A Contagious Smile Podcast
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A Contagious Smile Podcast
Stop surviving and start thriving. A Contagious Smile is a globally ranked podcast providing a safe haven for abuse survivors and special needs families navigating the journey of trauma recovery. Whether you are healing from domestic violence, narcissistic abuse, childhood trauma, or the daily chall...
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We Cannot Keep Pouring Into People Who Never Pour Back
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Some people call you a friend, then disappear the second you stop being convenient. We get blunt about that kind of fake loyalt...
When A Medium Nails The Details with special guests Danniel Worthen Cullumber and Gvnage Mishipeshu
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A stranger says one word that stops us cold: “hands.” Danielle Worthen Columber has never met us, never heard our backstory, an...
This Is What It Takes with special guest Daniel Ryan Cotler, Psychological Warfare In Intimate Relationships
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The most dangerous abuse is often the kind nobody can photograph. We talk with Daniel Ryan Cotler, author of *Voiceless No More...
Amir Arison: The Kind of Human the World Needs More Of
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A kid who has endured more surgeries than most adults can fathom sits beside a mother who refuses to let trauma be the last wor...
Amir Arison Beyond The Blacklist: Why Faith's Poetry Touched His Heart
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A few lines of poetry can hit harder than a whole hour of advice, and that’s exactly how we choose to end this one. We wrap up...
Care Coalition Caregiving Guests of Kellan Fluckinger
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When you’re trying to keep a loved one safe, get the right diagnosis, or survive a crisis, the healthcare system can feel less...
A Medium Names The Missing Hand
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She said one word that changed the whole room: hands. Danielle Worthing Columber had never met Victoria before, didn’t know her...
What A Roast Reveals About How We See Ourselves
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You’re getting a front-row seat to a special kind of family chaos: we hand the mic to the crew, announce a roast of Michael, an...
Schizophrenia And The Long Road Back
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A schizophrenia diagnosis can feel like your future just collapsed into one terrifying question: what happens now? We talk with...
Five Hard Truths About Caregiving Rights And Advocacy
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“HIPAA” gets blamed for everything, families get shut out, and a loved one in crisis gets reduced to a label and a sedative. We...
Breaking The Silence On Abuse
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A lot of people say they want survivors to “speak up” until the story gets messy, angry, and specific. We go there. We talk abo...
Standing Tall Through Pain And Change
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Caregiver resilience stories come alive when you laugh through the hard moments. Your body can outpace your mind, and when scia...
You Can Stop Giving Your Happiness Away
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When Anil Gupta's wife heard "we're homeless," she smiled. That single reaction becomes the foundation for trauma recovery, not...
When Civil Liberties Collide with Survival with special guest Mark Astor
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When love alone won't stop the spiral, families need answers. A parent's worst nightmare: substance use disorder and mental ill...
A Private Message From Grandparents And A Skeptic’s Reaction
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One conversation can shake your certainty, even if you’re the type of person who normally needs proof. We sit down and tell the...
How Matthew Dixon Recovered From Schizophrenia And Biked Across Canada
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A schizophrenia diagnosis can feel like your life has been rewritten without your consent, and the hardest part is often the un...
When A Stranger Shares A Dark Secret
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A guy offers to help us move a table and chairs, and for a few minutes it feels like a normal neighborly moment. Then, out of n...
This Is What It Takes with Special Guest Rebecca Tuoni. Unbreakable Caregivers
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When trauma survivors stop seeking help, the system has failed. Michael Mackniak and Victoria Cuore share how retraumatization...
A Life Built On Miracles, Work Ethic, And Showing Up with Very Special Guest, Amir Arison
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Domestic violence recovery and caregiver resilience aren't one-time breakthroughs; they're built day by day. This week, we sit...
Brave Conquer Fear Interview with Cheryl Preheim of NBC 11Aive and Faith
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When doctors told Faith's family to "let her go," they chose courage instead. NBC journalist Cheryl Preheim sits down to discus...
This Is What It Takes with Michael Mackniak and Victoria Cuore. People Stop Seeking Help When The System Stops Listening
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The moment “help” makes you feel smaller, unheard, or more afraid, something in the system has already failed. We sit with the...
Why We Go Off Script And Talk Real Life
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Michael and Victoria reveal why A Contagious Smile stays unscripted on purpose, because trauma recovery and caregiver resilienc...
Why Families Get Lost In Healthcare Systems And How To Fight Back with Michael Mackniak and Victoria Cuore
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When special needs families fight healthcare systems, they're told they're doing everything wrong, while goalposts keep moving....
Launching A Mental Health Support Network With Real Resources
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Healing from trauma and abuse doesn't happen alone. In this episode, we explore how to build and access real mental health supp...
Building A Free Mental Health Resource Network For Caregivers with Michael Mackniak
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A Mother Remembers Her Son And Rebuilds Life After Opioid Loss with Katie Rizzo
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One phone call. One prescription. One life split into before and after. Katie Rizzo, a former AP biology teacher, lost her firs...
Ripple Retreat with guest JJ Holley, A Veteran who lives to pay it forward
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JJ Holley spent seven years rebuilding his life. Now, in a historic farmhouse in Maine, he's building something bigger: Ripple...
A New Partnership For Trauma-Informed Mental Health Support with Michael Mackniak
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The scariest part of a mental health crisis isn’t always the symptoms. It’s the moment you realise nobody is talking to each ot...
Leaving An Abusive Relationship Starts With A Safety Plan
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Surviving abuse feels impossible, but leaving without a plan can be even more dangerous. In this episode, our hosts dig into th...
TikTok Toilets And A Very Bad Diastat Day
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One phone call can flip your whole world. We start with real life and real laughs, then move into the kind of story that makes...
What If Overworking Is A Trauma Reflex
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Burnout does not always look like falling apart. Sometimes it looks like answering messages at midnight, working seven days a w...
Five Packs Of Grits And A Side Of Reality
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When Michael's A1C hits 9, denial stops working. In this raw conversation, we explore how trauma survivors and caregivers navig...
Friending: A Real-World Cure For Loneliness
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Loneliness doesn’t always look like sadness. Sometimes it looks like a full contact list, nonstop group chats, and a Friday nig...
The Man Behind the Badge joins us with special guest Eric Robinson
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A lot of people want the wild FBI stories. We wanted the part that lingers after the story ends, what the work does to your ner...
Coffee Beans, Misheard Words, And A Very Honest Marriage
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A Broadway-directing Hollywood powerhouse drops in, tells Michael he’s flat-out wrong about being “bad at podcasting,” and then...
Arim Arison Tells Michael about how great he is at Podcasting
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How Narcissistic Parents Lose Control When You Heal
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Some people don’t hate you because of what you did. They hate you because you healed, and now they can’t control you. Tonight w...
You Can Rebuild Safety With Small Daily Steps with Guest Joshua Hess
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Somebody can be sitting in an urgent care exam room with bruises, fear, and an abuser answering every question and still have n...
We Tried To Help His Dad And Uncovered A Nightmare
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He’s supposed to be “Dad” and he’s supposed to be safe. Then one phone call turns into months of ambulance rides, doctor appoin...
Teaching Responsibility Without Shame
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Responsibility sounds like a boring word until life makes it personal. We kick things off with a question we’ve all wrestled wi...