Healing Isn't a Straight Line. Neither Was Mine.
I spent more than two decades incarcerated. Today I use lived experience, mental health education, discipline, and hard-earned perspective to help people find their next gear.
You don't have to change everything today. You just have to make the next shift.
Win 2 tickets to the Big Laughs Mental Health Symposium.
September 19 in Sedona. Five winners. Enter by Sept. 13 — no purchase necessary.
My story didn't end where people expected it to.
Twenty-three years in prison wasn't part of anyone's five-year plan. Neither were childhood trauma, addiction, repeated incarceration, or years spent believing survival was about as good as life was going to get.
Somewhere along the way, I started asking different questions. Not "What's wrong with me?" but "What happened to me?" "What can I understand?" "What can I change?" and eventually, "What can I do with everything I've lived through?"
Today that work lives in mental health advocacy, public speaking, education, coaching, fitness, community programming, and conversations that are willing to go where polished talking points won't.
The Five Gears
You don't rebuild a life all at once. You shift one gear at a time.
You can't change what you cannot see.
Recognize what's happening, tell yourself the truth, and understand where you are.
Understanding changes everything.
Ask questions, seek support, learn what you're dealing with, and find the resources that fit.
Healing isn't the destination. It's the way forward.
Build the habits, support, discipline, and resilience that turn insight into movement.
Your story becomes your strength when it's lived with purpose.
Stop living only by what you survived. Start moving toward what you're building.
Leave hope where stigma once lived.
Use what you've learned. Lead. Serve. Teach. Build something that reaches beyond you.
Speaking that doesn't stay on the stage.
Audiences don't need another polished speech they'll forget before they reach the parking lot. They need conversations that make them think—and keep thinking.
Ways to work with Shaun
Every offering is a different entry point into the same work: awareness, movement, healing, purpose, and the next shift.
Coaching
One-on-one, forward-focused work built around the Five Gears. Identify where you're stuck and start building momentum.
Explore Coaching →Fitness & Accountability
Build physical strength, discipline, confidence, and consistency through structured personal training.
Explore Training →Trail Sessions
Walk, talk, and work through the Five Gears against the red rocks and open sky of Sedona.
Explore Trail Sessions →Creative Experiences
Creative workshops that give people another way to connect, make something, and get out of their own head.
Explore Workshops →The radio show found a new trail.
Stigma Shift began on KRIM 96.3 FM with honest conversations about mental health, recovery, stigma, and the messy reality of changing a life.
Now the microphones are leaving the studio. The Stigma Shift Podcast meets people where their stories live—at their businesses, in their communities, on location, and sometimes hiking a trail through Arizona.
Your past is part of your story. It doesn't have to be the author of your future.
Whether you need a speaker who will actually connect with the room, a conversation that needs to happen, or help finding your own next move—start with the next gear.
Coaching, peer support, fitness, and educational services provided through Stigma Shift are not psychotherapy, medical treatment, diagnosis, or a substitute for care from a licensed healthcare professional.