What happens when everyone needs you to be okay, but you’re barely surviving yourself?

Hollywood screenwriter and producer Lee Ehlers spent years learning how to survive rejection, but nothing prepared him for the loss of his wife, Erin, or for discovering that sometimes the strongest thing you can do is stop pretending you’re okay.

Lee’s professional breakthrough and personal devastation collided when his feature film EXES was finally being made as his high school sweetheart and wife of twenty years was dying from breast cancer. Suddenly widowed with children who were just 10, 7, and 5, Lee found himself trying to grieve while becoming the person they still needed every day. We talk about the private cost of performing the “strong dad,” the period when alcohol became the only way he could sleep through overwhelming grief, and the moment he

finally admitted, “I’m not okay. I’m struggling.”

In this episode:

Grief after the death of a spouseWidowed fatherhood and raising children through lossPerforming strength when you’re falling apartDepression, isolation, and asking for helpSelf-medication and coping with acute griefWhy grief doesn’t follow a predictable processSupporting someone who is grieving without prescribing how they should healThe strange collision of happy memories and devastating lossStarting over after losing the person you built your life withIdentity after lossPersistence through rejection and uncertaintyNearly two decades of pursuing a Hollywood careerScreenwriting, creativity, and finding your own writing processWhat repeated rejection can teach us about survivalThe making of EXESWhy saying “I’m not okay” can be the beginning of getting help

Watch Lee Ehlers’ film EXES on Amazon:

EXES on Amazon

⁠

Lisa Lacy | Notes From the Edge:

https://www.lisalacy.com

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What if real masculine strength has less to do with pushing harder and more to do with learning how to regulate yourself, feel deeply, and stay present under pressure?

Michael Ostrolenk, licensed marriage and family therapist and master coach, joins Lisa Lacy to explore one central idea: mature masculinity is not domination, suppression, or performance. It is self-governance.

Michael introduces his concept of “Negative 20X,” challenging high performers to consider whether slowing down may require more courage than pushing harder. Lisa and Michael also unpack his Sovereign Gentleman framework, including how unconscious conditioning shapes identity, why men need spaces to experience and express emotion, and what disciplined presence actually looks like inside a relationship.

In this episode:

Healthy masculinity and masculine maturityNervous system regulation under pressureThe Sovereign Gentleman and psychological sovereigntyMale loneliness, mentorship, friendship, and the need for tribeWhy high performers struggle with rest and recovery“Negative 20X” and the drive to constantly prove yourselfEmotional intelligence, anger, sadness, shame, and healthy expressionMasculinity versus dominationDisciplined presence during relationship conflictHow childhood and cultural conditioning shape adult identityMartial arts, self-defense, capability, and personal responsibility Why kindness can be an expression of strength

Connect with Michael Ostrolenk:

Website: www.michaeldostrolenk.com

Substack: Michael D. Ostrolenk / @michaeldostrolenk

LinkedIn: Michael Ostrolenk, MA, MFT

YouTube: @michaeldostrolenk

Podcast: Resilience Redefined with Michael D. Ostrolenk

Team Fudoshin: teamfudoshin.com

Connect with Lisa Lacy:

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What happens when you stop the addiction, but the pain underneath it is still running your life?

Dr. Dean Sunseri, licensed professional counselor, and HollyKem Sunseri, certified life coach with more than four decades in recovery, explore the work they call emotional sobriety: healing the emotional wounds and protective patterns that can remain long after the substance or destructive behavior is gone.

In this conversation, we go beyond abstinence and into what Dean and HollyKem call Stage Two recovery. We talk about why unresolved pain can “seep out” through substitute addictions, anger, isolation, control, relationship conflict, or other coping behaviors, and why simply stopping a behavior doesn’t necessarily heal what created it. They walk us through their framework of the Protector, Wounded Child, and True Self, including how learning to recognize which part of us is speaking can restore choice instead of leaving us controlled by old survival responses. We also explore relationships, why one person changing can change the entire “dance,” and why reconnecting may need to happen before a couple can actually solve the problem they’re fighting about.

In this episode:

Emotional sobriety and Stage Two addiction recoveryWhy abstinence may be only the beginning of healingSubstance addiction, behavioral addiction, and substitute addictionsThe emotional pain underneath compulsive and self-destructive behaviorThe Protector, Wounded Child, and True SelfTrauma, triggers, and protective survival responsesWhy healing doesn’t mean never being triggered againLearning to love the parts of yourself you once tried to escapeSelf-compassion versus shame in addiction recoveryMoving from survival mode into choice, purpose, and emotional freedomRelationships, resentment, defensiveness, and emotional disconnectionWhy one partner’s growth can change the relationship dynamicReconnecting before trying to resolve conflictBoundaries, responsibility, forgiveness, and healthy communicationFinding purpose after addiction and survival

Dr. Dean & HollyKem Sunseri:

1. Take the free Emotional Sobriety Assessment: https://dean-jsegmrly.scoreapp.com

2. Get the Book A Roadmap to the Soul Today! https://amzn.to/478rNG8

3. Learn more about Dean & HollyKem Sunseri: https://www.ihaveavoice.com

4. Watch Free Videos on Emotional Sobriety: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsbxvHYHG8El81rdV6eQ7gM7S55jXPm49&si=FOa14n7V-5OLJOQJ

Lisa Lacy | Notes From the Edge:

https://www.lisalacy.com

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Who told you that you were too sensitive, too difficult, selfish, dramatic, unstable, or simply too much? And when did someone else’s opinion become part of your identity?

In this solo episode of Notes From the Edge, trauma educator Lisa Lacy explores how labels, family roles, survival adaptations, and other people’s perceptions can quietly become the stories we tell ourselves about who we are, and what can happen when we finally question who handed us those stories in the first place.

Lisa examines the difference between personality and adaptation, why competence can become armor, and how a label can stop an investigation before it ever begins. She also shares how this question has surfaced while writing Notes From a Certified Madwoman, now autofiction, and why sometimes finding yourself is less about becoming someone new and more about subtracting everybody else.

In this episode:

How childhood and relationship labels can become identity“Too sensitive,” “difficult,” “selfish,” and the power of labelingCompetence as strength versus competence as survival armorWhy boundaries can feel threatening to people who benefited from your complianceFamily roles, scapegoating, and resistance when one person changesThe difference between accountability and self-erasureSurvival adaptations that become adult personality traitsWhy proving a label wrong can still allow it to control your lifeWhat happens when you enter an environment where you are no longer “too much”The question that can interrupt an old identity: Who told you that?

Connect with Lisa Lacy:

https://lisalacy.com

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What happens when men are taught that vulnerability is weakness, but connection is exactly what they need most?

Jason Lange is a men’s embodiment coach and group facilitator who believes men don’t need to become tougher. They need the language, relationships, and spaces that allow them to become more fully human.

In this conversation, Jason shares how growing up without emotional or physical connection left him unable to understand what was happening inside his own body, eventually leading to shame, isolation, and unhealthy ways of coping. He takes us inside the somatic breakthrough that changed everything and explains why men’s groups became one of the most powerful forces in his own healing, relationships, and life.

