Podcast Category: Community

[ENCORE] Beyond the Hug: How Sara Cunningham Built a Movement of Radical Welcome

It’s Pride Month, and we couldn’t think of a better time to bring back one of our most beloved episodes. Sara Cunningham — founder of Free Mom Hugs — first joined Jen back in 2018, when she was a Christian mom from Oklahoma City who had just started showing up at Pride parades with a handmade sign and a button. A lot has happened since then.

What began as one mom extending her arms to strangers has grown into a global movement. Free Mom Hugs now trains advocates, lobbies legislatures, and shows up year after year for LGBTQIA+ people whose own families walked away. Sara hasn’t just built an organization — she’s built a lifeline.

In this conversation, Sara and Jen revisit the journey that started it all: how Sara moved from the church to the Pride parade without losing her faith, what it meant for her son Parker to come out into a family still finding its footing, and how the stories of people who had lost everything — their families, their churches, their sense of belonging — fell into her arms and changed the course of her life.

They also talk about what it takes to turn personal pain into structural change, and why showing up — physically, politically, and relationally — for the LGBTQIA+ community matters more than ever right now.

This one is worth every minute. Enjoy this encore conversation with our beloved friend, Sara Cunningham!

Testify to Love at 30: Avalon’s Untold Story

If you grew up on Christian music in the ’90s, there’s a good chance Testify to Love wasn’t just a hit song—it was the soundtrack to a season of your life.

Three decades after Avalon first released the iconic anthem, Jen sits down with original Avalon member Michael Passons, longtime Avalon vocalist Melissa Greene, and country music star Ty Herndon to talk about the remarkable re-release of a song that has found new meaning for a new generation.

But this isn’t simply a conversation about music. It’s the untold story behind one of CCM’s most beloved songs.

Michael shares the painful reality of losing his place in Avalon after coming out as gay. Melissa reflects on the faith journey that transformed her understanding of inclusion and belonging. Ty opens up about his own path through addiction, recovery, faith, and finally living fully and truthfully as himself. Together, they revisit the song that connected millions of listeners and explore why its message of love, acceptance, and human dignity feels more relevant now than ever.

Filled with laughter, tears, hard-earned wisdom, and more than a few moments that will leave you reaching for the tissues, this conversation is a beautiful testament to friendship, healing, and the courage it takes to live loud.

Whether Testify to Love has been on your playlist for thirty years or you’re hearing its story for the first time, this episode is a powerful reminder that love’s truest testimony is not who it excludes—but who it embraces.

Big Baby and New Beginnings: Kevin James Thornton on Sin Clowns, Standups, and Second Acts

He’s back — and this time he brought a memoir. Comedian Kevin James Thornton returns to For the Love, and if you thought you knew Kevin from his hilarious auto-tuned TikToks and wired-headphone microphone bits, this conversation will lovingly surprise you.

Kevin’s debut memoir, Big Baby: On Endings, Beginnings, and an Interdimensional Cat, traces his journey from performing as a literal sin clown on a youth group mission trip in 1990s New York City, to grinding it out on the stand-up circuit in LA, to touring one-man shows across the US, Canada, and eventually the world — Helsinki, Stockholm, Paris — all the way to present-day Cincinnati, where he’s navigating a major life upheaval with nothing but his 13-pound black cat Comet and an extraordinary amount of hard-won self-awareness.

In this conversation, Kevin opens up about what it actually took to write a book — including the two-week-long Airbnb retreat where he mostly just slept and watched TV because his attention span had been completely obliterated — and what surprised him most about recording the audiobook (hint: he cried, more than once, and they left it in). He talks about the strange, freeing moment he realized he no longer needed to prove himself to anyone, and how that shift was the very thing that made his work finally land. And he reflects on the beautiful, sometimes maddening truth that life doesn’t end so much as it just keeps beginning again.

[ENCORE] The Gift of Being Seen: Tyler Merritt On Why Vulnerability Is Worth The Risk

As we close out our Chosen Family: The Ones Who Stayed series, we wanted to revisit a conversation that beautifully captures something at the heart of every meaningful relationship: the courage to be fully seen.

Recorded live from the Oregon coast during the final day of MeCamp, this special conversation between Jen and her partner, Tyler Merritt, is equal parts hilarious, tender, and deeply human. Through stories of adventure, misadventure, and the kind of laughter that only comes from knowing someone well, they explore what it means to show up honestly—with ourselves and with the people who love us.

Throughout our Chosen Family series, we’ve talked about the relationships that sustain us through life’s joys, losses, and transitions. This conversation feels like a fitting finale because it highlights the vulnerability that allows those connections to flourish. Jen and Tyler reflect on the stories we tell ourselves, the truths we’ve had to confront, and the ways honesty can become a pathway to healing and emotional well-being.

