Podcast Category: Self-Care/Routines (Wellness)

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.

[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.

The New Perimenopause: What’s Actually Happening to Your Body with Dr. Mary Claire Haver

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.

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.