In this episode:

Men’s mental health and the male loneliness epidemicHealthy masculinity and breaking out of the “man box”Why vulnerability can feel dangerous for menEmotional neglect, shame, and disconnectionSomatic therapy and nervous system healingMen’s groups, brotherhood, and co-regulationPorn, alcohol, overworking, and other forms of emotional numbingBuilding emotional intimacy in relationshipsLearning to identify wants, needs, feelings, and boundariesMoving beyond the isolated “lone wolf” model of masculinityAuthenticity instead of performing that everything is fine

Connect with Jason Lange:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonmlange/

Evolutionary Men: https://evolutionary.men

Evolutionary Edge Quiz: https://evolutionary.men/quiz

Connect with Lisa Lacy:

https://www.lisalacy.com

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What happens when you spend decades believing you’re lazy, too much, unreliable or simply doing life wrong, only to discover your brain has been working differently all along?

Ellie AuDHD Capstick is an AuDHD educator and podcast host whose late diagnosis gave her something she had spent a lifetime searching for: language for experiences she once understood as personal failures.

In this conversation, Ellie gets candid about the collision of ADHD and autism, years of masking and pushing herself into burnout, and why she doesn’t automatically call neurodivergence a “superpower.” She also shares what she wishes she had understood while raising her older neurodivergent children and how diagnosis helped her move from shame toward self-advocacy.

In this episode:

AuDHD and living with both ADHD and autismLate diagnosis, identity and self-understandingNeurodivergent masking and autistic/ADHD burnoutExecutive dysfunction versus “laziness”Rejection sensitive dysphoria (RSD)Trauma, vulnerability and neurodivergenceParenting neurodivergent children with confidenceSelf-advocacy, relationships and dropping the mask

Connect with Ellie AuDHD Capstick

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/1Ls1EfoRam/?mibextid=wwXIfr

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ellie-audhd-capstick-b8a971415

Connect with Lisa Lacy

https://www.lisalacy.com

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What if the secret to a healthier, happier, more sustainable life is hiding in a bin of worms, a jar of sprouts and one really good belly laugh?

Cathy Nesbitt is an award-winning entrepreneur and laughter yoga teacher who has spent more than two decades showing people how worms, sprouts, and laughter can create a healthier, more sustainable life.

In this episode, Cathy and Lisa go from the surprising story behind Cathy’s “worm empire” to why she believes laughter is an essential tool for navigating stress. They talk about turning food waste into “black gold,” growing your own nutrition through sprouts, learning to move toward the weirdness, and what happened when Cathy stopped being a lifelong people pleaser and started giving herself permission to say no.

In this episode:

Vermicomposting and turning household waste into healthy soilWhy Cathy believes worms matter for sustainability and food securityGrowing fresh sprouts at homeLaughter yoga and nervous-system regulationWhy adults need more play and laughterStress, isolation, and protecting your mental healthRecovering from people pleasingSaying no without overexplaining or apologizingWhy shame loses power when we stop keeping it silentChoosing simple tools for a healthier, more sustainable life

Cathy Nesbitt: www.kathysclub.com

Lisa Lacy: www.lisalacy.com

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What if moving forward doesn’t require you to “get over” what happened?

Stephanie Renner is an attorney, keynote speaker, and creator of the Regret to Resilience Method™, a framework for moving through unresolved guilt and regret without erasing the people, experiences, or losses that shaped us.

After the death of her son Jordan by suicide, Stephanie’s understanding of regret became deeply personal. In this conversation, we talk about the brutal “if onlys” that can follow loss, the illusion of control, and why building a meaningful life after grief doesn’t mean leaving someone behind. We also explore how regret reaches far beyond bereavement, showing up in relationships, careers, caregiving, and the decisions we replay long after they’re over.

In this episode:

Grief, regret, and the “if only” cycleSuicide loss and unanswered questionsResponsibility vs. hindsightMoving forward without “moving on”Self-forgiveness and self-compassionThe illusion of controlFinding purpose after profound lossTurning regret into resilience

Learn more about Stephanie Renner:

https://www.stephanierennerspeaks.com/

Find Lisa Lacy and Notes From the Edge:

https://www.lisalacy.com/

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What happens when menopause doesn’t create the crisis, but exposes everything your mind and body have spent decades carrying?

Lisa Lacy, writer and host of Notes From the Edge, explores how surgical menopause collided with a lifetime of trauma, recovery, psychiatric diagnoses, chronic illness and survival.

After having her ovaries unexpectedly removed at 45, Lisa experienced rage, panic, depression, insomnia, brain fog and an unsettling loss of identity. In this solo episode, she examines what happens when hormonal change collides with years of stored stress, hypervigilance and survival patterns, and why women deserve more than being told they’re “just hormonal.”

In this episode:

Surgical menopause and mental healthTrauma activation and survival patternsRage, anxiety, depression and identity lossMedical dismissal in midlife womenHigh-functioning survival and performanceWhy menopause can expose what was already there

Learn more: www.lisalacy.com

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What happens to the spouse when the person with the addiction gets all the attention?

In this deeply personal conversation, Lisa Lacy sits down with author, speaker and advocate Roxanna Johnson to talk about the side of sexual addiction that is too often forgotten: betrayal trauma and what it does to the partner left trying to make sense of a life that suddenly feels unrecognizable.

After nearly 24 years of marriage, Roxanna discovered that her husband had been living with a hidden pattern of sexual addiction. She calls the disclosure “the bomb” because it didn’t simply reveal a secret. It blew apart her understanding of her marriage, her safety and, for a time, herself.

Lisa and Roxanna dig into what betrayal trauma can actually look like: hypervigilance, panic, anger, grief, shame, questioning your own reality and becoming so focused on another person’s behavior that you lose touch with your own wants, needs and identity.

They also explore one of the most important distinctions in recovery: boundaries are not control. Roxanna shares how she learned to stop twisting herself into what she calls “a pretzel” to keep the peace and instead use boundaries to create emotional safety for herself, regardless of whether her partner chose recovery.

The conversation goes into codependency and counterdependence, lovingly detaching, rebuilding self-trust, finding competent betrayal-trauma support, creating a recovery community, spiritual reawakening and grieving the marriage, family or future you thought you had.

And perhaps most importantly, they talk about the spouse’s right to heal independently of the outcome of the relationship.

Roxanna’s work and book, Forgotten in the Battle with Sexual Addiction: The Journey of a Spouse, give language and support to partners and families who have too often been treated as collateral damage in someone else’s recovery.

Connect with Roxanna Johnson:

https://ForgottenSpouse.com

Connect with Lisa Lacy and Notes From the Edge:

https://www.lisalacy.com/podcast

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What happens when achievement becomes a substitute for being seen?

Writer, memoirist, and speaker Daniel Sterling joins Lisa Lacy for a candid conversation about men’s mental health, male loneliness, emotional vulnerability, masculinity, identity, and what it takes to raise emotionally whole boys.

Daniel traces his own journey from an eight-year-old alpine ski racer who discovered the powerful rush of recognition to becoming one of the top ski racers in the country, then pursuing success through television, broadcasting, screenwriting, and filmmaking. But underneath the ambition was something much more human: the need to be seen, valued, and loved.

