Arash's World Podcast

In this episode, I have the great pleasure of speaking with Les Carroll, Air Force and Air National Guard veteran, documentary filmmaker, author as well as novelist. Les reflects on his 28-year military career, his deployments to Afghanistan, and his powerful and humbling experience of serving at the Air Force Mortuary at Dover Air Force Base.

We also discuss his documentary Bringing the Fallen Home, his autobiographical book This Troubled Ground, and his latest novel, Last Day on the Blue Wonder, a story inspired by military courage, love, loss, mental health challenges, and the healing power of storytelling. This is a moving conversation about service, memory, sacrifice, writing, and the importance of honoring the people and families behind every headline and beyond partisanship and political agendas.

I have the great pleasure of speaking with filmmaker Casey Carter about his award-winning documentary “To Use a Mountain.” The film begins with the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act, when the U.S. government searched for a permanent deep geological repository for nuclear waste, turning six rural communities into candidates for a “competition” none of them wanted to win.

Casey explains how the documentary travels through these places, treating each community as its own character while exploring memory, resistance, environmental concerns, and the long shadow of America’s nuclear program.

We also look at the human and political dimensions of nuclear waste, from public hearings where residents felt unheard to the continuing consequences of nuclear testing and contamination at sites such as Hanford and the Nevada National Security Site.

Moreover, Casey reflects on the challenge of managing radioactive waste for at least 10,000 years, and the way the film connects questions of energy, militarism, public health, and environmental responsibility. At its heart, To Use a Mountain becomes a story of rural communities coming together around shared concerns for land, history, safety, and future generations.

 

In this episode, I have the great pleasure of speaking with author and lecturer Perry Atwal about his book Wisdom for Life: Timeless Insights for Cultivating Joy and Growing Your World. We explore the difference between information and wisdom, the importance of meaning over money, and how joy grows through health, relationships, learning, and practical honest self-reflection.

Perry argues that while knowledge is everywhere, wisdom lies in knowing what matters, when to act, and how to apply insight with context. Moreover, Perry shares how leaving investment banking for teaching has given him a deeper sense of purpose, and he encourages listeners to pursue meaningful work, cultivate perspective, and stop measuring success by other people’s lives and standards. Finally, we observe that joy is cultivated both directly and indirectly by strengthening various parts of life, including health, spirituality, personal relationships, and simply doing what we enjoy on a regular basis.

 

Dr. Tiffanie Tate joins me here on Arash’s World as a true “multi-hyphenate” i.e. physician, author, playwright, veteran officer of the US Navy, ordained minister, soccer Mom referee, radio personality, and much more to discuss her children’s book Perfectly Perfect and the deeper message behind it. At the heart of our conversation is a powerful idea: children do not have to earn their worth. Dr. Tiffanie explains that self-image struggles can begin alarmingly early, and in today’s world of social media, video games, and constant comparison, those pressures have only intensified. Her book aims to remind children that they are already valuable and loved exactly as they are.

Our discussion expands beyond children to parents and adults, who often unknowingly model harmful beliefs about appearance, achievement, and perfection. Then, we explore how seemingly casual comments can shape a child’s inner voice, and why perfectionism has become a trap for all ages. One of the book’s most meaningful lessons is that friendship, apology, and repair matter: children (and adults!) need to learn how to take ownership when words hurt, rebuild trust, and keep growing rather than chasing impossible ideals.

Dr. Tiffanie also speaks about her broader mission as an author: using stories to open difficult but necessary conversations. From teaching financial literacy in Money Matters to addressing abuse disclosure and bullying in other books, she sees children’s literature as a tool for raising healthier, more confident, and more compassionate young people. Throughout, she emphasizes the importance of community, face-to-face interaction, and intentional parenting in a technology-heavy age. The result is a thoughtful, uplifting conversation about self-worth, responsibility, and helping children become healthy adults.

 

What happens when a successful engineer with patents, promotions, and all the outward signs of achievement realizes he’s still deeply unhappy? In this episode, licensed experiential therapist, contemplative teacher, and founder of Unbreakable Inc., Joe DeNicholas, shares the powerful story of how a panic-inducing moment in the tech world became the catalyst for a complete transformation. His journey from electrical engineering and corporate management into mental health work is both deeply personal and universally relatable for anyone who has ever tied their worth to performance, perfection, or control.

Drawing from his book Seeking Sanity: How to Cultivate Peace, Happiness, and Wellbeing in a World Gone Mad, Joe explores why so many people feel anxious, distracted, and emotionally exhausted even when life looks “fine” on paper. He explains how meditation, contemplative traditions, and modern neuroscience can work together to help us understand suffering, loosen destructive mental patterns, and reconnect with a deeper sense of peace. Our conversation moves beyond surface-level self-help and asks a bigger question: what if thriving not just coping is actually possible?

From attention spans and social media to flow states, gut feelings, and the neuroscience of perception, this episode is full of insight for anyone seeking greater clarity, stability, and freedom in their inner life. Joe offers a grounded, practical, and hopeful perspective: the problem is often not the thing itself, but our relationship to it. If you’re interested in mental health, mindfulness, consciousness, or the search for real wellbeing in a chaotic world, this is a conversation you won’t want to miss.

 

Bestselling author and former Canadian Army reserve medic Brent van Staalduinen joins me here on Arash’s World to discuss The Peace Thieves, his novel about a peacekeeping mission in Croatia and the personal fallout that follows. He explains the book’s dual narrative between Francis, a reserve medic deployed in 1993, and Viva, the daughter he never knew and how that structure helps reveal the gap between first impressions and deeper truths. Brent also shares why he chose present tense: to make the story feel immediate, urgent, and alive.

