In this episode of Hope Illuminated, I welcome Laura Putnam, author, speaker, and founder of Motion Infusion, for a rich conversation about what it actually takes to change mental health culture at scale. The central argument: one-off awareness campaigns and individual-focused interventions, while valuable, are not sufficient to create lasting change. What’s needed is a tipping point and the key to reaching it lies with well-being multipliers at the team level.Laura draws on nearly two decades of experience training over 50,000 managers across 500+ organizations to make the case that team leaders, not HR departments, not C-suites, not awareness months, are the most leveraged point of intervention in any system. Gallup research shows that managers alone may account for up to 70% of the variance in team members’ engagement and well-being, yet more than 50% of managers report receiving zero training to support mental health.The conversation expands outward: from workplaces to households, from gym communities to faith groups, with both guests drawing parallels to the anti-smoking movement as a model for how collective accountability and systems-level change can create permanent culture shifts. Laura’s framework — Do, Speak, Create — gives team leaders three actionable levers for becoming well-being multipliers. I connects this to my own work in suicide prevention and workplace psychological safety, reinforcing that this approach doesn’t just improve engagement metrics — it saves lives. For more information on this episode go to https://www.sallyspencerthomas.com/hope-illuminated-podcast/163

In this episode of Hope Illuminated, I sit down with Julia Hassell to explore what it really looks like to heal after profound loss.Julia’s story is both heartbreaking and deeply inspiring. After losing her father to suicide and navigating multiple losses in her family, she found herself on a path to understand trauma at a much deeper level. What she discovered challenged everything she thought she knew about mental health and healing.Together, we talk about how trauma lives in the body, why traditional talk therapy can sometimes fall short, and how approaches like brainspotting and somatic work can help us process what words cannot. We also explore the role of spirituality, continuing bonds with loved ones, and the powerful idea that pain can become a doorway to purpose.If you’ve ever felt stuck in your healing journey, this conversation offers both hope and a new way forward. For more information on this episode go to https://www.sallyspencerthomas.com/hope-illuminated-podcast/162

Many men struggle silently with grief, loneliness, identity loss, and moral injury. Social expectations often teach men to stay strong, stay productive, and stay quiet about pain.In this episode of Hope Illuminated, I speak with meaning-centered psychotherapist and logotherapist Baruch HaLevi (“Dr. B”) about how men’s groups help men transform suffering into purpose, connection, and resilience.Drawing from Viktor Frankl’s logotherapy, lived experience with suicide loss, and years of guiding men’s peer groups, Dr. B explains how meaning helps men move through life’s darkest chapters. For more information on this episode go to https://www.sallyspencerthomas.com/hope-illuminated-podcast/161

In today’s polarized social and political climate, leadership has become not only emotionally demanding but, in some cases, physically and psychologically dangerous. From targeted violence against corporate leaders to escalating threats toward public officials, judges, election workers, and lawmakers, leaders are operating under unprecedented scrutiny, hostility, and fear.In this episode of Hope Illuminated, I join Jeff Gorter, Vice President of Clinical Crisis Response at R3 Continuum, to explore what it truly means to lead under assault and how organizations can respond with clarity, compassion, and coordinated care when crises unfold in real time. This conversation weaves together stories, science, and strategy to illuminate how threat and violence ripple beyond individuals to impact the mental health of entire organizations and communities. For more information on this episode go to https://www.sallyspencerthomas.com/hope-illuminated-podcast/160

What if the warning signs of suicide were present but invisible to everyone around us?In this powerful and deeply human episode of Hope Illuminated, Dr. Sally Spencer-Thomas sits down with fellow sister-on-a-mission Kim Burditt Bartlett, MSW to explore the groundbreaking findings of the Black Box Project — a first-of-its-kind initiative using donated digital devices to better understand behavioral patterns preceding suicide.This conversation weaves together lived experience, science, and strategy. Kim brings the voice of a sibling loss survivor, a trauma-informed social worker, and a national leader translating cutting-edge research into actionable suicide prevention.Drawing from the 2025 Black Box Project White Paper released by Stop Soldier Suicide, this episode explores what phone data revealed that traditional prevention methods often miss and what that means for prevention, intervention, and postvention across veterans, workplaces, and communities. For more informatio on this episode go to https://www.sallyspencerthomas.com/hope-illuminated-podcast/159

When a suicide, overdose, or traumatic death happens in the workplace, the response in the first 48 hours can either stabilize the organization or unintentionally increase harm.Yet most workplaces have no clear postvention plan.In this Headspace for the Workplace conversation, Dr. John Gaal brings together lived experience, labor leadership, and research to explain why postvention is the missing leg of the three-legged stool of workplace mental health: prevention, intervention, and postvention.Drawing from decades of workforce development, construction industry data, and peer-reviewed research, this episode explores:

• What actually helps people in shock
• Why EAPs are often underutilized in crisis
• How trained peer supporters serve as “mental health first responders.”
• Why partnerships — not silos — save lives

We talk about what leaders must do when the unthinkable happens.
For more informationm on this episode go to https://www.sallyspencerthomas.com/headspace/84

In this special year-in-review episode, I reflect on a year of global travel, impact, and learning across workplace mental health, suicide prevention, clinical training, and lived-experience storytelling. Recorded for both Headspace for the Workplace and Hope Illuminated, this episode weaves together impact metrics, tools developed, global conferences, leadership lessons, partnerships, and deeply personal reflections on burnout, aging, grief, purpose, and hope. For more information on this episode go to https://www.sallyspencerthomas.com/hope-illuminated-podcast/158

We tell athletes to “shake it off,” “tough it out,” and “get back in the game.”
But what happens when the injury is inside the brain, quiet, cumulative, and deadly?In this episode of Hope Illuminated, Dr. John Gaal shares the devastating story of losing his 24-year-old son to suicide and the painful discovery afterward that his son’s brain showed hallmark signs of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE).That grief became a catalyst for John’s work at the intersection of repetitive head trauma, depression, pain, opioids, identity loss, and suicide risk, especially among athletes.This conversation brings together heart and science to ask a question our culture often avoids:How many deaths are we calling “mental health problems” when they may also involve brain injuries we never diagnosed? For more information on this episode go to https://www.sallyspencerthomas.com/hope-illuminated-podcast/157

What happens when a child loses someone to suicide — and the adults around them are silent because they don’t know what to say? In this episode, we explore that question through art, science, and story.Australian author and illustrator Ryan Abramowitz joins Hope Illuminated to share how he transformed his own loss — the suicide of his father — into the award-winning picture book Elegy for an Elephant. Through watercolor, poetry, and animal allegory, Ryan helps children step into grief without being swallowed by it. for more information on this episode go to https://www.sallyspencerthomas.com/hope-illuminated-podcast/156

In this powerful and deeply compassionate episode, Dr. Sally Spencer-Thomas talks with Monica Kramer McConkey, one of the nation’s leading voices on rural and agricultural mental health, about the silent crisis facing farm families across America.Monica brings both clinical expertise and lived experience—she grew up on a farm in northwestern Minnesota and has spent over 30 years supporting agricultural communities through depression, addiction, and suicide loss. Together, Sally and Monica explore the intersection of isolation, economic pressure, and cultural stoicism—and how resilience, connection, and tailored interventions are changing lives across rural America.Listeners will gain insight into how we can bridge the urban-rural divide in mental health, build suicide-safe communities, and sow hope where it’s needed most. For more information on this episode go to https://www.sallyspencerthomas.com/hope-illuminated-podcast/155