After emotionally cratering in midlife, Daniel began questioning the identity he had built around achievement. A mentor introduced him to self-study, accountability, and a different way of living, beginning what he describes as the much longer journey from his head to his heart.

Lisa and Daniel dig into why so many men learn to armor up instead of open up, how childhood messages like “toughen up” and “man up” can follow boys into adulthood, and why our current crisis of male isolation may have roots much earlier than we think.

They also explore what parents can do differently: knowing the child in front of them, celebrating effort instead of achievement, allowing boys to fail and recover, giving them a voice, and creating enough emotional safety for vulnerability without removing the structure they need to grow.

And perhaps most importantly, they talk about personal accountability: learning to recognize what belongs to you, apologize without defending yourself, change the behavior that caused harm, and discover who you are when you no longer need the performance.

Daniel is currently seeking representation for his completed memoir, Hungry, and shares excerpts from his writing through his Substack.

Connect with Daniel Sterling:

https://daniel-sterling.com

Connect with Lisa Lacy:

https://lisalacy.com

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Why does someone stay in a relationship they know is hurting them? And why can leaving feel almost physically unbearable, even when you know you need to go?

In this special solo episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy shares her own experience of spending 13 years in a marriage marked by addiction, betrayal, coercive control, gaslighting and trauma bonding.

At the time, Lisa was also carrying diagnoses of borderline personality disorder, bipolar disorder, complex PTSD, chronic alcoholism and codependency while managing a congenital blood disease. Over time, the chaos became so disorienting that she stopped trusting her own perception and began gaslighting herself.

She left repeatedly.

And repeatedly went back.

Because every time she tried to leave, it felt like she was dying.

It ultimately took three years to complete the divorce and another three years before she was able to fully go no contact.

This conversation explores what coercive control actually looks like when it happens slowly, how trauma bonds are reinforced through cycles of fear, pain, relief and reconciliation, why mental-health diagnoses can make someone even more vulnerable to doubting their own reality, and why asking survivors, “Why didn’t you just leave?” profoundly misunderstands what may be happening psychologically and physiologically.

Lisa also talks about the long road back to self-trust, the difference between understanding someone and giving them permission to harm you, and the moment when you stop making decisions based on someone’s potential and finally start looking at their patterns.

Because sometimes leaving is not one brave decision.

Sometimes it is a process of choosing yourself over and over again until your nervous system finally learns that freedom is safe.

Learn more about Lisa and Notes From the Edge at www.LisaLacy.com

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What if psychiatry looked beyond symptoms and asked a different question: What else could be happening here?

In this episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy sits down with Dr. Naveen Thomas, board-certified psychiatrist and founder of Clarity Integrative Psychiatry, for a wide-ranging conversation about what mental healthcare can look like when we stop treating the diagnosis as the whole person.

Dr. Thomas shares why his approach to psychiatry evolved beyond the familiar cycle of symptoms, diagnosis, medication, adjustment, and another medication. Instead, he explores the biological, psychological, nutritional, physical, and environmental factors that may be contributing to how someone feels.

The conversation examines how issues such as thyroid dysfunction, vitamin D deficiency and low B12 can sometimes complicate or resemble symptoms associated with depression, and why curiosity matters before labeling someone or a condition as “treatment resistant.”

Lisa and Dr. Thomas also explore:

• Integrative psychiatry and whole-person mental healthcare

• Root-cause thinking in mental health treatment

• Depression and treatment-resistant depression

• Vitamin D, B12, thyroid health and brain function

• The role of medication within a broader treatment approach

• Patient autonomy and self-advocacy

• Why the doctor-patient relationship should be a partnership

• Trauma, choice and the importance of restoring agency

• The limitations created by rushed healthcare systems

• What happens when healthcare becomes a commodity rather than a human relationship

• Why relieving suffering may only be the beginning of what mental healthcare can accomplish

Dr. Thomas challenges the idea that the goal of psychiatry should simply be helping someone function well enough to tolerate life. What if the bar were higher? What if mental healthcare helped people move beyond suffering toward connection, meaning, contribution and a fuller experience of being human?

Learn more about Dr. Naveen Thomas and Clarity Integrative Psychiatry:

www.claritypsychiatry.com

Learn more about Lisa Lacy and Notes From the Edge:

www.lisalacy.com

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What happens when you realize the life you worked so hard to hold together no longer feels like your own?

In this episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy sits down with Jodi Koch, CEO of Elizabeth Erin Designs and host of Designing in 5D, for a conversation that begins with interior design and quickly becomes something much bigger: divorce recovery, people-pleasing, perfectionism, childhood conditioning, hypervigilance, intuition, reinvention, and learning to trust yourself again.

Jodi shares how growing up as the child who took care of everyone shaped her into an adult who carried everything for everybody. She talks candidly about the exhaustion of a long marriage in which she often felt emotionally alone, the difficult decision to finally leave, and the realization that she had spent years listening to everyone except herself.

We explore the connection between childhood survival patterns and adult relationships, why people-pleasing can become a form of self-abandonment, and what happens when you finally stop pouring your energy into keeping everything and everyone else afloat.

Jodi also takes us inside the experiences that helped change her direction, including creating her own personal retreat, exploring plant medicine and spirituality, traveling alone, navigating divorce, rebuilding her business after a devastating disruption, and asking herself a deceptively simple question:

What does Jodi actually want now?

That question became her North Star.

And it turns out that the philosophy behind great interior design isn’t so different from creating a meaningful life. Before choosing what looks beautiful, you have to understand who is actually going to live there. You need clarity. Intention. Function. A direction that belongs to you.

Jodi shares her Designing in 5D philosophy, her intuitive approach to interior design, the importance of creating homes around the actual human beings living inside them, and how she’s using AI as a tool without removing the creativity, expertise, storytelling, and human connection that make design personal.

We also talk about decision fatigue, rebuilding after divorce, releasing perfectionism, trusting your intuition, creating safe spaces, finding your true North, and the extraordinary freedom that can come from finally saying:

This is what I want.

Connect with Jodi Koch & Elizabeth Erin Designs

Website:
https://elizabetherindesigns.com

Designing in 5D on Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/show/6SH9NbnLfhCmEyZsJ0r0f8

Designing in 5D on Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/designing-in-5d/id1778045559

Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/elizabetherindesigns/

Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/ElizabethErinDesigns/

TikTok:
https://www.tiktok.com/@elizabetherindesigns

YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/@ElizabethErinDesigns5D

Pinterest:
https://www.pinterest.com/elizabetherindesigns/

LinkedIn | Jodi Koch:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jodipeterman

LinkedIn | Elizabeth Erin Designs:
https://www.linkedin.com/company/elizabeth-erin-designs

Linktree:
https://linktr.ee/elizabetherindesigns

Connect with Lisa Lacy

https://lisalacy.com

What did you perform in order to survive?
Welcome to the Edge.

Notes from the Edge with Lisa Lacy

Human conversations about trauma, identity, recovery, reinvention, relationships, leadership, and the lives we build after survival. 

