Podcast Category: Healthy Lifestyle

Say the Quiet Thing Out Loud: Jen Hatmaker Solo Episode

Jen is coming to you from the last two days of Me Camp in Canada, eyeballs on the lake, four weeks into having the volume turned down on every channel. And when the static quiets, the truer things rise up. In this me-to-you episode, Jen kicks off August’s theme of honesty with the idea at the spine of the whole month: there is the thing we say, and then there is a truer sentence sitting an inch underneath it. And usually one inch under that.

Jen shares what her own silence cost in the last years of her marriage, names the difference between truth-telling and truth-throwing, and offers the gentlest possible place to begin: one true sentence, one page, just between you and you.

The Sacred Yes: Jen Hatmaker & Tyler Merritt on Choosing Your Body

Some yeses cost us something. Some of them save us.

Jen sits down with her partner, actor, author, and speaker Tyler Merritt, hours after his chemotherapy infusion. Tyler is midway through treatment for colorectal cancer, his second diagnosis in six years, and the two get honest about making thoughtful decisions when your body is calling every shot.

They talk about the yes Tyler gave in the middle of radiation: booking a brand-new theater tour that opens seventeen days after his last chemo, a yes he says he “arguably shouldn’t have” given, made so he’d have something beautiful to walk toward. Jen turns the lens on her own year and the yes she almost took back: getting on the plane to Me Camp after a hysterectomy, a brutal spring, and a boyfriend in chemo two thousand miles away.

Tyler also flips the mic and asks Jen whether she regrets writing AWAKE. Her answer is about closure, discretion, and the two longest weeks of her life waiting to hear what her daughter thought of the book.

Plus: how to tell your intuition from everybody else’s fear, Jen’s top three Me Camp TV experiences, one Enneagram argument, and the one yes Tyler is still too scared to say out loud.

Molly Sims on Midlife Confidence (That Doesn’t Come From Perfection)

This week, Jen and Amy sit down with actress, model, entrepreneur, and Lipstick on the Rim host Molly Sims for a conversation that starts light and breezy—backstage at a Hello Sunshine Shine Away event—and quickly moves into something deeper: what it’s like to live in a body that’s been watched, evaluated, and monetized for decades… and how your relationship to that body inevitably changes over time.

Molly has spent most of her life being seen. But what she shares here is what it’s taken to actually see herself.

Today, the discussion centers around the quiet (and sometimes jarring) shift into midlife. Molly opens up about figuring it out in real time, what surprised her most about this chapter, and the unexpected places where things have gotten easier.

There’s also an honest look at what it means to keep showing up in an industry with very loud opinions about women’s bodies—and how Molly now navigates beauty, skincare, procedures, and wellness without losing herself in the process. Where’s the line between empowerment and pressure? And who gets to decide?

But this conversation doesn’t stay theoretical. It lands in real life—in marriage, in motherhood, in the everyday negotiations of confidence and insecurity, and in the intentional ways Molly is trying to give her daughter a different starting point than the one she was handed.

Along the way, the discussion turns to influence, identity, and the kinds of conversations Molly is creating now that she wasn’t having earlier in her career. And in one of the most tender moments of the episode, she reflects on what she would say to her younger self—not to fix her, but just to sit beside her with a little more perspective.

This one feels like sitting across from someone who’s done a lot of living—and is finally comfortable telling the truth about it.

Wake Up Call: Your Body Was Never the Problem with Body Liberation Advocate, Chrissy King

This is your wake up call: your body was never the problem.

By midlife, so many women are exhausted—not just by life, but by decades of being told to manage, fix, discipline, and override our bodies. Wellness culture promised health and control. What it often delivered was shame, disconnection, and the quiet belief that rest, ease, and joy had to be earned.

Today’s conversation asks us to wake up to something different.

Chrissy King is a writer, educator, and body liberation advocate whose work exposes the harm baked into diet and fitness culture and offers a radically more honest path forward. One rooted in consent instead of control. Trust instead of punishment. Listening instead of fixing.

