeking to turn a corner and has used many of those lessons learned and core beliefs to inform her approach to that most important job.

In the Teacher Hot Tip, theater teacher Rachel Mullins expresses the true value of learning, working in and enjoying the theater for young people, and, well, all of us.

It’s even more of a family affair this week, with Aaron co-opting the podcast to talk with his sister Stephanie Yuen and her son -- and more importantly Aaron’s nephew, Avery.

Fans of the Healing Arts from the Borderland Podcast may recognize Avery as the sage at the end of every episode offering his unique take on life. He joins as co-host in this episode as Stephanie walks – er, runs – us through her passion for teaching, approaches to fostering empathy, re-focusing young people on process more than the end result, and overall showing off her going-on-two-decades-worth of teaching expertise.

Jessica Malone provides this week’s Teacher Hot Tip: using the romance novel as a method for cultivating healthy self-images of teens.