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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What if stress isn’t simply something to eliminate, but something trying to show us where healing needs to happen?

In this episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy sits down with mental health counselor, meditation teacher, spiritual guide, author, and podcast host Dean Graves for a wide-ranging conversation about consciousness, trauma healing, identity, mindfulness, addiction recovery, spiritual awakening, emotional healing, and the search for meaning.

Dean explores the idea that much of what we call our “identity” is something we construct over a lifetime, shaped by experiences, thoughts, expectations, and our attempts to get more of what feels good while avoiding what hurts. But what happens when the identity that once helped us function begins to exhaust us?

Together, Lisa and Dean explore the difference between outward success and inner fulfillment, why awakening often begins when the old way of living stops working, and what can happen when we turn our attention inward instead of constantly measuring ourselves through the reactions of others.

They also dig into stress as a teacher, conscious choice, meditation, self-awareness, trauma recovery, the 12-step process, addiction and dual diagnosis, personal responsibility, happiness as a measure of healing, and the gradual process of letting go of the masks and performances that separate us from a more authentic sense of self.

At the center of the conversation is one deceptively simple question:

Who are you when you stop trying to convince the world who you are?

Learn more about Dean Graves, his books, podcasts, and work at:
https://ddeangraves.org

Explore Lisa Lacy, Notes From the Edge, her writing, books, and work at:
https://lisalacy.com

What did you perform in order to survive? 

Welcome to the Edge.

Notes from the Edge with Lisa Lacy

Human conversations about trauma, identity, recovery, reinvention, relationships, leadership, and the lives we build after survival. 

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Women have it harder.

There, I said it.

And no, this is not a man-hating manifesto. I love men. In fact, parts of my romantic history would suggest I may have loved them a little too enthusiastically. This conversation is not about blaming men. It is about refusing to lie about what women experience in order to make anyone more comfortable.

In this solo episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy explores the cumulative cost of moving through the world as a woman: the expectation of self-sacrifice in motherhood and family life, the invisible labor women carry, the gender pay gap, sexual violence, impossible beauty and behavior standards, and the conditioning that teaches women to prioritize everyone else’s needs before their own.

Lisa also digs into the medical dismissal women experience, particularly during perimenopause and menopause, when profound physical, emotional and cognitive changes are still too often minimized, misunderstood or written off as anxiety.

This is also a conversation about the ways women participate in their own conditioning. The pressure to be the good mother, the easy wife, the competent employee, the caretaker, the attractive woman, the strong woman and the woman who somehow needs absolutely nothing.

Because sometimes the performance that earns women the most praise is the very performance that causes them to disappear.

Men suffer too. Men carry their own painful expectations around strength, provision, emotion and masculinity. We do not have to deny that truth in order to acknowledge another one:

Good men don’t need women to lie about women’s experiences in order to protect men’s feelings. And good women don’t need to demonize men in order to tell the truth about being female.

Maybe the goal isn’t for women to become even stronger.

Maybe it is finally asking why strength, sacrifice and resilience have been demanded of us for so long.

lisalacy.com

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Notes from the Edge with Lisa Lacy

Human conversations about trauma, identity, recovery, reinvention, relationships, leadership, and the lives we build after survival. 

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The drug landscape facing teenagers is changing faster than many parents realize.

In this second conversation with author, educator, private investigator, and ASAP Community founder Dave Kopeny, we go straight into what parents need to know about adolescent substance use, prevention, and the increasingly easy access young people have to potentially addictive substances.

Dave discusses Kratom, products being sold in convenience stores and gas stations, changing marijuana potency, social media exposure, peer influence, family patterns, and why waiting until a child is already struggling with addiction may be waiting too long.

But this conversation is not about frightening parents. It is about giving them something far more useful: agency.

Dave believes parents remain one of the strongest protective influences in a child’s life. We talk about educating kids before experimentation begins, creating guardrails, monitoring without shame, having difficult conversations early, recognizing behavioral changes, and understanding the “why” underneath substance use rather than focusing only on stopping the behavior.

We also explore something families often miss in recovery: you cannot send one person away to heal and return them to the exact same environment expecting everything to be different.

Addiction affects the entire family system. Sustainable recovery may require parents, siblings, and caregivers to examine their own patterns, seek support, and heal alongside the person struggling.

Dave also shares practical strategies from his book, Tip of the Spear: How to Educate, Supervise and Monitor Your Child in a World of Increasing Drug Abuse and Addiction, including how parents can recognize risk, communicate with schools, understand treatment options, establish boundaries, and become proactive before a crisis happens.

Your child may tell you they do not want the guardrails.

They still need to know someone has their back.

Connect with Dave Kopeny and ASAP Community:
https://asapcommunity.org

Connect with Lisa Lacy and Notes From the Edge:
https://www.lisalacy.com

What did you perform in order to survive? 

Welcome to the edge.

Notes from the Edge with Lisa Lacy

Human conversations about trauma, identity, recovery, reinvention, relationships, leadership, and the lives we build after survival. 

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What if designing a kitchen and designing a life have more in common than we think?

In this episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy sits down with kitchen designer and longtime construction professional Marvin Towler for a conversation that begins with kitchen remodeling, budgets, and beautiful spaces, then takes the kind of unexpected rabbit holes we love around here.

Marvin shares why a dream isn’t enough when you’re renovating a home. You need a plan. From kitchen layouts and cabinetry to flooring, appliances, construction costs, and the unexpected expenses that can derail a remodel, Marvin explains how thoughtful kitchen design can protect your budget while still creating a space that feels deeply personal.

But this conversation becomes about much more than kitchens.

Marvin believes the kitchen is the heart of the home because it is one of the places where we say, “I love you.” That opens a deeply personal conversation about fathers, work ethic, mentorship, regret, family, and what happens when we realize there were things we never said while we still had the chance.

Marvin talks about losing his father at eighteen, learning the construction trade, choosing practicality over art, surviving the economic cycles of architecture and construction, reinventing himself professionally, and discovering that luxury isn’t necessarily about how much money you spend. Sometimes luxury is simply creating something that feels unmistakably yours.

Lisa and Marvin also explore parenthood and the difficult conversations we sometimes owe our children, including admitting where we got it wrong.

And near the Edge, Marvin answers the question at the center of this show: What did you perform in order to survive?

His answer opens a conversation about the masks we learn to wear, the roles we perform, and what it takes to begin letting ourselves be fully seen.

This is a conversation about kitchen design and remodeling, but it’s also about building something much harder than a beautiful home: a life where we make room for what matters, tell people we love them while they’re still here, admit our mistakes, and allow ourselves to finally be seen.

Marvin Towler: https://perfectkitchentv.com

Lisa Lacy | Notes From the Edge: https://www.lisalacy.com

What did you perform in order to survive?

Welcome to the Edge.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Notes from the Edge with Lisa Lacy

Human conversations about trauma, identity, recovery, reinvention, relationships, leadership, and the lives we build after survival. 

