What does it really take to find your voice — and what happens when it gets taken from you?

In this special solo episode, SpeakHER Sessions host Kim Atwood reflects on the six most powerful lessons she learned from Season 1. Ten episodes, eleven women, and more honesty than she expected when she started asking questions about voice and confidence.

This isn't a recap. It's a reflection. Because somewhere between interviewing women about their stories, Kim found herself sitting with some hard and beautiful truths about her own.

In this episode, Kim shares:

• Why voice almost always gets quiet before it gets found and why that silence is part of the story, not a detour from it
• What this season's guests taught her about waiting seasons and why the waiting is never as pointless as it feels
• How grief showed up in nearly every conversation this season and why the women who had been through the most loss were also the most spacious in how they loved others
• Why your body of work is shaping you long before you realize it's doing that
• The role that people — spouses, sisters, mentors, friends — play in giving us permission to use our voices
• Why advocacy is simply what happens when your personal story meets someone else's need

Kim also shares a heartfelt thank you to the Season 1 sponsors and community partners who believed in SpeakHER Sessions before it had anything to show for itself:

• Terri Brock State Farm — insurance and financial guidance for the Columbia, SC community | 6158 St. Andrews Road | 803-772-4000 | terribrock.com
• Westmore Land of Gifts and Apparel — a women-owned boutique in Columbia, SC that champions other women-owned brands | Murraywood Shopping Center | westmorelandofgifts.com | code PODCAST for savings
• The Peanut Man — catering, restaurant, and gourmet shop in Columbia, SC | home of a monthly Ladies Night | thepeanutman.com
• Talking Donkey Designs — scripture-based apparel with original artwork by Bryan Atwood | whosyourdonkey.com
• How2SpeakU — an online learning community for women who are ready to communicate with confidence | how2speaku.com

Season 2 of SpeakHER Sessions launches soon.

If you know a woman with a story worth telling, someone who has found her voice through a hard season and has something other women need to hear, we want to meet her. DM us on social media or Nominate a guest here.

If your brand or business wants to reach an engaged audience of women navigating major life transitions, sponsorship opportunities for Season 2 are available now. Reach out at hello@how2speakU.com

Connect with SpeakHER Sessions: 📱 Instagram: @speakhersessions 🌐 Website: speakHERsessions.com 📧 Contact: hello@how2speakU.com

Connect with Kim: 🌐 How2SpeakU: how2speaku.com 📱 Instagram: @kimatwoodspeaks

If this episode resonated with you: ⭐ Leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It takes two minutes and helps more women find the show 📲 Share this episode with a woman in your life wh

Have a question for this guest? Text us — it may be featured in "Ask the SpeakHER".

SpeakHER Sessions is hosted by Kim Atwood.
New episodes are coming soon.
Follow the show to hear honest, encouraging conversations with women who use their voice to lead, serve, and create meaningful impact.

Before Kim Atwood had a podcast, a platform, or any of the clarity she talks about on this show, she had two sisters.

To close out Season 1, Kim brings it all the way home by inviting Shannon Henderson and Rebecca Wolfe into the studio for the most personal episode of the season. What starts as a funny conversation about birth order and who mom's favorite is turns into something surprisingly moving about the relationships that make it safe to show up as your full, unfiltered self.

There's an eight-year gap between Shannon and Kim. Four years between Kim and Rebecca. And somewhere in those gaps, a bond formed that the three of them describe as their own little bubble, one that other people notice and don't quite understand.

This one will make you laugh. It might also make you call your sister.

In this conversation:

• How each sister remembers the other growing up, and how those memories don't always match
• The expectations their parents passed down, and which ones they chose to keep or leave behind
• Birth order, oldest-daughter pressure, and whether those stereotypes actually fit
• The annual family trip that has become the glue of their relationships as adults
• What they want their daughters, nieces, and nephews to carry forward
• Why Rebecca doesn't want her three-year-old daughter Avery to ever shrink herself for anybody
• Whether you can build a sister-level bond with people who aren't family by blood

At the core this is an episode about belonging, and the kind of relationships that make it safer to show up fully as yourself, even when you're at your messiest, loudest, or most unsure.

