We sit down with our friend Dr. Eliza Sampey, a physical therapist and former pro bikepacking racer, to tell the unglamorous truth about concussion and TBI recovery when you lose sport, stability, and parts of your identity overnight. We connect the physiology of brain injury to the lived reality of sensory overload, emotional swings, broken support systems, and the slow work of building a functional life again.

Link to Liz's work and you can connect with her on social through here too https://elizasampey.com/

• Liz’s path from lifelong adventure athlete to PT and concussion specialist for endurance athletes
• What bikepack racing demands and why self-sufficiency matters after injury
• How a single crash can create amnesia plus long-term symptoms without loss of consciousness
• The neurometabolic cascade and why the brain hits an energy crisis
• Five key systems that get disrupted: autonomic, metabolic, neck, oculomotor, vestibular
• Why people “look fine” while daily tasks like stores, screens, and driving become brutal
• What caregivers can do early: reduce load, take over basics, encourage brain breaks
• How isolation and lack of validation can worsen mental health during recovery
• Why early intervention from a concussion-literate provider predicts better outcomes
• What persistent symptoms can mean and how rehab can still work years later
• How we think about CTE risk, repeated head injuries, and proactive brain health
• Where Liz works, who she helps, and what virtual rehab and mentorship looks like

If this episode resonates with you in any way, please share it. Please consider sharing on your social media, send it in a group text, send it to your coworkers, send it to your family, your friends, your kids. And also please leave the show a five-star written review.

Support the show

Warmly,
Nico Barraza
@FeedTheSoulNB
www.nicobarraza.com

We reconnect with Vanessa Bennett to talk about rebuilding life after wildfire loss, moving to Costa Rica with a young child, and what it takes to create real community when your nervous system is fried. We also get brutally honest about accountability, shame, and why desire alone does not equal relationship capacity.
• moving abroad as a family and choosing a bilingual education
• compassion fatigue after trauma and pulling back to heal
• rent gouging, ethics, and the stories people tell to avoid accountability
• parenting through the shame stage and separating behavior from identity
• conflict patterns, defensiveness, and setting boundaries without cruelty
• nervous system alignment as a predictor of compatibility
• desire versus capacity and what change actually requires
• reciprocal care, gift economy thinking, and letting misaligned relationships fade
• Vanessa’s work, The Motherhood Myth, and the Intercompass Academy depth psychology training

stick around, leave the show a five-star written review on Apple and Spotify.
please share the episode if it aligns with you and resonates with you in any way.

Check out Vanessa's Inner Compass Academy here: https://www.vanessabennett.com/inner-compass-academy

Buy her book here: https://www.amazon.com/Motherhood-Myth-Reimagining-Expectations-Partnership/dp/1649633416

Support the show

Warmly,
Nico Barraza
@FeedTheSoulNB
www.nicobarraza.com

We talk with grief researcher and bereavement policy specialist Cassidie Carmen Bates about why most workplaces are not built for loss, even though grief affects the brain, body, and performance. We unpack what “grief-informed” support looks like in real companies, and how better bereavement leave can improve retention while also protecting employees in their hardest season.

Links to Cassidie's work:

https://www.cassidiecarmenbates.com/

https://www.thesoulexecutor.com/

Topics covered during the show:

• why Cassidie moves from public policy into grief research after losing her dad at 25
• what “grief-informed” bereavement leave means beyond paid time off
• the US bereavement leave landscape and why many workers get about three unpaid days
• how manager training and workplace culture shape a bereaved employee’s experience
• employee loyalty and retention when companies support the acute phase of grief
• what goes wrong when leaders are dismissive and how that harm sticks
• the executor burden and how estate responsibilities can delay grieving
• grief in the body, delayed responses, and why compartmentalizing is not sustainable
• how Cassidie balances lived experience with research objectivity
• a gentle framework for what can actually help someone who is grieving

As always, if you guys dig the episode, if you dig any of the episodes, please leave Starve the Ego, Feed the Soul, a five-star written review on Apple and Spotify Podcasts. If you could do both, that'd be lovely.

Support the show

Warmly,
Nico Barraza
@FeedTheSoulNB
www.nicobarraza.com