Episode 15

EP15: Raising Yourself: Mary Grace Lim on Immigration, Inheritance, and Forging a Voice

Published on: 2nd October, 2025

Season Two continues exploring themes of resilience, inheritance, and reinvention. In Richie Barlow’s story, we saw how unmet needs became entrepreneurial muscle. In this conversation, we step through another doorway—immigration—to ask how identity and family are reshaped across borders.

Mary Grace Lim was born in Carmona Cavite, Philippines, and came to the U.S. twice: once at five with her mother and stepfather, and again at eleven with her sisters. Along the way, she was raised largely by her grandmother, navigated her mother’s long absences and addiction, and found safety in community, sports, and faith.

In this wide-ranging conversation, Mary Grace reflects on:

  • 💔 Growing up between two countries — and the ache of leaving her grandmother behind
  • 🌱 Raising herself when adults fell short, and the survival instincts that gave her strength
  • 🏐 Sports as salvation — how volleyball and basketball gave her purpose, discipline, and voice
  • 💸 Generational cycles of money and survival — and how she’s working to break them
  • 🙏 Faith and artistry as compass points — discovering God, creativity, and self-forgiveness on her own terms
  • 🧩 Healing generational trauma — inspired by Mark Wolynn’s It Didn’t Start With You

At the heart of her story is a hard-won lesson: forgiveness of all parts of the self, and the courage to set new boundaries.

🔗 Resources & Links

💬 Favorite Quote

“I think I raised me. I took what I needed from where it was available—and gave myself what I didn’t get.”

🎧 Catch Up or Revisit

Missed our last conversation? Listen to S2 EP13: Finding Light in the Darkest Places and S2 EP14: Hold On Tight with Richie Barlow for more on resilience, survival, and transformation.

Additional Resources

Credits

All content Copyright ActuallyQuiteNice, Inc & TCOM Studios, 2022-2025

Transcript

Shift Shift Bloom S2 EP 15 : Mary Grace Lim

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Show artwork for Shift Shift Bloom

About the Podcast

Shift Shift Bloom
A TCOM Podcast About People and Change
Shift Shift Bloom is a podcast examining how people change, why they change, and how they sustain the changes that are most important to them in their everyday lives. Our guests consider themselves change makers, change embracers and change resistors — we’re all somewhere on that spectrum at different times in our lives, aren’t we? Conversations with host Kristen Cerelli explore the impact of mindset, personality, life circumstances, communities of support and sources of inspiration on the process of transformation. Illuminating how change can be both deeply personal and profoundly universal is the show's guiding principle.

Shift Shift Bloom is produced by host Kristen Cerelli and audio engineer Timothy Fall at ActuallyQuiteNice, a full-service media studio. They develop the show in collaboration with Dr. John Lyons, Director of The Praed Foundation, which supports the development and dissemination of systems improvement strategies called Transformational Collaborative Outcomes Management, or TCOM. Online at https://praedfoundation.org, and https://tcomconversations.org.
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About your hosts

Kristen Cerelli

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Host Kristen Cerelli created Shift Shift Bloom in collaboration with Dr. John Lyons of the Center for Innovation in Population Health at the University of Kentucky. She's also an actor, singer-songwriter and performance coach.

John Lyons

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John S. Lyons, Ph.D. is the Directory of the Center for Innovation in Population Health and a Professor of Health Management. He is a luminary in mental health policy and practice, and the original developer of TCOM and its associated tools and approaches.

Timothy Fall

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Multimedia producer Timothy Fall creates Shift Shift Boom alongside Kristen Cerelli at ActuallyQuiteNice Studios, where they make podcasts and films and music and dinner.