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What if the story that will not leave you alone is not merely asking to be written, but asking to become a message that changes lives?In this live episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy sits down with her publisher, award-winning author, publishing strategist, and Light Warrior Publishing founder Missy Maxwell Worton for an honest conversation about writing through fear, publishing with purpose, and turning lived experience into lasting impact.

Missy has helped hundreds of purpose-driven authors move from an idea to a completed manuscript, publication, launch, platform growth, and bestseller status. Her own author journey began with the deeply personal book Don’t Mess With This Mama: Risking It All to Rescue Our Daughter, which became a number-one Amazon bestseller and received multiple literary honors.

Missy also published Lisa’s Reclaiming Your Savage Sovereignty, which remained a number-one New Release in its category for two months. They are now preparing to release Lisa’s most personal work yet, Notes From a Certified Madwoman.

Together, Lisa and Missy will explore:

• How to know whether you have a book idea or a message you are responsible for sharing

• Why talented writers remain trapped in perfectionism and fear

• What authors misunderstand about publishing, visibility, and book launches

• How to protect your authentic voice during editing

• The difference between publishing a book and building a movement

• How to tell painful stories without exploiting your own wounds

• What makes a publisher believe in an author before the audience or numbers existThis conversation is for aspiring authors, speakers, entrepreneurs, and anyone carrying a story that refuses to remain silent.

Where to Find Missy:

https://www.missymaxwellworton.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/missy-maxwell-worton-898261371/

How to Find Lisa:

https://www.lisalacy.com/

What did you perform in order to survive?

And what might it do for your life to finally put that role, mask, or performance down?

Welcome to the Edge.

Notes from the Edge with Lisa Lacy

Human conversations about trauma, identity, recovery, reinvention, relationships, leadership, and the lives we build after survival. 

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This conversation includes candid discussion of suicide, suicidal ideation, attempts, grief, and the emotional realities carried by survivors and the people who love them.

What happens when someone finally tells the whole truth and discovers that the person listening does not panic, turn away, or try to make the story more comfortable?

In this episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy sits down with Sean Wellington, founder and host of the Suicide Noted podcast, for a candid conversation about suicide, survival, silence, and what it means to truly listen.

Since launching Suicide Noted in 2020, Sean has facilitated more than 400 long-form conversations with suicide attempt survivors and people who have experienced suicidal ideation across 47 U.S. states and 27 countries. His mission is to help us become better at talking about the hardest parts of being human so that fewer people are forced to carry them alone.

Together, Lisa and Sean explore:

What suicide attempt survivors wish more people understood The difference between listening and trying to rescue Why people often remain silent until they reach a crisis What pauses, contradictions, and unfinished sentences reveal The responsibility involved in holding another person’s story How families, clinicians, leaders, and friends can become safer people to tell the truth to

This is a conversation about radical listening, difficult truths, and the profound relief of being heard without being reduced to a diagnosis, a crisis, or the worst moment of your life.

How to Find Sean:

Home | Suicide Noted - Raw Talks with Attempt Survivorswww.seangwellington.com

The Missing Record

How to Find Lisa:

www.lisalacy.com

Notes From the Edge explores trauma, identity, recovery, leadership, reinvention, and the conversations we should have been having all along.

And as always, we end with the question:

What did you perform in order to survive?

Welcome to the Edge.

Notes from the Edge with Lisa Lacy

Human conversations about trauma, identity, recovery, reinvention, relationships, leadership, and the lives we build after survival. 

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What happens when success arrives before you have had the chance to understand who you are?

In this episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy sits down with transformational mentor, trauma-informed coach, motivational speaker, former child performer, and Licensed Vocational Nurse Hilary Momberger Powers.

Hilary began working in front of the camera at five years old as the voice of Sally Brown in the Peanuts cartoons. Behind the early success, however, were unresolved childhood wounds that later contributed to addiction, painful choices, and a life that began to unravel.

After entering recovery in 1983, Hilary discovered that putting down the addiction was only the beginning. The deeper work meant confronting the trauma, identity patterns, and emotional wounds that had been leading her life.

Together, Lisa and Hilary explore childhood fame, addiction, inner-child work, recovery, self-advocacy, reinvention, and what it means to stop allowing old pain to make present-day decisions.

This is a conversation about moving from victim to victor, reclaiming your voice, and proving that it is never too late to begin again.

How to Find Hilary:

Hilary Momberger Powers | LinkedIn

HILARY POWERS

How to find Lisa:

Lisa Lacy

Lisa Lacy | LinkedInWhat did you perform in order to survive?Welcome to the Edge.

Notes from the Edge with Lisa Lacy

Human conversations about trauma, identity, recovery, reinvention, relationships, leadership, and the lives we build after survival. 

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What happens when empathy feels less like a gift and more like carrying everyone else’s emotions inside your own body?

In this episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy sits down with former client, author, entrepreneur, and radio host Saylor Cooper for an honest conversation about blindness, disability, emotional intelligence, nervous-system awareness, boundaries, and learning how to become the container instead of the sponge.

Saylor shares how understanding his emotional depth helped him become calmer, more grounded, and more connected to who he has always been at his core. We also explore how he moved beyond other people’s expectations to create Real Variety Radio and Hope Without Sight, platforms built around resilience, storytelling, music, and meaningful human connection.

This conversation is about feeling deeply without disappearing inside what you feel, transforming adversity without allowing it to become your entire identity, and recognizing that emotional sensitivity can become a powerful form of leadership when it is supported by self-awareness and boundaries.

Hosted by Lisa Lacy

Featuring Saylor Cooper:

Saylor Cooper | LinkedIn

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/blissful-connections/id1789566162
What did you perform in order to survive?

Welcome to the Edge.

Notes from the Edge with Lisa Lacy

Human conversations about trauma, identity, recovery, reinvention, relationships, leadership, and the lives we build after survival. 

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

When doing everything “right” in recovery leaves you smaller, sicker, and further away from yourself.For two years, I did exactly what I was told.

Six days a week. Sometimes two meetings a day. Inpatient rehabilitation. Outpatient rehabilitation. Sponsors. Step work. Inventories. Confessions. Amends.

I stayed sober.

But I was not becoming healthier.

I was becoming smaller.

In this deeply personal episode of Notes From the Edge, I explore what happens when a recovery model fails to recognize the person sitting in front of it, especially when that person is also carrying childhood trauma, sexual assault, domestic violence, psychiatric diagnoses, shame, and a profoundly dysregulated nervous system.

This is not an attack on AA.

If AA saved your life, I celebrate that. Truly. Keep going.

This is a grief story about realizing that the map I had been given was never designed for the terrain I was walking.

We will talk about:

• The difference between staying sober and actually healing
• When “sharing” becomes uncontained trauma dumping
• Why powerlessness, defect language, and submission may affect traumatized women differently
• The importance of nervous system regulation, boundaries, safety, and co-regulation
• Modern trauma approaches such as EMDR, Internal Family Systems, and somatic therapy
• The evolving science of addiction and neuroplasticity
• Alternatives including SMART Recovery, Women for Sobriety, LifeRing, medication-assisted treatment, recovery coaching, therapy, purpose, community, and connection
• Why informed choice should be part of every recovery conversation

My nervous system did not need another moral inventory.