About SpeakHER Sessions SpeakHER Sessions is a podcast for women who are finding their voice, or finding it again. Host Kim Atwood sits down with real women to talk about the experiences that shaped them, the seasons that stretched them, and the confidence they've built along the way. New episodes every Monday. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Follow us @speakhersessions.

Sponsors

How2SpeakU — Helping women build confidence and communicate with strength and clarity. https://how2speaku.com

Talking Donkey Designs — Custom, faith-forward apparel. https://whosyourdonkey.com

Have a question for this guest? Text us — it may be featured in "Ask the SpeakHER".

SpeakHER Sessions is hosted by Kim Atwood.
New episodes are coming soon.
Follow the show to hear honest, encouraging conversations with women who use their voice to lead, serve, and create meaningful impact.

Some voices are shaped by survival. Jan Sipes' was shaped by something quieter: 35 years of five-year-olds who still stop her in the grocery store to say hello, 10 summers at Camp Gravatt building something generational with her husband Mac, and a faith that held steady through three and a half years of brain cancer, widowhood, and raising three daughters alone.

Affectionately known as Mama Jan throughout the Irmo community, Jan Westmoreland Sipes is a retired educator, early childhood education advocate, camp leader, mom, grandmother, and one of those people whose presence just makes a room feel safer.

In this episode, Kim Atwood sits down with Jan for one of the most tender conversations of Season 1, about what it means to use your voice faithfully across a lifetime, to stay positive for your kids when you are quietly falling apart, and to discover that joy and love are still possible on the other side of the hardest thing you have ever been through.

In this conversation:

• How a little girl who ran home from school every day became a beloved kindergarten teacher for 35 years
• Advocating for 4K programs in South Carolina and piloting full-day 5K before it was standard
• Ten summers at Camp Gravatt with Mac, and what it meant to watch former campers grow into the camp's director
• Mac's three-and-a-half-year battle with brain cancer and how Jan chose to stay present and positive for her daughters
• What her daughters told Kim before this episode about what they remember from that season
• The last conversation Mac had before he stopped speaking
• Ministering to other families facing brain cancer because she knew the road
• Remarrying after loss, and her encouragement for widows who wonder if joy is still available to them
• The core message Jan wants everyone to carry: put God first, stay close to your family, and live every day like it might be your last

About Jan Sipes Jan Westmoreland Sipes is a retired educator, early childhood education advocate, and beloved community figure known throughout Irmo as Mama Jan. After 35 years in the classroom and a decade leading Camp Gravatt alongside her late husband Mac, Jan has spent her life quietly shaping generations of children, families, and fellow grievers. She is a mom of three daughters and a grandmother many times over.

About SpeakHER Sessions SpeakHER Sessions is a podcast for women who are finding their voice, or finding it again. Host Kim Atwood sits down with real women to talk about the experiences that shaped them, the seasons that stretched them, and the confidence they've built along the way. New episodes every Monday. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Follow us @speakhersessions.

Sponsors

How2SpeakU — Helping women build confidence and communicate with strength and clarity. https://how2speaku.com

Talking Donkey Designs — Custom, faith-forward apparel. https://whosyourdonkey.com

Have a question for this guest? Text us — it may be featured in "Ask the SpeakHER".

SpeakHER Sessions is hosted by Kim Atwood.
New episodes are coming soon.
Follow the show to hear honest, encouraging conversations with women who use their voice to lead, serve, and create meaningful impact.

What does it look like to reclaim your voice after seasons of loss, fear, and survival, and then decide to live boldly on purpose?

Breanna Pritchard grew up quiet and shy. She lost her dad to cancer at 13. She married young, and the marriage became something she couldn't name as abuse because it had become her normal. She didn't have a job, didn't have money, and didn't tell her family what was happening. It wasn't until her in-laws called her parents and told them to get their daughter out if they wanted to see her alive that anyone knew how bad it was.

She left with a suitcase and her son.

SisterCare became her voice when she didn't have one. They sent an advocate, accompanied her to court, and helped her rebuild from nothing. Years later, she reconnected with her high school friend Wes over scuba diving, risked trusting love again, and built something she couldn't have imagined during the worst of it. On their seventh wedding anniversary, she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

She is now in complete remission. And she and Wes live by a family motto their whole household has adopted: Smash Life.