From Tyler’s viral video Before You Call the Cops to Jen’s reflections on her book Awake, they discuss the transformative power of sharing our stories—and the freedom that can come when we stop hiding behind perfection, pride, or performance.

In this episode:

• Tyler shares the most awkward moment he’s ever experienced because he chose vulnerability over self-protection
• Jen and Tyler discuss some of the hardest truths they’ve ever had to face about themselves
• Tyler reaches deep into the archives to reveal one of his most embarrassing moments as a performer

Join us for a conversation that reminds us that the people who stay are often the ones who make space for our whole selves—the polished parts, the messy parts, and everything in between.

Somewhere Between the Mountains and the Spreadsheets — You Are Not As Alone As You Think You Are: A Listener Voicemail Episode

Some episodes we plan. This one you created.

This week, Jen and Amy are stepping back and letting the people they do this whole thing for take center stage. It’s Listener Voicemail Day — and honestly? It might be our favorite kind of episode. Because nothing reminds us why this community exists quite like hearing your actual voices.

So we’re bringing your calls to you — from all kinds of moments and all kinds of women.

Jessica calls in to reflect on our Awake Collective episode and where she is at in her own healing process, and feeling the loneliness that can settle in when you’re deep in the work. Jen and Amy reflect on so much of the wisdom of our incredible Awake Collective panel – Kate Bowler, Nedra Tawwab, Emily Nagoski, and Kobe Cambell, whose words echo here: healing isn’t supposed to feel good — it’s supposed to feel like disruption.

Sara brings it home with a call about raising young girls. Between them, Jen and Amy are parenting nine young adults, so they have thoughts.

Amanda found Awake on vacation and came home having discovered something she didn’t know she was missing — an invisible community of women who just get it.

Deborah calls in from Canada with a story that will stop you in your tracks. A devastating and beautiful parallel between her journey losing her husband to terminal brain cancer and Jen’s own story — and the breathtaking grace of how, by God’s grace, we do recover.

Tania reflects on the Wilderness and Wonder series and a recent trip to the mountains that cracked something open in her — the awe, the connection, the reminder that this podcast is its own kind of sacred space.

And Diavianne closes things out talking budgets and spreadsheets, which sounds ordinary until you realize it’s actually about power — the freedom and confidence that come from truly owning your financial life.

Jen and Amy respond to each one with the honesty and tenderness that only comes from doing this long enough to know: you are never as alone as you think you are.

This is the connective tissue. This is why we show up every week.

Have something you need to say out loud? Head to JenHatmaker.com/Podcast, find the Send Voicemail button, and leave us your story. We’re listening.

Dr. Thema Bryant: How to Find, Keep, and Nurture the People Who Truly See You (By Starting with Yourself)

Some conversations are so good, they deserve a second life.

As we’ve been building out our Chosen Family series — exploring what it actually takes to find, keep, and nurture the people who truly see you — we kept coming back to this tender conversation because it was resonant then but it hits differently now.

Dr. Thema Bryant is a psychologist, author, professor, ordained minister, and former president of the American Psychological Association. Her books Matters of the Heart and Homecoming have resonated deeply with women navigating the beautiful, complicated work of belonging — and her clarity on what it means to truly come home to yourself is exactly the foundation this series needed.

In this conversation, Jen and Amy dig into:

  • Why midlife can feel isolating even when you’re surrounded by people — and what’s really going on beneath that loneliness
  • How to grieve friendships that have run their season while making genuine room for new ones
  • The difference between performing friendship and actually being emotionally available for it
  • Why our wellness matters more than our loyalty — and what it looks like to stop sacrificing yourself in the name of showing up for everyone else
  • Practical tools like writing vows to yourself and how to build community from scratch when one was never ready-made for you

Because here’s what we keep coming back to: you cannot truly choose people if you haven’t first chosen yourself. This conversation is the starting place.

We Will Not Be Aging Quietly: Claiming Your Most Powerful Season with Katie Fogarty

What if the years everyone warned you about turned out to be the ones you’d been waiting for?

Today, Jen and Amy sit down with Katie Fogarty—a former journalist, career coach, and the voice behind one of the most vibrant midlife podcasts in the country, called A Certain Age—for an honest, energizing hour about what it really means to thrive in this season.

Katie launched A Certain Age thirty-five days before her 51st birthday with one mission: blow up the narrative that women become less relevant as they get older. Five years and 230-plus episodes later, she’s interviewed hundreds of midlife women—and she has thoughts. Big ones.

They dig into the myths about midlife that refuse to die, why Katie calls this season an “accelerant” rather than an obstacle, what it looks like when women stop waiting for permission and start claiming their lives—and what she’s hearing that gives her real hope for the women coming behind us.

