Podcast Category: Wellness

Your Kid Isn’t the Problem (And Neither Are You) with Mandy Grass

If parenting has you oscillating between “I’ve got this” and “I need to lie down immediately,” press play.

Today, we’re stepping into one of the most humbling arenas for compassion and grace: your own living room. Because fierce compassion isn’t just for coworkers and complicated relatives—it’s also for the tiny humans melting down over the wrong color cup or the soccer uniform that didn’t get washed in time for game day. And it’s for YOU, standing there, wondering how you got so activated over this nonsense.

Jen and Amy are talking to Mandy Grass—nationally recognized Board-Certified Behavior Analyst, founder of The Family Behaviorist, former teacher, and mom in a blended family of seven kids (ages four to sixteen). Yes, seven. Her house is less “quiet retreat” and more “ongoing behavioral case study.” The data is… robust.

For nearly two decades, Mandy has been translating behavior science into practical, no-guilt tools for families. Her central message feels radical in a culture obsessed with control: kids’ behavior is communication—not a moral failure. And neither is your exhaustion.

In this conversation, we talk about:

  • What Mandy actually hears when parents say, “We’ve tried everything”
  • How shame and blame sneak into parenting—and how to gently escort them out
  • Why so much of parenting work begins with the parent, not the kid (I know. We had feelings about this too.)
  • And one tiny shift you can make tonight that will cool the temperature at home (no sticker charts required)

Here’s the truth: we cannot regulate our kids if we are operating at DEFCON 1 ourselves. Fierce compassion means holding boundaries without losing your humanity. It means seeing your child clearly—and offering yourself the same grace when you inevitably lose it over bedtime negotiations.

Mandy also shares about her new podcast, The Behavior Blueprint, a grounded, step-by-step guide for parents who are tired of quick fixes and ready for something that actually works in real life—not just on Instagram. It’s equal parts instruction, compassion, and “oh thank God, it’s not just me.”

Take a breath. Your child isn’t the problem. You aren’t either. And that might be the fiercest compassion of all.

What If Desire Is the Map? A Wilderness & Wonder Conversation with Jay Stringer

Many of us were taught that desire is dangerous—something to manage, suppress, or feel ashamed of. But what if desire isn’t the problem at all? What if it’s not just about sex or attraction, but about the places we feel most alive?

Today, Jen and Amy sit down with FTL fan-favorite Jay Stringer, a licensed therapist and author whose work helps people understand the deeper stories shaping their desires—especially the ones we’ve been taught to hide, or silence. Drawing from his powerful new book Desire, Jay reframes desire not as a moral failure or impulse to eliminate, but as a signal worth listening to—one that points us toward what formed us, what wounded us, and what we are still longing for beneath the surface.

Jay shifts the focus from behavior modification to understanding the story behind desire—for intimacy, success, escape, creativity, or belonging—shaped by early attachment, trauma, and unmet needs. The conversation moves from “What’s wrong with me?” to “What happened to me?” turning desire from shame into meaning. This is not a conversation about labeling or fixing yourself. It’s about understanding yourself—how your story formed you, and how listening to what brings you to life can lead toward freedom, wholeness, and deeper connection. 

This episode also serves as the opening doorway into our Wilderness & Wonder series. In a season when many of us are navigating uncertainty—spiritually, relationally, or internally—this episode grounds us in the idea that exploration isn’t aimlessness, but formation. That the wilderness can be a teacher. And that desire itself may be one of the quiet guides helping us stay awake, curious, and present as we learn how to live inside the questions.

This is a gentle conversation, but it’s also a brave one. And we’re really glad you’re here for it.

The Wake-Up Call: What Changes in Midlife—and Why You’re Not Imagining It

What happens when the life you’ve been managing no longer fits?

In this powerful and honest conversation, Jen Hatmaker is joined by four trusted voices—Nedra Glover Tawwab, Emily Nagoski, Kobe Campbell, and Kate Bowler—for a wide-ranging discussion about what it really means to wake up in midlife.

Together, they explore the places awakening often shows up first: our relationships, our bodies, our mental health, and our faith. This isn’t a conversation about fixing yourself or rushing toward answers. It’s about noticing—naming what’s shifting, understanding why it feels so disruptive, and realizing you’re not alone in it.

From boundaries and burnout to body shame, anxiety, trauma, and faith after certainty, this episode offers language, compassion, and clarity for women navigating midlife change with honesty and courage.

If you’ve ever thought, Something’s changing—and I don’t know what to do with it, this conversation is for you.

In This Episode, We Discuss

  • Relationships
  • Bodies & Burnout
  • Mental Health
  • Faith

[ENCORE] Why ‘Let Them’ Might Be the Kindest Words You Can Say to Yourself

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.

When Listeners Say, “Me Too”: Finding Familiarity in Shared Stories – A Listener Voicemail Episode

In this special listener voicemail episode, Jen and Amy turn the mic outward—listening closely to the voices, stories, and wisdom of the community that makes this show what it is.