In this conversation:

• Losing her dad at 13 and how that grief shaped her faith and resilience
• What domestic violence actually looks like from the inside, and why she stayed
• How SisterCare advocated for her when she had no voice of her own
• Rebuilding as a single mom with nothing and finding herself again
• Changing her last name back to her maiden name and why that small act felt enormous
• Meeting Wes, learning to trust love, and building a real estate business together
• Breast cancer at 37, a double mastectomy, chemo, and the community that carried her through
• What "Smash Life" means and how one family built a philosophy out of survival

If you or someone you love is experiencing domestic violence, please reach out for help. Learn more about SisterCare: https://www.sistercare.org

About Breanna Pritchard Breanna Pritchard is a domestic violence survivor, breast cancer overcomer, mom, and real estate entrepreneur. After rebuilding her life as a single mom with the help of SisterCare, she remarried and now lives in complete remission following a double mastectomy. She and her husband Wes live by the motto "Smash Life" — family, faith, fitness, and finances equal freedom — and Breanna uses her story to remind others that your hardest seasons don't have to define you.

About SpeakHER Sessions SpeakHER Sessions is a podcast for women who are finding their voice, or finding it again. Host Kim Atwood sits down with real women to talk about the experiences that shaped them, the seasons that stretched them, and the confidence they've built along the way. New episodes every Monday. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Follow us @speakhersessions.

Sponsors

How2SpeakU — Helping women build confidence and communicate with strength and clarity. https://how2speaku.com

SkhnFrnd — Licensed esthetician Hope McLelland is your skin's new best friend. Waxing, facials, and more. https://www.vagaro.com/skhnfrnd

Talking Donkey Designs — Custom, faith-forward apparel. https://whosyourdonkey.com

Have a question for this guest? Text us — it may be featured in "Ask the SpeakHER".

SpeakHER Sessions is hosted by Kim Atwood.
New episodes are coming soon.
Follow the show to hear honest, encouraging conversations with women who use their voice to lead, serve, and create meaningful impact.

What does it really mean to honor the season you're in, even when it costs you something you worked years to build?

Samantha Butler left a career in early childhood education to chase a dream she had no business background for. She and her sister-in-law built a boutique from scratch, eventually buying the building, taking on renters, and growing into something their community genuinely loved. By every measure, it was a success.

And then she walked away from it.

Her youngest daughter Griggs had her first seizure at one and a half years old, not long after the boutique opened. What followed was six years of medications, EEGs, overnight hospital stays, cross-state specialist searches, and a mother who went into task mode and kept going. Last year, Griggs had brain surgery. Surgeons removed a small mass from a deep fold of her right frontal lobe that had been misfiring since birth. She has not had a daytime seizure since.

Samantha's story is about what it actually looks like to advocate for your child in a medical system that sometimes tells you to just accept what you have, and what it looks like to release a dream, not because you failed, but because something else needed you more.

In this conversation:

• Pivoting from the classroom to entrepreneurship with zero business background
• Building a boutique that became a local favorite, then buying the building
• Her daughter's epilepsy diagnosis and the years of uncertainty that followed
• Pushing back on doctors and finding a specialist in Charlotte who changed everything
• What it felt like to make the decision to sell the business
• Why letting go of a successful season can be its own kind of courage
• Redefining success when it stops looking impressive on paper

About Samantha Butler Samantha Butler is a former early childhood educator and boutique co-owner who stepped away from a thriving business to prioritize her family and advocate for her daughter through years of epilepsy treatment and brain surgery. Her story is one of courage, tenacity, and redefining what success looks like in each new season.

About SpeakHER Sessions SpeakHER Sessions is a podcast for women who are finding their voice, or finding it again. Host Kim Atwood sits down with real women to talk about the experiences that shaped them, the seasons that stretched them, and the confidence they've built along the way. New episodes every Monday. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Follow us @speakhersessions.

Sponsors

How2SpeakU — Helping women build confidence and communicate with strength and clarity. https://how2speaku.com

Terri Brock State Farm — Coverage you can trust from a team that treats you like family. Auto, home, life, and more. https://terribrock.com | 803-772-4000

Have a question for this guest? Text us — it may be featured in "Ask the SpeakHER".