If you’ve ever felt like midlife was quietly trying to make you smaller—this episode is your push back.

Kate Bowler on the Ache That Makes Us Human—and the Joy That Makes Us Whole

If you’ve ever whispered, Is this it?—if you’ve been doing “all the right things” and still feel that unfinished ache humming under your skin—go ahead and hit download.

Jen is joined by her beloved friend (and actual genius) Kate Bowler to talk about her new book, Joyful Anyway—a bracing, funny, tender rebellion against the optimization industrial complex. This is not a “choose joy” pep talk where somebody sprints past you tossing a Live Laugh Love pillow at your face. Kate is here for the after: after the before-and-after story didn’t pan out, after grief and guilt and longing set up permanent residence, after you realized happiness is fragile and reality keeps kicking in.

Together, Jen, Amy, and Kate name what so many of us can’t quite articulate: the ache—that “achy, stabby want” at the center of our lived experience. They talk about why we need permission just to be human, why “performing resilience” is exhausting, and how telling the truth can loosen the grip of the story that’s been swallowing the rest of our life.

Kate also shares an unforgettable story about a snake bite, an ER, and a moment of unexpected mercy that cracked something open—proof that joy doesn’t always come through the front door. Sometimes it slips in sideways, like grace. Like a sudden, full-bodied yes—even when nothing is resolved.

You’ll also hear about:

  • The difference between happiness (fragile and expensive) and joy (sneaky, un-schedulable, and—somehow—free)
  • How joy finds us through embodied moments—beauty, absurdity, paying attention
  • The Burn Book / Resentment List and why making a “this scarred me, this counted” list might be the most faithful thing you do all week (including Kate’s deeply personal grievance about her tragically unaesthetic family gravesite)
  • Roadside Joy Detours: Kate’s practice of putting herself “in the way of joy” with absurd road trips to local oddities
  • And Kate’s reminder: you are a song—don’t die with it still inside you

Bottom line: if you’re quietly undone, if your body feels weary, if the headlines have you spiraling—Kate is here with permission, language, and a weird little flashlight. The ache stays. But joy still shows up. Sometimes as grace. Sometimes as absurdity. Sometimes as a roadside attraction you drove two hours to see for no reason—except you’re alive, and that’s reason enough.

[BONUS] Grace for the Weird-Ass Brain: “The Bloggess” Jenny Lawson on How to Be Okay When Nothing Is Okay

What does it mean to be okay when nothing is okay?

Not fixed.

Not optimized.

Not cured.

Just… okay.

This week, Jen and Amy sit down with bestselling author and professional weirdo Jenny Lawson to talk about surviving — and sometimes even thriving — inside a brain that does not always cooperate. Jenny’s new book, How to Be Okay When Nothing Is Okay, is a field guide for tender humans: a collection of tiny tools for when the big solutions feel impossible.

Today, we talk about:

  • Living with “tiny erratic squirrels” in your head
  • Why imposter syndrome gets louder with success
  • Learning to live within your real capacity
  • Why you’re not failing if it’s just not for you
  • Helpful tools like “weird walks”, “body doubling”, “writing Zooms”, 
  • The radical courage of simply staying

This conversation explores what happens when we stop trying to override our nervous systems and start listening to them instead. Midlife has a way of stripping away illusion — about productivity, about comparison, about who we’re supposed to be.

Jenny reminds us that sometimes grit looks like finishing the book. And sometimes it looks like taking a drink of water and calling it enough.

If you are exhausted, if you feel behind, if your brain tells you you’re the only one struggling – YOU ARE NOT ALONE. And being “still here” is no small thing.

Shannan Martin on Counterweights: Holding Grief and Joy in the Same Hands

What do we do when the world feels like too much?

When the headlines won’t let up, when grief and uncertainty sit heavy in our bodies, when we’re carrying more than we ever thought we could—how do we keep going without numbing out or falling apart?

This week, Jen sits down with beloved writer and friend Shannan Martin to talk about her new book Counterweights, a tender, practical guide for living with hope in a heavy world.

At the center of Shannan’s work is a deceptively simple idea: when life gets heavy, we don’t eliminate the weight—we learn to carry something equally weighty in the other hand. Not balance. Not denial. But both/and.

Together, Jen and Shannan explore what it means to hold grief and joy at the same time, to resist despair without turning away from reality, and to find steady ground in the middle of it all. They talk about community as survival, faith that evolves and expands, and the small, ordinary moments that become lifelines when everything feels overwhelming.

This conversation is a fitting close to our Wilderness & Wonder exploration—because if the wilderness strips us down to what’s real, Shannan helps us ask: what will hold us up now?

If you’ve been feeling stretched thin, worn down, or just plain tired of carrying it all alone, this episode is for you.