From reflections sparked by our Wake Up Call season to deeply personal responses to Jen’s book Awake, these messages trace a powerful throughline: what happens when we begin to tell the truth about our lives—and make space for who we’re becoming.

Listeners share how conversations with Lee C. Camp, John Fugelsang, Melani Sanders, and Chrissy King stirred something awake in them, naming long-held questions around faith, body, identity, and courage. Others call in to reflect on the uncanny resonance of Awake, beginning again and again with the same line: “Jen, our stories are very similar.”

This episode is tender, funny, and honest—a reminder that none of us are doing this work alone. It’s about waking up, letting go, finding language for the ache, and choosing what comes next—together.

If you’ve ever wondered whether your voice matters here, this episode is your answer.

Nedra Glover Tawwab: The Wake-Up We Need About Love, Boundaries, and The Balancing Act Behind Healthy Relationships

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.

[ENCORE] Small Steps, Big Change: Waking Up To The Hidden Power of Our Habits with James Clear

Sometimes a wake up call doesn’t arrive as a crisis. Sometimes it arrives as a quiet realization: the way I’m living isn’t actually working.

In this encore episode, we revisit a powerful conversation with James Clear, bestselling author of Atomic Habits, whose work has helped millions rethink how real, lasting change actually happens. Not through willpower, reinvention, or overnight transformation—but through the small, often invisible choices we make every day.

This conversation is a wake up call to the myth of “someday”, a wake up call to waiting for motivation before we act, and a wake up call to the belief that big change requires big drama.

James breaks down why habits are less about self-discipline and more about identity, environment, and systems—and how the patterns we repeat, often unconsciously, are shaping our lives for better or worse. Together, we explore how paying attention to what we practice daily can wake us up to the lives we’re actually building.

If you’re standing at the edge of change—feeling stuck in patterns you can’t seem to break, exhausted by self-improvement cycles, or longing for a more sustainable way forward—this episode offers a grounded, hopeful reset.

Let this be your wake up call to begin again, not perfectly, not dramatically, but honestly, intentionally, and one doable step at a time.

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.

Social Media Sensation Melani Sanders Reminds Us That We Are Enough and We Do Not Care

Buckle up, friends — today’s episode is a whole ride in the best possible way. Our guest is Melani Sanders, the founder of the global We Do Not Care Movement™, a viral sisterhood of women who are reclaiming humor, agency, and sanity in the absolute circus that is perimenopause, menopause, and midlife.

Melani went from full-time mom of three to an overnight cultural phenomenon when a candid little reel she posted — “If you are in perimenopause, menopause, and beyond and simply do not care much anymore, let me hear from you” — blew up the internet and awakened millions of women who said, “Oh… same.” What began as one moment of honesty became a movement, a community, and now a book called The Official We Do Not Care Club Handbook,

A hysterectomy in 2024 sent Melani into early perimenopause, and suddenly everything she knew about her mind and body went off the rails. A meltdown in a Whole Foods parking lot became her personal wake-up call — the moment she stopped spiraling, started laughing, and began telling the unvarnished truth about hormone chaos, identity shifts, brain fog, midlife rage, caregiving, and the mental load women carry without complaint.

In today’s conversation, we talk about what perimenopause really feels like, how midlife reshapes our relationships and self-perception, and why humor can be a lifeline when your hormones are staging a coup. We also explore what it looks like to drop shame, release the pressure to hold it all together, and embrace this wild, transformative season with honesty, community, and a big ol’ dose of “we simply do not care.”

If you’re in perimenopause, menopause, or that hazy middle place where your brain, body, and identity are all renegotiating the terms — this episode will feel like being seen and understood. Melani is a treasure, and we cannot wait for you to meet her.

[BONUS] The Rest of Our Lives: A Conversation About the Long Middle with Ben Markovits

What happens after the dream you built your life around ends?

In today’s tender and searching conversation, Jen and Amy sit down with acclaimed novelist Ben Markovits to talk about his forthcoming book, The Rest of Our Lives—a story that lingers in the quiet spaces of midlife, marriage, parenting, friendship, and the quiet reckonings that arrive when the future you imagined no longer fits. The book is so spectacular, it has been shortlisted as a finalist for the illustrious Booker Prize.

Together, the trio explores what happens when the life you worked toward doesn’t quite deliver what you expected—and how that reckoning ripples through family, intimacy, and identity. Ben speaks honestly about ambition, and the grief of letting go of former selves, while also naming the surprising beauty found in showing up for the people you love in ordinary, unglamorous moments. He and Jen talk about the similarities between the fictional story that he wrote and the real-life account that Jen penned in Awake. 

This episode is for anyone standing in the middle of their life, caring for children or parents (or both), wondering how to hold disappointment without becoming hardened—and how to love the life in front of you without pretending it’s easy. It’s a conversation about endurance, tenderness, and the brave, ongoing work of choosing one another as the years keep unfolding.

If you’ve ever asked yourself, Is this really it?—and then quietly hoped the answer might still be no, not yet—this one is for you.