Podcast Category: Self-Care/Routines (Wellness)

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.

Amy Grant: The Long Road Back to Yourself (The Me That Remains)

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.

Jen Hamilton on Birth Vibes: Reclaiming Agency in One of Life’s Most Vulnerable Moments

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.

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.

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.

[ENCORE] Your Body Deserves Pleasure Too: A Conversation with Vanessa Marin

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

Fertility Is a Health Marker: The Bigger Picture of Hormones and Women’s Health with Dr. Natalie Crawford

This week, Jen and Amy sit down with double board-certified OB-GYN and reproductive endocrinologist Dr. Natalie Crawford, author of The Fertility Formula, for a wide-ranging conversation about hormones, inflammation, stress, and the powerful (and often misunderstood) signals our bodies are constantly sending.

While Dr. Crawford’s work is rooted in fertility, this episode zooms out to something much bigger: how hormone health reflects our overall well-being — and why midlife is often the moment when the body stops whispering and starts speaking clearly.

But this conversation isn’t just for women trying to get pregnant.

It’s for women in perimenopause and menopause wondering what their bodies are doing now — and why. Because fertility is more than reproduction; it’s a health marker. The same patterns that shape our fertility years — inflammation, hormone signaling, metabolic health, stress — also influence how we experience menopause, what symptoms show up, and what kinds of support our bodies will need.

And it’s also for women stepping into the grandparent years — who want to better understand what their daughters, daughters-in-law, and younger women in their lives are navigating. Because the more we understand our own bodies, the more compassion and clarity we bring to the next generation.

Together, they unpack:

  • Why your menstrual cycle (even in its changes) is one of your most important health indicators
  • Natalie’s experience with pregnancy loss and how it shaped her approach to women’s health
  • The effects of societal and political shifts on women’s reproductive choices
  • How cycle awareness can support both fertility outcomes and menopause transitions

Whether or not you are thinking about fertility — or are long past that season — this conversation reframes it as something more expansive: a reflection of vitality, resilience, and how supported your body truly feels across every stage of life.

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.