Cindy Schwartz is the host of Out Loud, a storytelling podcast where the mic is passed to the lived experiences of everyday women.
It's where we talk about hard subjects, Out Loud.
As a professional coach, Cindy has spent years bearing witness to deeply personal and nuanced stories. No matter the circumstance, the common theme that consistently emerges: resilience and liberation.
She created Out Loud from the belief that in today's world we need to feel heard, and we also need to hear the stories of others. Listening to lived experiences helps us better understand our own lives and reminds us that we belong to something bigger than ourselves.
In each episode, a woman shares a story that is hers to tell. Together, Cindy and her guest uncover the wisdom within these moments and brings those insights forward to be shared, Out Loud.
Ardra Shephard has spent decades learning to live with a body that doesn't always play by the rules. But MS is only one part of her story, and it certainly doesn't define all of it.
On this author series episode of Out Loud, I sit down with Ardra, one of Canada's leading MS advocates and influencers, to talk about her memoir, Fallosophy.
We get into letting go of the life you imagined, where her fierce sense of self comes from, and why we treat exhaustion as a badge of honour. And then there's Ardra's writing. With such clever prose and a wicked sense of humour, she somehow turns a story about an MS diagnosis into a ROM COM.
At its heart, Fallosophy is a coming-of-age story. It's deeply inspiring for people living with disabilities, but its themes of identity, acceptance, and figuring out how to live when life doesn't go to plan have parallels for all of us.
Ardra brings candour and grit to the hard stuff, without asking for pity or pretending it's easy.
What struck me most was how unbelievably relatable Ardra is, and how easy it felt to go deep with her. We covered a lot of ground, so you don't want to miss this special conversation. ❤️
Ardra's book: https://douglas-mcintyre.com/products/9781771624305?srsltid=AU7gw4XYwmUz_X-kLKBbSnC4hDI8qDKmyM_RMEIv-fKwOthM_AZgkod6
Ardra's instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ms_trippingonair/
Ardra's website: https://trippingonair.com/
30 Sept 2026
The Nudist Awakening
What if the thing that finally helped you love yourself was… taking your clothes off?
Lyane spent most of her life believing her body was something to fix.
Years of doing anything at any cost to finally feel comfortable in her own skin.
Something her mother said in the final days of her life shifted everything. Lyane slowly started questioning the beliefs she had held her whole life and began looking for a different way to see herself and her life.
Then an influencer suggested something that sounded completely outside her comfort zone: try doing yoga at home naked.
So she did.
And it opened up her curiosity about what else might happen if she was willing to try something unconventional.
What followed was a journey into naturism with her husband, some hilarious early experiences, and eventually a trip together to a naturist resort that Lyane describes as life changing.
But what happened there went far beyond getting comfortable being naked. By giving herself permission to do something unconventional, Lyane discovered a completely different way of seeing herself. And that freedom began to spill into every part of her life.
This is a conversation about courage, curiosity and the unexpected ways we can liberate ourselves when we're willing to step outside the rules we've been living by.
Come for the nudism. Stay for the liberation.
16 Sept 2026
Humanitarienne with Dr Kirsten Johnson
Humanitarienne with Dr. Kirsten Johnson
What happens when the girl who once lived in a punk rock house, survived on odd jobs and soup kitchens, and didn't even finish high school goes on to become a physician, scholar and humanitarian?
That is just the beginning of Kirsten Johnson's extraordinary story.
In Humanitarienne, Kirsten takes us from a difficult childhood and a teenage search for somewhere to belong, through a life of risk, adventure and service across the globe. From a kibbutz in Israel to refugee camps on the Thai-Burma border, the killing fields of Darfur, earthquake-ravaged Haiti, the Canadian Arctic and the front lines of global health, she keeps following the same instinct: go where the need is greatest and figure out how to help.
But this isn't just a book about the places Kirsten has been or the things she's survived. It's about the woman those experiences created.
We talk about the young woman who was desperate to escape, the experiences that taught her she could navigate the world, and the many places where she found pieces of belonging along the way. We talk about near-death experiences, absorbing fragments of other people's pain, motherhood and guilt, and the complicated reality of working inside systems designed to help people that don't always get it right.
And eventually, Kirsten stops asking how she can keep responding to broken systems and starts asking how she can change them. The impact she made on the world and the lives she touched will forever define her legacy
This is a story about courage, purpose, belonging, worth and what it means to build a life that actually feels like your own.
Kirsten thoughtfully asks; What does it mean to live a meaningful life?
Join us for this first episode of the Author Series, to find out.
Humanitarienne is published by Douglas & McIntyre.
https://douglas-mcintyre.com/products/9781771624862?srsltid=AfmBOoo5rkmCjbLng9oidmq0yyKi5gBc81WHtpzwyfIMVjuT79slwMAD
Kirsten's instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kirstenjohnsonexplorer/
Kirsten's clinic: https://medalma.com/
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5.0 / 5
21 ratings
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