In this Wake Up Call episode, Chrissy opens our eyes to what happens when we stop treating our bodies like projects and start treating them like partners—especially in midlife, when our bodies are changing and asking us to pay attention. We unpack why rest is a biological need (not a reward), and how relearning how to listen can be a form of liberation.

This is a wake up call to the truth we’ve ignored: the body knows. It knows when something isn’t working. It knows when we’re depleted. It knows what it needs next. And when we learn to trust that wisdom—not just individually, but collectively—we don’t just heal our relationship with our bodies, we change the story entirely.

If your body has been tapping you on the shoulder, this episode is your invitation to listen.

Gird Your Loins: Dr. Celeste Holbrook Delivers the “Sex Talk” You Never Had but Deserved

Today’s conversation will have you clutching your pearls and purity rings! In this episode, we’re diving headfirst into the hilarious, cringe-worthy, and ultimately healing journey of escaping purity culture to find a healthier, happier relationship with sex.

Our guest today is Dr. Celeste Holbrook, the cool, no-nonsense friend we all wish we had to help us unpack the weird rules, whispered anxieties, and just plain awkwardness that so many of us grew up with. Dr. Holbrook is a sexologist and educator whose work centers on helping women overcome sexual shame and rediscover a healthy, joyful, and shame-free sex life. After growing up steeped in purity culture and experiencing painful sex after marriage, Celeste began the work of unlearning harmful narratives and rebuilding her sexual self. Today, she helps others do the same—through coaching, courses/ workshops, and in her new book, Missionary Position: A Slightly Irreverent Guide to Sex After Purity Culture. Her candid, compassionate approach has made her a trusted voice on sex, faith, identity, and healing.

If you’ve ever wondered why your sex ed felt more like a PSA on fire safety, this is the episode for you. Join us as we laugh through the misconceptions, bust some myths, and figure out how to reclaim sex as the enjoyable gift it was always meant to be. 

Highlights include: 

  • Unpacking women’ s complicated relationship with pleasure
  • Dr. Holbrook prescribes the best sexy-time soundtrack
  • Review of the four inner missionaries (the Analyst, the Assassin, the Healer, and the Explorer) – the archetypes that define our individual approach to sex 
  • Celeste reveals a surprising fact that both golf carts and ejaculate have in common
  • How the combination of purity culture, patriarchy and capitalism are the oppression cocktail for sex
  • And the conversation veers off course when the trio discusses an exercise that uses Jason Mamoa to evaluate their sexual ethics

Midlife Renaissance: Reclaiming the Conversation about Our Bodies and Menopause with Dr. Louise Newson

Today, Jen and Amy have an intimate conversation with preeminent perimenopausal and menopausal specialist and women’s health advocate, Dr. Louise Newson, who has been described as the “medic who kickstarted the menopause revolution” for her commitment to increasing awareness and knowledge about hormones, perimenopause and menopause through her books, podcast, and educational videos on social media.

In this candid and enlightening conversation, we discuss:

  • The biggest misconceptions women have about menopause including understanding the array of symptoms that can be attributed to it
  • How the conversations our mothers and grandmothers had (or didn’t have) about menopause are evolving
  • The discussions we should be having with our doctors about our health and symptoms but aren’t, either due to shame or lack of information
  • Important steps we can take now to minimize our menopausal symptoms later
  • Treatment options to alleviate our perimenopause/menopause symptoms once they begin, including hormone replacement therapy
  • And, why it’s imperative for policymakers, insurers, employers, and doctors of all specialties to be part this conversation

Midlife Renaissance: Reclaiming the Conversation about Our Bodies and Menopause with Dr. Louise Newson

Today, Jen and Amy have an intimate conversation with preeminent perimenopausal and menopausal specialist and women’s health advocate, Dr. Louise Newson, who has been described as the “medic who kickstarted the menopause revolution” for her commitment to increasing awareness and knowledge about hormones, perimenopause and menopause through her books, podcast, and educational videos on social media.