SpeakHER Sessions is hosted by Kim Atwood.
New episodes are coming soon.
Follow the show to hear honest, encouraging conversations with women who use their voice to lead, serve, and create meaningful impact.

How do you keep showing up with hope, courage, and compassion when life has already taken so much?

Lindsey Scoma was 15 years old when she lost her sister Amber suddenly. It was the kind of loss that makes a teenager want to close up, go quiet, and stop letting people in. And honestly? That impulse made sense. But Lindsey made a different choice, and she has been making it ever since.

In this episode, Kim Atwood sits down with Lindsey, a women's ministry leader, mentor, wife, and mom, to talk about how grief shapes your voice, how faith carries you through complicated loss, and what it looks like to stay tender in a world that gives you every reason not to.

They cover losing her sister in her teens, her father's complicated illness and passing last year, and the in-between years of wrestling with perfectionism, works-based faith, and the fear of loving people you might lose.

In this conversation:

• Growing up in church and learning that your gifts aren't just for you
• The sudden loss of her sister at 15 and how it made her want to go quiet
• Wrestling with works-based faith, fear, and perfectionism after tragedy
• Walking through her dad's illness and passing, and the mix of grief, guilt, and grace that followed
• What she wishes her family had done differently in grief
• How God spoke to her piercingly clearly the day after her dad's funeral
• Why mentoring women keeps her spiritually grounded and open-hearted

If you've ever felt like your world has gone up in flames, whether through loss of a person, a dream, or a sense of self, Lindsey's story will remind you there is still hope, purpose, and a voice on the other side.

About Lindsey Scoma Lindsey Scoma is a women's ministry leader, mentor, and speaker who has spent years investing in young women and adults through discipleship and leadership development. Shaped by her own experiences with loss and faith, she brings quiet, grounded wisdom to conversations about grief, calling, and staying open-hearted in a broken world.

About SpeakHER Sessions SpeakHER Sessions is a podcast for women who are finding their voice, or finding it again. Host Kim Atwood sits down with real women to talk about the experiences that shaped them, the seasons that stretched them, and the confidence they've built along the way. New episodes every Monday. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Follow us @speakhersessions.

Sponsors

How2SpeakU — Helping women build confidence and communicate with strength and clarity. https://how2speaku.com

Terri Brock State Farm — From first homes to growing families, coverage you can trust. Auto, home, life, and more. https://terribrock.com | 803-772-4000

Have a question for this guest? Text us — it may be featured in "Ask the SpeakHER".

SpeakHER Sessions is hosted by Kim Atwood.
New episodes are coming soon.
Follow the show to hear honest, encouraging conversations with women who use their voice to lead, serve, and create meaningful impact.

What happens when the life you're living looks nothing like the life you hoped for, and you're not even sure you deserve anything better?

Mallory Dolan grew up without a faith foundation, chasing approval, and numbing pain with alcohol and drugs. She became a mom in her early 20s, splitting Lunchables with her daughter while hiding an addiction she couldn't control. CPS came to her door. And then, on August 11, 2011, a drunk driving accident left her as a Jane Doe in a hospital, her car full of blood, her father walking in expecting not to recognize her.

She walked out of that hospital and kept drinking for two more years.

This episode is about what actually turns a life around, and why it's almost never one moment. It's the grandmother who prayed over her name in a Bible before the worst had even happened. It's her daughter looking up at her in a Target and saying "I don't like who you are when you drink that." It's a friend praying over her in her living room. It's a verse in Proverbs that felt like it was written directly to her. It's a promise she wrote in her Bible that she has kept ever since.

In this conversation, Kim Atwood and Mallory talk about the long, nonlinear road from addiction and shame to sobriety, faith, marriage, and a health and wellness business built on helping others believe they are never too far gone.

In this conversation:

• Growing up without faith and how that shaped her early choices
• Early motherhood in survival mode, and what CPS at your door actually does to you
• A near-fatal DUI, a blood transfusion, and the moment she felt God for the first time without knowing what to call it
• Why the accident didn't stop the drinking, and what finally did
• Her daughter's words that triggered something she couldn't ignore
• Getting baptized on the two-year anniversary of her accident
• The slow, non-dramatic way faith actually changed her life
• Building a health and wellness business with her husband after years of physically destroying herself
• What she would say to any woman who feels too broken or too far gone

This is Part 1 of Mallory's story. Season 2 will feature Part 2.

