There are artists whose music marks a moment—and then there are the ones whose songs stay with us for a lifetime.
This week, Jen sits down with beloved returning guest Amy Grant to talk about her long-awaited new album, a project shaped by time, reflection, and a life that’s been fully lived. After a significant health crisis and a slow, intentional return to music, Amy is creating from a place that feels more open, more grounded, and more honest than ever.
Together, they talk about what it means to come back to yourself after everything changes, how creativity evolves over decades, and why the stories we tell later in life often carry a different kind of weight. Amy shares how her songwriting has shifted, the role of memory and perspective in this new work, and what it looks like to keep making meaningful art in a season that feels both quieter and more expansive.
At the heart of both this album and this conversation is Amy’s quiet but steady intention to be a witness—to tell the truth about a life as it’s being lived, and to honor the people who have shown up along the way. From deeply personal songs shaped by love and loss to collaborations with her husband, Vince Gill, and her daughters, this record reflects not just where Amy is now, but who has helped her get here.
This conversation is thoughtful, unhurried, and full of the kind of wisdom that only comes from living a long time and staying curious along the way.
If you’ve ever felt the quiet fear of placing your body—and your baby—into a healthcare system you don’t fully understand, this conversation is for you.
Today, Jen and Amy sit down with labor and delivery nurse, educator, and internet big sister Jen Hamilton to talk about her brand-new “book baby,” Birth Vibes. With more than a decade at the bedside and millions who trust her honest, compassionate voice, Jen has become a steady guide in one of life’s most vulnerable moments.
In this episode, we pull back the curtain on the delivery room—the expectations, fears, and surprises—and talk about what it actually means to feel prepared. Not in a rigid, checklist kind of way, but in a deeply personal, values-driven way. Because as Jen reminds us, birth isn’t something you control—it’s something you move through.
Today, we talk about:
- Why “perfect birth plans” often set us up for disappointment—and what to hold onto instead
- How to discover your own “birth vibes”—that blend of values, intuition, and informed choice that helps you advocate for yourself
- What it’s like to hold both roles—healthcare provider and influencer—with integrity in today’s world
- How even when birth doesn’t go as planned, it can still be empowering, informed, and deeply ours
Whether you’re expecting, supporting someone who is, or simply curious about the intersection of care, advocacy, and the body’s wisdom, this conversation will leave you feeling steadier, braver, and less alone.
Because at the end of the day, this isn’t just about birth. It’s about learning to trust yourself in the middle of something you can’t fully control—and finding your voice anyway.
If any conversation belongs squarely in our “The Body Knows: Midlife In Our Skin” series, it’s this one, and for one simple reason — pleasure is a body conversation. Desire is a body conversation. And if midlife has shifted how you feel in your own skin, this episode meets you exactly there.
Vanessa Marin is a licensed psychotherapist, sex educator, and bestselling author of Sex Talks: The Five Conversations That Will Transform Your Love Life, co-written with her husband Xander. With over two decades of experience helping people dismantle shame and build genuinely intimate relationships, Vanessa brings the kind of candid, warm, and disarmingly funny voice this conversation has always needed.
Whether you’re partnered or solo, whether your sex life feels complicated or just quietly neglected, whether you’re carrying shame you never asked for — this one is for you. Vanessa is here to help us say yes to communication, to connection, and maybe most of all, to pleasure.
Here’s what we’re getting into:
- Why so many of us have deeply wired, shame-rooted reactions to sex — and where they actually come from
- Why Vanessa says you should start having sex like a man (yes, really)
- The myth about the female orgasm that most of us were never taught the truth about
- The best things you can do for your sex life that have nothing to do with taking your clothes off
- The difference between spontaneous and responsive desire — and why understanding this might change everything
For years, women in their late 30s and 40s have walked into doctors’ offices saying the same thing: “I don’t feel like myself.”
They’re exhausted but can’t sleep. Gaining weight but eating less. Anxious, foggy, irritable, disconnected. And too often, they’re told it’s stress. Aging. Depression. Just part of being a woman.
But what if it’s something else?
This week, Jen and Amy sit down with board-certified OB-GYN and menopause expert Dr. Mary Claire Haver to talk about what’s really happening in perimenopause — the hormonal transition that can begin years before your final period and affect nearly every system in your body.
