The Zev Project

This week on The Zev Project, we welcome Courtney Cozzitorto, a wife, a stepmom, an aunt, an avid hiker, and an aerospace professional. She’s a powerhouse of a woman who occupies some of the most non-traditional spaces, and has carved out a place at some very unlikely tables. In her early 30s, Courtney was diagnosed with unexplained Premature Ovarian Failure, better known as early menopause. It was a long road, as you’ll hear, for Courtney, and today, she shares her story openly both here and on her Instagram page, @resculpting_a_woman, to help others work through their grief and navigate their own paths of infertility.

Thank you so much for being here and listening!

To learn more about The Zev Project, visit us at www.thezevproject.com

To learn more about how we are bringing hope, healing and possibility to former micropreemies and their families through our nonprofit 4those, visit us here: www.4those.org 

In this episode of The Zev Project, Steph interviews Lindsey Cannon, an absolute force of a human. A number of years ago on the day before Thanksgiving, which happened to also be the day after her daughter's first birthday, Lindsey had a seizure, and what followed changed the trajectory of her life as she knew it.

What you hear in this discussion is a vulnerable and honest look at living out your story, whatever it looks like, in remarkable ways, and Lindsey gets to the heart of it through sharing anecdotes that touch, relate to, and inspire us all.

Thanks for listening!

For more information on First Descents, visit them here: www.firstdescents.org

For more information about our new nonprofit 4those, visit us here: www.4those.org

This week, our very special guest is Jessica Birmingham, owner of Happy Day Plants (www.happydayplants.com) - a plant and gift shop in Longmont, CO, and a place where Jess bridges her business and her passion to provide meaningful life and job opportunities for adults with disabilities, inspired by her oldest daughter who happens to have Down Syndrome.

Listen to Jessica share her incredible story here about the intersection of motherhood, advocacy, and building a full and meaningful life no matter what the road looks like.

We're back from a long hiatus! After releasing the first 2 episodes of Season 3, our plans for the year got a bit redirected - lots of loving on and celebrating former micropreemies like Zev and their families and lots (and lots and lots) of running. But here we are! Ready to release and finish up the final season of The Zev Project. We have some incredible guests and interviews ahead. We can't wait to share them with you!

If you'd like to check out our nonprofit 4those, find us online at www.4those.org where we are writing a new story for micropreemie families, or visit us on Instagram @4thoseorg to stay up-to-date with all of our awesome happenings!

This week's episode features Ben LeRoy, the founder and former publisher of two successful publishing houses, and one of the founding team members of Collaborist, a group and company dedicated to bringing people together and helping them tell their stories in a variety of ways. At Collaborist, Ben works to help people feel heard, create community, and forge meaningful relationships with nonprofits. He and his co-founder also host a weekly podcast called Collaborcast, where they talk shop bout all things writing, share personal and helpful anectdotes, and come up with incredible metal band names by way of talking about their local weather.

Ben comes to the storytelling table with both knowledge and heart. In 2014, he set out to do volunteer work in all 50 states as part of the Be Local Everywhere project. Ben is an inspiring human, an incredible storyteller, and a wonderful friend, and we can’t wait for you to hear what he has to say as we set the stage for why we tell our stories and what's ahead this season.

Welcome to Season 3 of The Zev Project.

We're back with Season 3! About a year after Zev came home, we asked people who were there with us during the Zev season to share some of their memories and recollections about that time. Each recording opens up the gates to new ways of looking at our bigger story. In these shares, you will hear narratives of hope, faith, fear, grief, love, community, connection, and humanity. There are so many seeds of wisdom that speak to the impact sharing one story can have in the world at large. I hope you find peace and love in these words. And if you are in your own valley, please know that our community is your community, and we are all with you as you go forward living out your own big, narrative-shifting stories in the world. Happy listening!

For more information about our nonprofit, 4those, please visit us at www.4those.org, on Instagram @4thoseorg, or find the link through The Zev Project website at www.thezevproject.com.

The Zev Project is coming back with its third season installment where we dive into other experiences of hardship and hope. Steph also gives some big updates about what has been going on behind the scenes of The Zev Project, including the launch of their new nonprofit 4those, an adaptive retreat space that provides healing, hope, and possibility for families who have experienced the journey of extreme prematurity.

In the final episode of Season 2, we review the concept of Tell Me What's Good and how this simple strategy can radically transform the way we posture in our most difficult circumstances. We also talk about what's coming up for Season 3, and how you can participate in the incredible narratives of hope in the world.

As we wrap up the last two steps of the Tell Me What's Good Strategy, we explore the most active postures we used when opening ourselves up to the abundance and miracles hope has to offer: acceptance and surrender.

In this episode, we move through Step 3 of Tell Me What's Good: Observing Your Agreements. We talk about how to access a new narrative when the agreements we live by don't align with our truest selves in difficult seasons, and how doing so can make major impacts around what we believe to be possible for ourselves and the world around us.

We introduce Step 2 of the Tell Me What's Good strategy, Listening to Your Intuition, what accessing that inner voice can bring to the table, and how whole narratives can be changed just by tapping into the divine spirit space that exists in all of us.

This week, we look at the first step of the Tell Me What's Good process: Pausing in the Chaos. We explore what it feels like to sink into a place of quiet in all of the noise and the peace and clarity taking a breath can offer, even in our most chaotic internal and external experiences. 

We discuss what the Tell Me What's Good strategy is exactly, and how and why we use it. We also explore the concept of hope and how we can engage it in such a way that shifts the common narratives to speak life into and over our most hopeless moments.

We introduce what's coming ahead in Season 2 of The Zev Project - a deep dive into how we used the Tell Me What's Good strategy during our most challenging life moments and how you can too.

Zev spends his final days in the NICU before coming home! Stephanie reflects on the five-month journey and gives her final thoughts about using Zev’s story to fight against the impossible and to reclaim hope in our darkest hours. She shares some details about life at home and where Zev is now. Follow The Zev Project on Instagram for more content about Zev’s incredible journey and the future of The Zev Project!

In this episode, Stephanie is forced to confront the reality that Zev needs immediate surgery or he runs the risk of going blind. But unlike other setbacks she experienced in the NICU, she felt oddly prepared for this, and explains how and why she was able to take it in stride. She shares an incredible connection between Zev and his primary nurse that she believes changed the trajectory for Zev post-surgery, and provides another example of how hope and the “tell me what’s good” philosophy can significantly shift the narrative during difficult circumstances.

As Zev’s due date approaches and eventually comes to pass, Stephanie digs into the glory and the struggle of that moment in time. So many emotions came to the surface in that season after having been in the NICU for four intense months, and she explores the release of the hard feelings to make way for surrender, and the rejuvenation and the revival of her spirit that came after.

In this episode, Stephanie dives deeper into how she evolved to understand and cope with the setbacks Zev faced in the NICU. She discusses the deep well of joy and hope she discovered with each new opportunity to surrender, and shares the dichotomous nature of the NICU—sorrow and joy, grief and gratitude, death and life.

Zev experiences his first setback in the NICU after two weeks of progressing forward. His numbers start to dip into critical territory, and it becomes clear that he has developed an infection of some kind. As the doctors race to find out what is causing Zev to fall back so suddenly and give him the best chance at fighting it, Stephanie explores what it means to find hope in the setbacks and to lean into the trust and perseverance required of her to manage the ebbs and flows of life in the NICU.