In this candid and enlightening conversation, we discuss:

  • The biggest misconceptions women have about menopause including understanding the array of symptoms that can be attributed to it
  • How the conversations our mothers and grandmothers had (or didn’t have) about menopause are evolving
  • The discussions we should be having with our doctors about our health and symptoms but aren’t, either due to shame or lack of information
  • Important steps we can take now to minimize our menopausal symptoms later
  • Treatment options to alleviate our perimenopause/menopause symptoms once they begin, including hormone replacement therapy
  • And, why it’s imperative for policymakers, insurers, employers, and doctors of all specialties to be part this conversation

Fixing the Broken Pieces with Ian Morgan Cron

Everyone is an addict. Mr. Rogers…The Dali Lama… Michelle Obama! Mull that idea over for a minute and when you’re done being outraged like we were, join us for this enthralling conversation with one of our favorite repeat guests on For the Love – author, psychotherapist, and Episcopal priest, Ian Morgan Cron. Today, we’re talking to him about his new book, The Fix: How the Twelve Steps Offer a Surprising Path of Transformation for the Well-Adjusted, the Down-and-Out, and Everyone In Between.

People pleasing, the need to be right, being a compulsive helper, workaholism, being a knowledge junkie, perfectionism, holding on to our past suffering – these are all forms of addiction. The simple truth is, we each resort to our own methods of dealing with the harder aspects of life. For some, that solution means turning to a substance to numb our pain, which is how we traditionally think of addiction. For others, there are behaviors we employ to manipulate what we are feeling. And that’s where the rest of us fall into the sticky trap.

Ian, who also hosts the wildly popular Typology podcast exploring the mystery of the human personality, teaches us how the Twelve Steps are a trusted tool for anyone seeking to move beyond self-help to a more profound sense of awakening.

And, in a new segment called “To My Younger Self”, Jen and Amy share some deeply personal experiences that, for Amy, helped change her relationships and, for Jen, helped change how she viewed herself.

Escaping the Productivity Trap: Kendra Adachi’s Lazy Genius Perspective

It’s a brand new season of the show and we are thrilled to have Amy Hardin, Jen’s longtime friend, join us on the podcast for a whole new adventure in laughing at ourselves and learning from our incredible guests. 

The Lazy Genius herself, Kendra Adachi, joins Jen and Amy today to challenge our culture’s obsession with productivity and time management. Kendra offers a revolutionary perspective: the problem isn’t you — it’s the capitalistic, patriarchal culture we’ve all been raised in. Kendra unpacks why traditional productivity advice often fails women and shares a more compassionate approach for managing busy lives. 

Whether you’re drowning in laundry, juggling work and family, or simply craving a kinder way to approach your days, this conversation will leave you feeling seen, encouraged, and equipped with practical strategies.

Discover how to:

  • Shift your mindset from pursuing ‘greatness’ to embracing contentment
  • Take small, sustainable steps instead of attempting drastic overhauls
  • Adapt your systems to fit your unique life and needs
  • Find freedom from rigid to-do lists and unrealistic expectations

Don’t miss Kendra’s sneak peek into her upcoming book ‘The Plan’ — it just might change your life!

A Moment of Pride: Jen and Sydney Hatmaker On Being Gay, Christian and Loved

It’s the last episode of our Spring Back series–and we’re wrapping it up with a conversation that was the most listened to (and commented on) episode in our entire For the Love podcast history–and it’s with none other than Jen’s daughter, Sydney Hatmaker!  Sydney first appeared on our show last summer, where she shared with the world that she was gay; walking us through her journey, beginning at 12 years old, and how hard she worked to reckon this with her faith and the beliefs of her family. This conversation between daughter and mother is so real, so brave, and if you haven’t heard it, you’re going to want to listen in as Jen and Sydney discuss some hard situations where religion and sexuality intersect and ultimately, how what they knew to be true about God and His love and mercy, was true for LGBTQ people of faith as well. And what better time to revisit our time with Sydney than during Pride month–plus we’ve got all new commentary from Jen and some updates about where Sydney is now in her life that you won’t want to miss!