Drawing from her new book The New Perimenopause, Dr. Haver explains:
- Why the brain may be the first organ to notice hormone shifts
- Why antidepressants are often prescribed before hormones are even discussed
- The dangerous legacy of outdated research and underfunded women’s health
- How bone density, cholesterol, muscle mass, mood, libido, and cognition are all connected
- And why midlife is not a decline — but a powerful window of opportunity
This is not just a conversation about hot flashes. It’s about the “Zone of Chaos.” It’s about medical gaslighting. It’s about reclaiming your body as your ally, not your enemy.
If you’ve ever whispered, “What is wrong with me?” or spent your sleepless nights up Googling dramatic questions like “is my brain broken?” — this episode is for you.
You’re not broken. You’re not weak. And you are definitely not alone.
Sometimes the most liberating advice comes down to just two words.
In this encore presentation, Jen revisits a fan-favorite conversation with Mel Robbins—one of the most influential voices in the motivational sphere today, and host of the #1 education podcast in the world. This episode originally stopped listeners in their tracks, and it’s just as powerful the second time around.
Together, Jen, Amy, and Mel unpack Mel’s now-iconic “Let Them” theory—a deceptively simple mindset shift that has brought immediate relief, clarity, and freedom to people navigating relationships, expectations, disappointment, and self-worth. At its core, Let Them invites us to loosen our grip on what we cannot control and reclaim our peace in the process.
In this conversation, they explore:
- The crucial difference between “Let Them” and “Let Me”
- How releasing control over others’ behavior can radically change your relationships
- What it looks like to move your sense of worth inward, instead of outsourcing it to other people’s opinions
Whether you’re hearing this for the first time or returning to it with fresh eyes, this encore is a grounding reminder: you don’t need to manage everyone else to live a freer life. Sometimes the bravest move is simply letting them—and choosing yourself.
Many of us were taught that strength looks like independence. Don’t need too much. Don’t ask for help. Don’t lean on others. And then—somewhere along the way—we find ourselves lonely, exhausted, or quietly resentful, wondering why connection feels so hard and so heavy at the same time. We want closeness, but we’re afraid of needing too much. We want support, but we don’t know how to ask for it without losing ourselves.
Today’s guest is someone who has helped millions of people name that tension—and find a gentler, healthier way forward. Nedra Glover Tawwab is a licensed therapist, relationship expert, and New York Times bestselling author of Set Boundaries, Find Peace and Drama Free. With more than fifteen years of clinical experience, she has become one of the most trusted voices in modern mental health, helping people navigate boundaries, attachment, emotional health, and sustainable connection in real, everyday life.
Nedra ‘s work consistently meets people with clarity, compassion, and deep respect for how hard relationships can be. Her new book, The Balancing Act, invites us to rethink what healthy connection actually looks like—not as hyper-independence or over-functioning, but as learning how to depend on one another without disappearing in the process.
In this conversation, we talk about:
- The major attachment styles and how they quietly shape our relationships
- Why so many of us confuse independence with emotional health
- The dependency spectrum—and how to recognize where we’re over- or under-functioning
- When closeness crosses into enmeshment, and how to find your way back
- Gentle, practical first steps toward healthy dependency and asking for help
We honestly could not think of a better person to help us wake up in the area of mental health. This conversation is tender, honest, and deeply freeing—and it offers language for places you may have felt stuck, tired, or alone for a long time. You are not broken. You are learning how to connect.
Today’s guest, Suleika Jaouad, first captured our collective hearts with her searing memoir Between Two Kingdoms — a book that traced her diagnosis of leukemia, the brutal treatment that followed, and the long, complicated journey of coming home to herself again. It was a Jen Hatmaker Book Club selection back in March 2023, and it has stayed with so many of us.
Suleika is an Emmy Award–winning journalist, bestselling author, speaker, and artist whose work asks some of the biggest questions humans ever face: What does it mean to live when life has been shattered? How do we hold hope and devastation at the same time? What does healing actually look like when recovery isn’t linear, or even guaranteed?
She is also the founder of The Isolation Journals, a global creative community of more than 100,000 writers, artists, and curious souls who use storytelling and imagination as tools for transformation. Her latest book, The Book of Alchemy, feels is a continuation of her journey — filled with essays, prompts, and reflections from over 100 contributors across disciplines. It’s an invitation to explore how we turn pain into meaning, uncertainty into beauty, and our lives into art.
Suleika speaks so generously about what it means to live in the middle — between diagnosis and remission, despair and joy, isolation and connection — and how storytelling helps us metabolize what we’ve lived through. Whether you’re a writer, an artist, someone who’s walking through your own valley, or simply trying to make sense of your story, this episode will speak to you.