About Mallory Dolan Mallory Dolan is a health and wellness mentor, business owner, wife, and mom. She and her husband lead a health and wellness business, mentoring others in both lifestyle and entrepreneurship while raising a family with intention and faith. Her life today stands in stark contrast to her earlier years of addiction and self-destruction. Mallory is passionate about helping others believe they are never too broken for God to redeem their story.

About SpeakHER Sessions SpeakHER Sessions is a podcast for women who are finding their voice, or finding it again. Host Kim Atwood sits down with real women to talk about the experiences that shaped them, the seasons that stretched them, and the confidence they've built along the way. New episodes every Monday.

🎙 Subscribe on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. 📲 Follow us on Instagram @speakhersessions

Sponsors This episode is sponsored by:

How2SpeakU — Helping women build confidence and communicate with strength and clarity. how2speaku.com

Terri Brock State Farm — Coverage you can trust from a team that treats you like family. Auto, home, life, and more. https://terribrock.com | 803-772-4000

Talking Donkey Desig

Have a question for this guest? Text us — it may be featured in "Ask the SpeakHER".

SpeakHER Sessions is hosted by Kim Atwood.
New episodes are coming soon.
Follow the show to hear honest, encouraging conversations with women who use their voice to lead, serve, and create meaningful impact.

What do you do when the waiting is happening in every area of your life at once?

Hope Andrews knows that season. She waited on the right relationship. She waited on her education. She waited through fertility treatments that didn't work, a friend's pregnancy that felt impossible to celebrate, and a career pivot that started with silence and crickets. And then, in a fertility clinic on a Sunday morning, she and her husband made a decision to stop striving and surrender.

The next month, she found out she was pregnant.

But Hope's story doesn't stop at motherhood. In this episode, Kim Atwood also talks with Hope about what she did after her daughter arrived, a full career pivot into commercial real estate, one of the most male-dominated industries there is. Hope didn't wait for permission. She wrote a year-long plan, presented it to her firm, got no response, and signed up for her real estate license classes the day before Thanksgiving anyway. Then she emailed the whole company when she passed.

This is a conversation about the kind of resilience you can only build in seasons you didn't choose.

In this conversation:

• What it felt like to watch others reach milestones she was still waiting for, and how she kept going
• Why she started therapy during her fertility journey and why she's glad she did
• The moment in a fertility clinic that changed everything
• How to find support that actually meets you where you are, not where people wish you were
• Leaving a leadership career at Chick-fil-A to start over in commercial real estate
• Standing out as a woman in a male-dominated industry without trying to fit someone else's mold
• Joining CREW (Commercial Real Estate Women) and finding community in unexpected places
• What the waiting seasons taught her that she couldn't have learned any other way

If you are in a season where nothing is moving the way you planned, and you are starting to wonder if it ever will, this conversation is for you.

About Hope Andrews Hope Andrews is a commercial real estate professional based in South Carolina. Her career path has taken her from Girl Scouts leadership and a nontraditional college journey to management roles at Chick-fil-A and now a career in commercial real estate, where she serves on the board of CREW (Commercial Real Estate Women). Her story of infertility, faith, and professional reinvention is one of Season 1's most quietly powerful.

About SpeakHER Sessions SpeakHER Sessions is a podcast for women who are finding their voice, or finding it again. Host Kim Atwood sits down with real women to talk about the experiences that shaped them, the seasons that stretched them, and the confidence they've built along the way. New episodes every Monday.

🎙 Subscribe on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. 📲 Follow us on Instagram @speakhersessions

Sponsors This episode is sponsored by:

How2SpeakU — Helping women build confidence and communicate with strength and clarity. how2speaku.com

Terri Brock State Farm — From first apartments to family homes, coverage you can trust from a team that treats you like family, not a policy number. Auto, home, life, and more. terribrock.com

Have a question for this guest? Text us — it may be featured in "Ask the SpeakHER".

SpeakHER Sessions is hosted by Kim Atwood.
New episodes are coming soon.
Follow the show to hear honest, encouraging conversations with women who use their voice to lead, serve, and create meaningful impact.