It needed safety.

Recovery should not require abandoning your intuition or becoming less yourself. It should help you become more yourself.

And if one approach is not helping you heal, that does not automatically mean you are broken.

Maybe you simply need a different map.

This episode reflects personal experience and is intended for education and conversation. It is not a substitute for individualized medical or mental health care.

Learn more about Lisa Lacy and her work at www.lisalacy.com

And before we leave, I want to ask you the question I ask every guest:

What did you perform in order to survive?

Welcome to the Edge.

Notes from the Edge with Lisa Lacy

Human conversations about trauma, identity, recovery, reinvention, relationships, leadership, and the lives we build after survival. 

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Beth Granger on visibility, digital trust, critical conversations, and staying human in an increasingly automated world

Technology can help us reach thousands of people, write polished messages, and build impressive networks.

But it cannot create trust for us.

Beth Granger is a speaker, consultant, trainer, emcee, and LinkedIn and networking strategist who helps professionals communicate more confidently, navigate critical conversations, and turn online connections into meaningful relationships.

Her message is simple and increasingly urgent:

You can’t automate relationships.

In this episode of Notes From the Edge, Beth and Lisa explore the fear beneath professional visibility, why people hesitate to post or speak honestly online, and what separates a connection from an actual relationship.

They also discuss:

• How to become visible without performing a polished professional persona
• The difference between listening and simply waiting to speak
• What artificial intelligence can support, and what should never be outsourced
• Why critical conversations either strengthen trust or quietly destroy it
• How leaders, sales professionals, and teams can communicate with greater clarity and humanity
• Why connection, curiosity, kindness, and community still matter in an algorithm-driven world

This is a conversation about reputation, belonging, confidence, digital communication, and the human work required to make relationships mean something.

Learn more about Beth Granger:
https://www.bethgranger.com

Learn more about Lisa Lacy:
https://www.lisalacy.com

Welcome to the edge.

Notes from the Edge with Lisa Lacy

Human conversations about trauma, identity, recovery, reinvention, relationships, leadership, and the lives we build after survival. 

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What happens when nothing you accomplish ever seems to be enough?

In this solo episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy explores the long-term impact of chronic devaluation, especially when it begins in childhood. She shares personal stories of earning straight A’s, leading teams, serving on committees, excelling in performance, and still feeling as though the finish line kept moving.

When you are told to go left and then criticized for not going right, you may stop trusting your own direction. Over time, that confusion can shape your confidence, your relationships, your ambition, and your ability to fully receive your own success.

This conversation explores:

Why devaluation can create overachievement and overfunctioning How moving standards teach children to distrust themselves Why accomplished adults may still struggle to feel successful How early devaluation can affect romantic and professional relationships The difference between creating from self-expression and performing for approval How to receive feedback without turning it into a verdict on your worth

Devaluation did not stop Lisa from becoming a leader, performer, entrepreneur, writer, and creator.

She accomplished it anyway.

But the deeper work is learning to accomplish without still carrying the need to prove that she deserves to be valued.

What have you spent your life accomplishing in the hope that someone would finally recognize your value?

And what might you create next if you no longer needed their permission?

Welcome to the Edge.
www.lisalacy.com

Notes from the Edge with Lisa Lacy

Human conversations about trauma, identity, recovery, reinvention, relationships, leadership, and the lives we build after survival. 

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Bryan Blackmon left Texas for California chasing a dream. Instead, he found himself homeless, sleeping in his car, and drowning in alcohol and addiction.

Then an elderly landlord named Elaine chose not to give up on him.

Her belief became a turning point, but Bryan still had to do the work of becoming someone he could believe in, too.

Today, Bryan is sober, a recovery advocate, transformation coach, and the creator of Crab Crew Life, a community built around recovery, resilience, adaptability, accountability, and belief.

Bryan says the crab does not swim. It does not fly. It claws its way forward from the bottom of the ocean floor.

And so did he.

In this episode of Notes From the Edge, Bryan and Lisa explore:

• What homelessness and addiction look like from the inside
• The difference between getting sober and rebuilding your identity
• Why redemption is not a moment, but a daily routine
• The ordinary habits that restore dignity and self-respect
• How one person’s belief can help rewrite a life
• Why community can carry us when willpower is no longer enough
• Who we become when survival is no longer our only identity

This is a conversation about second chances, accountability, human connection, and the courage required to keep clawing forward when life has taken you all the way to the bottom.

Learn more about Bryan Blackmon and Crab Crew Life:
https://crabcrewlif​​e.com

Learn more about Lisa Lacy:
https://www.lisalacy.com

Welcome to the edge.

Notes from the Edge with Lisa Lacy

Human conversations about trauma, identity, recovery, reinvention, relationships, leadership, and the lives we build after survival. 

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It is exactly midnight, I am editing Notes From a Certified Madwoman, and I have finally realized something:

Maybe I was never crazy.

Maybe I was wounded, dysregulated, surviving, and just slightly feral.

In this solo episode of Midnight Menopausal Meanderings, I talk about what happens when trauma is mistaken for personality, survival responses are reduced to mental illness, and the context of a person’s life disappears beneath the diagnosis.

This is not an argument against therapy, psychiatry, medication, recovery, or mental health treatment. Those things save lives, including mine.

It is an invitation to ask a fuller question.

Not only:

What is wrong with you?

But also:

What happened to you?

I also share why some details were intentionally left out of my book, why telling the whole truth can sometimes bring consequences from the very people who benefited from your silence, and why this book is not an attempt to explain or defend myself.

It is an exploration of what happens when we forget that context matters.

Because trauma may explain behavior without excusing harm.

Because a diagnosis may describe symptoms without telling the whole story.

And because sometimes the woman everyone called crazy was carrying more than one nervous system should ever have had to carry alone.

Notes From a Certified Madwoman is coming Fall 2026.

Welcome to the edge.

www.lisalacy.com

Notes from the Edge with Lisa Lacy

Human conversations about trauma, identity, recovery, reinvention, relationships, leadership, and the lives we build after survival. 

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The Price of Waiting for Permission and the Power of Becoming Visible Anyway

What happens when a woman stops waiting to feel confident, stops explaining every decision, and starts building the life she knows she is capable of creating?

In this episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy sits down with award-winning entrepreneur, author, podcast host, and founder of the Badass Queen™ movement, Renee Carbone Fleming.

Renee filed for bankruptcy. Her marriage ended. She found herself rebuilding from the ground up and made a two-word decision that would shape everything that followed:

Watch me.

That decision became a philosophy, a movement, and the foundation of the WATCH ME Method™, Renee’s five-principle operating system for women who are done seeking permission, shrinking their ambitions, and waiting for approval before taking action.

Renee went on to build a direct-sales organization that generated more than $13 million, lead a team of over 400 people, create a multimillion-dollar brand empire, publish three books, launch the Unapologetically Badass podcast, and see her brand featured on the NASDAQ billboard in Times Square.