Our conversation digs into the brutal contradictions of peacekeeping in active war zones, where soldiers were sent to “keep peace” in places that had none. Brent reflects on the chaos, trauma, and impossible expectations placed on Canadian soldiers, especially reservists who often returned home without the support they needed. His insights make clear that The Peace Thieves is not just about war abroad, but about what happens to people long after the mission ends.

We also explore the emotional core of the novel: empathy, fractured family ties, camaraderie under pressure, and the haunting meaning behind the title, drawn from poetry. Brent speaks candidly about writing from personal connection without making the story autobiographical, and he closes by teasing his next historical fiction project, inspired by his family’s ties to the Dutch resistance in World War II. It’s a moving and thoughtful conversation about war, memory, and the power of fiction to humanize the unseen.

 

In this episode of Arash's World Podcast, I have the great pleasure of speaking with the amazing Leslie Lee Sanders regarding the personal and cultural forces that inspired her memoir, Ready to Listen?: A Spiritual Self-Help Memoir.

Leslie reflects on finding her voice as a Black woman in publishing, moving beyond silence and people-pleasing, and using spirituality as a path toward empowerment and self-discovery. Moreover, we explore intuition, synchronicity, Tarot, astrology, destiny, free will, and the idea that life’s setbacks and mistakes are part of a deeper process of growth.

Overall, join us for this reflective, thoughtful and inspiring discussion about courage, identity, belief, and learning to trust both one’s inner voice and the deeper path unfolding within and around us while also considering the broader meaning behind life’s different challenges.

In this episode of Arash’s World, I have the pleasure of speaking with Psychiatrist and Relationship Expert Dr. Laura Dabney and author of “I Need You… Now Go Away!: Reclaiming Your Life When Someone You Love Has a Personality Disorder” where she reframes personality disorders not as “types of people,” but as a core emotional conflict: an almost phobic push–pull between closeness and distance.

Dr. Dabney explains why partners often feel trapped in repeating patterns rooted in childhood familiarity and why waiting for the other person to change rarely works. Instead, she argues that shifting your own responses can disrupt the pattern and help the relationship dynamic evolve.

We then move from labels to practical tools, such as noticing “destructive aggression” (forcing, cornering) and “destructive passivity” (withholding, expecting mind-reading), learning to tolerate difficult emotions (especially anger, sadness, and neediness), and using boundaries with “bridge statements” that protect you without escalating rejection.

Moreover, Dr. Dabney explains how to distinguish all this from “normal” stress and stressors within a healthy and functioning relationship and when to seek help with a health professional, be it a life coach or a relationship expert like herself.

Finally, she also makes a case for integrating CBT for stability and trust and then to follow it up deeper with psychodynamic insight to bring about lasting change, and she shares that she created Relationship RX for people who need clear actionable direction without necessarily committing to long-term therapy.

 

In this episode of Arash’s World, I have the pleasure of speaking with Ellis Scott, a debut novelist of sharing his unconventional path to publication, which includes beginning his writing career at 55 after early retirement due to illness following decades spent delivering humanitarian aid in conflict zones. Now 62, he is the author of Night Terminus, a novel that confronts one of our most devastating and overlooked chapters of recent history: the aftermath of the AIDS crisis.

Rather than focusing on the epidemic itself, Ellis centers his novel on survivors: those who lived through years of loss, stigma, and fear and were never expected to survive. Drawing on personal experience as a gay teenager during the early years of AIDS, he reflects on survivor’s guilt, PTSD, chronic illness, and the long emotional shadow cast by a crisis that lasted far longer than many acknowledge. Our conversation explores the stark contrast between societal responses to AIDS and COVID‑19, the silence and hostility of governments in the 1980s, and the grassroots activism that emerged when institutions failed to deliver.

The novel spans forty years, five chapters, and multiple continents, following a nameless narrator whose identity is revealed through the people he encounters: exiles, fugitives, rebels, artists, and fellow survivors. Themes of statelessness, travel, and belonging run throughout capturing what Ellis describes as the queer experience of being “guests at the party,” never quite hosts.

Ultimately, the discussion returns to courage and self‑authorship: the idea that even if history dictates the beginning of one’s story, it is still possible to write one’s own ending. Night Terminus stands as both a literary act of remembrance and a testament to resilience and community.

 

In this episode, I’m joined by Poet Kathryn MacDonald to discuss her hybrid poetry collection The Blue Gate, a book-length lyric poem that moves from love into loss and grief, with its central section of a serendipitous month-long trip to Kenya shortly after her husband’s death.

Kathryn explores recurring motifs of rain and water as bountifulness amid drought, and red-tailed hawks as a metaphor for trust and lifelong love through “skydancing.” She reflects on culture shock, how grief is approached and dealt with in different contexts alongside her experience of living “two realities” at the same time.

We also talk about the role of poetry and how it enriches our lives and gives voice to complex emotions that cannot be subsumed in words. Moreover, Kathryn mentions her different inspirations, and how writers and artists, such as Solnit, Blixen, Rilke as well as surrealist painters influence her craft. The episode closes with Kathryn reading two of her poems: “Skydancing” and the closing poem of the book, “Albinoni’s Adagio,” underscoring endurance with “And still. I live.”