In this bold and honest conversation, Lisa and Renee explore:

• What reinvention really looks like before the success story becomes polished
• Why overexplaining quietly weakens a woman’s authority
• The hidden emotional and financial cost of waiting for approval
• Why confidence is the result of execution, not the requirement for it
• How women can become visible before they feel completely ready
• What Renee had to survive, release, and rebuild between bankruptcy and success
• How to stop asking others to approve the future you are creating

This is a conversation for every woman who has ever known she was capable of more but kept waiting for permission to prove it.

Connect with Renee Carbone Fleming:
https://badassqueen.co

Connect with Lisa Lacy:
https://www.lisalacy.com

Welcome to the edge.

Notes from the Edge with Lisa Lacy

Human conversations about trauma, identity, recovery, reinvention, relationships, leadership, and the lives we build after survival. 

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Female Anger, Menopause, and What Happens When the Manageable Woman Disappears

People celebrate strong women until those women get angry, set boundaries, stop apologizing, or remove access.

In this episode of Midnight Menopausal Meanderings, Lisa Lacy explores female anger, menopause, nervous-system overload, and what happens when the emotionally manageable woman begins to disappear. Menopause may not create a new, irrational woman. It may reveal the woman who spent decades swallowing betrayal, exhaustion, grief, emotional labor, and uncomfortable truths to keep everyone else comfortable.

This conversation also holds the harder truth: anger can carry important information, but justified rage can still cause harm. Trauma explains behavior. It does not excuse it. Healing is not about silencing anger or worshipping it. It is about learning to hold truth without destruction, boundaries without cruelty, and power without abandoning our humanity.

This episode draws from Lisa’s upcoming book, Notes of a Certified Madwoman, an exploration of trauma, survival, identity, nervous-system adaptation, and the women we became in order to survive.

Who benefited from the version of you who carried her suffering quietly?

Welcome to the edge.

www,lisalacy.com

Notes from the Edge with Lisa Lacy

Human conversations about trauma, identity, recovery, reinvention, relationships, leadership, and the lives we build after survival. 

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What happens when the thing that made you feel most alive nearly kills you?

“Rocketman” Dan Schlund is one of the last professionally trained Rocketbelt pilots in the world. For a decade, he flew jet packs at events across 25 countries and six continents, performing hundreds of flights without a parachute and with only seconds of fuel strapped to his back.

But Dan’s most extraordinary story began after the spectacle ended.

Following devastating burns, extensive skin-graft surgeries, and a crash that left him with a broken neck, Dan lost far more than his ability to fly. He lost his income, his marriage, and the identity he had built around being the Rocketman. He also became dependent on pain medication and had to rebuild his life from the ground up.

Dan eventually founded National Set Medics, growing it into a multimillion-dollar company that provides medical professionals for film and television productions nationwide. Ten years after his final flight, he purchased the Rocketbelt and training hangar and returned to the air one more time for his memoir and documentary, The Last Rocketman.

In this episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy and Dan explore:

• What happens when your identity disappears overnight
• The difference between courage and fearlessness
• How the nervous system responds after catastrophic injury
• Addiction, recovery, and the invisible work behind a comeback
• Calculated risk and decision-making under pressure
• Why Dan believes fear is information, not instruction
• What it took to strap the Rocketbelt on one final time

Dan’s message is not that we should become fearless. It is that courage can be practiced, preparation can change our relationship with fear, and our worst experience does not have to become our final one.

Learn more about Dan, his book, and the documentary:
https://rocketman.tv/

Learn more about Lisa Lacy and Notes From the Edge:
https://www.lisalacy.com/

Welcome to the Edge.

Notes from the Edge with Lisa Lacy

Human conversations about trauma, identity, recovery, reinvention, relationships, leadership, and the lives we build after survival. 

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Psychiatric labels, medical dismissal, and what happens when a human being becomes paperwork

What happens when a provider sees your psychiatric history before they truly see you?

In this deeply personal solo episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy explores the dangerous gap between being treated as a medically complex human being and being reduced to “the psychiatric patient.”

Drawing from her lived experience inside mental health facilities, jail, addiction recovery, emergency rooms, and repeated life-threatening medical crises, Lisa examines how quickly dignity, autonomy, and credibility can disappear once a diagnosis enters the room.

This episode explores institutionalization, medical gaslighting, hospital trauma, psychiatric bias, and the devastating consequences of being labeled emotional instead of symptomatic, anxious instead of endangered, and crazy instead of sick.

It also offers an early look into Lisa’s forthcoming memoir, Notes From a Certified Madwoman, releasing in October. Part memoir, part cultural critique, and part nervous-system conversation, the book asks a question that could change how we understand trauma and mental illness:

What if the diagnosis was sometimes describing survival?

Mental illness should never cancel physical illness.
A psychiatric record should never erase a patient’s credibility.
Institutionalization should never require the surrender of human dignity.

Learn more about Lisa, the podcast, and her upcoming work at:

https://lisa-lacy.com

Notes From a Certified Madwoman releases in October.

See you at the edge.

Notes from the Edge with Lisa Lacy

Human conversations about trauma, identity, recovery, reinvention, relationships, leadership, and the lives we build after survival. 

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What happens when you grow up without hearing “I love you,” without being held, and without learning what safe, enduring affection feels like?

In this deeply personal solo episode of Midnight Menopausal Meanderings, I explore the difference between loving someone and knowing how to experience love.

My parents never told me they loved me. My father wrote the words in letters I would not open until decades later, after he died. My mother never said them. I learned touch through violation rather than comfort, and when I became a mother, I had to consciously teach myself how to hug my daughter and say, “I love you.”

For years, I believed love meant providing. I became the financial provider, the problem-solver, the rescuer, and eventually a workaholic driven by survival.

Now, with the help of transformational coach Steve Barton, I am exploring a different idea:

Love can be wisdom.
Love can be trust.
And love can simply be love.

We also talk about menopause, the disappearing bullshit filter, and the challenge of setting boundaries that are loving, direct, and final. Because you can love someone, understand them, forgive them, and still decide they no longer have access to you.

This next chapter is not about performing love.

It is about finally learning what love feels like when it does not require self-abandonment.

What did you perform in order to survive?

Learn more at lisalacy.com

See you at the edge.

Notes from the Edge with Lisa Lacy

Human conversations about trauma, identity, recovery, reinvention, relationships, leadership, and the lives we build after survival. 

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Burnout, Boundaries, and Why the Most Capable Person in the Room May Be Closest to the Edge

What happens when competence becomes a survival strategy?

In this episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy sits down with life coach and former technology leader Loren Silverman for an honest conversation about burnout, overthinking, boundaries, self-abandonment, and the hidden cost of always being the capable one.

After nearly two decades working in technology, program management, and digital transformation, Loren realized that the part of his career that mattered most was not the technology. It was helping the people behind it.

He also recognized a difficult truth: persistence can look admirable from the outside while quietly costing us our satisfaction, health, and connection to ourselves.

Today, Loren is the founder of Silverman Coach and the creator of Life Reboot: Nerd Edition, a coaching experience for nerds, geeks, overthinkers, and overwhelmed professionals who are ready to trade chaos for clarity, build meaningful boundaries, and finally follow through on what matters.

Together, Lisa and Loren explore why the most capable person in the room may also be the person closest to the edge, how competence becomes a performance, and why real transformation is often built through small, repeatable choices rather than dramatic overhauls.

They also discuss the difference between persistence and self-abandonment, the role values play in decision-making, and what it takes to stop treating yourself like a problem that needs to be optimized.

Learn more about Loren Silverman and Silverman Coach:
http://silverman.coach

Learn more about Lisa Lacy and Notes From the Edge:
https://www.lisalacy.com

Welcome to the edge.

Notes from the Edge with Lisa Lacy

Human conversations about trauma, identity, recovery, reinvention, relationships, leadership, and the lives we build after survival. 

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

How Parents Can Recognize Risk, Interrupt Addiction, and Become Their Child’s Strongest Protective Force

Every parent wants to believe their child will know how to recognize danger, make the right decision, and walk away when drugs enter the picture.

But today’s drug landscape is more accessible, potent, and aggressively marketed than many families realize. By the time a parent knows something is wrong, the problem may already be much larger than anyone understood.

In this episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy sits down with author, educator, private investigator, and addiction prevention advocate Dave Kopeny.

Dave grew up in a home consumed by addiction. He was given LSD at eight years old, knew how to roll a joint by nine, and later lost his father, brother, and sister-in-law to alcohol and drug use.

Those experiences became the foundation for more than 30 years of work with adolescents, young adults, and families navigating addiction and other high-risk behaviors. Throughout his career, Dave has served as a school counselor, teacher, probation officer, law enforcement officer, gang investigator, and private investigator specializing in teen addiction and intervention.

Together, Lisa and Dave explore:

• Why the “war on drugs” failed
• How parents can recognize the early warning signs of substance use
• The difference between healthy supervision and destructive surveillance
• How social media and modern drug markets target young people
• What parents should do when they suspect their child is using drugs
• How families can replace fear and helplessness with awareness, action, and hope

Dave is the author of Tip of the Spear: How to Educate, Supervise, and Monitor Your Child in a World of Increasing Drug Abuse and Addiction and the founder of ASAP Community, where he provides parents with practical tools to protect and support their children.

Connect with Dave Kopeny:
https://asapcommunity.org

Connect with Lisa Lacy:
https://www.lisalacy.com

Welcome to the edge.

Notes from the Edge with Lisa Lacy

Human conversations about trauma, identity, recovery, reinvention, relationships, leadership, and the lives we build after survival. 

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Jim Hughes on Identity, Fear, Self-Judgment, and Becoming the Person Beneath the Performance

The person who got you here may have been exactly who you needed to become.

The achiever. The problem-solver. The founder who never stops moving. The leader who learned how to carry the pressure, meet the expectations, and become whatever the moment required.

But what happens when that identity begins keeping you from where you want to go next?

In this episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy sits down with coach, author, speaker, and Untamed founder Jim Hughes for a conversation about the stories, fears, and deeply rooted beliefs that quietly shape who we become.

Jim has lived in 12 countries, built and led a multimillion-dollar engineering business in Australia, explored an extraordinary range of careers, and even skied the world’s longest giant slalom race wearing only a G-string. For the past decade, he has helped high-achieving founders and leaders stop living as the people they believe they should be and begin becoming the people they genuinely want to be.

Together, Lisa and Jim explore:

• The hidden ways founders and high performers waste energy
• Why motivation may be overrated
• How fear disguises itself as ambition and growth
• Why changing what you do is not enough without examining who is doing it
• The role self-judgment plays in keeping people stuck
• How voices from our past continue influencing decisions they are no longer entitled to make
• What it takes to release the identity that helped you survive

This is a conversation about success, identity, performance, and the courage required to stop obeying the person you once needed to be.

Connect with Jim Hughes and Untamed:
https://www.becomeuntamed.com

Connect with Lisa Lacy:
https://www.lisalacy.com

Notes From the Edge is where we explore trauma, identity, recovery, reinvention, and the deeply human stories underneath the roles we perform.

Welcome to the edge.

Notes from the Edge with Lisa Lacy

Human conversations about trauma, identity, recovery, reinvention, relationships, leadership, and the lives we build after survival. 

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Curiosity, Compliance, and Teams That Think.

Why do capable, intelligent teams stop taking initiative?

Sometimes it is not because people are lazy, disengaged, or unwilling to contribute. Sometimes they have learned that following directions is safer than asking questions, challenging assumptions, or offering an original idea.

In this episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy sits down with Dr. Katie Trowbridge, an award-winning educator, TEDx speaker, leadership strategist, author, and CEO of Curiosity 2 Create.

After more than 25 years in the classroom, Katie began bringing the principles of curiosity, trust, and thoughtful questioning into organizations. Her work helps leaders move beyond managing behavior and toward creating cultures where people think deeply, contribute ideas, take ownership, and lead with purpose.

Together, Lisa and Katie explore:

• Why leadership shifted from developing people to managing compliance
• Why capable teams sometimes stop taking initiative
• The leadership habits that unintentionally silence good ideas
• What great teachers understand about human development
• How curiosity and trust create stronger workplace cultures
• The CREATE Method™ and how leaders can build teams that think for themselves

Dr. Katie Trowbridge is the author of Lead Boldly, Think Deeply and the creator of the CREATE Method™, a framework designed to help leaders develop stronger thinkers and more sustainable organizational cultures.

Learn more about Dr. Katie Trowbridge and Curiosity 2 Create:
https://curiosity2create.org

Learn more about Lisa Lacy and Notes From the Edge:
https://www.lisalacy.com

Join us for a human conversation about leadership, curiosity, and what becomes possible when people are trusted to think.

See you at the edge.

Notes from the Edge with Lisa Lacy

Human conversations about trauma, identity, recovery, reinvention, relationships, leadership, and the lives we build after survival. 

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What happens when someone you love is in crisis, refuses help, and waiting for them to become “ready” may cost them their life?

In this episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy sits down with attorney, former prosecutor, and family crisis advocate Mark Astor for a necessary and deeply human conversation about addiction, severe mental illness, involuntary treatment, family trauma, and the difficult line between compassion and enabling.

Mark is a partner at Astor Simovitch Law, where he helps families navigate crises involving psychiatric instability, substance use, failed treatment efforts, medical complexity, and resistance to care. His work includes emergency guardianships, recovery planning, and legal intervention through Florida laws such as the Baker Act and Marchman Act.

This work is not theoretical for Mark.

Two days after burying his father, he stood beside police and paramedics as a member of his own family was involuntarily transported for psychiatric evaluation. That experience gave him a perspective no courtroom ever could and ultimately shaped his mission to help families take informed, lawful, and compassionate action before irreversible harm occurs.

Together, Lisa and Mark explore why “waiting until they are ready” can sometimes be deadly, how cognitive impairment affects a person’s ability to recognize that they need help, and when legal intervention may become an act of love rather than punishment or control.

They also examine the emotional burden carried by parents, spouses, and siblings, the civil-rights questions surrounding involuntary treatment, and how families can preserve a loved one’s dignity while still acting to protect their life.

Behind every diagnosis, arrest, psychiatric hold, or involuntary commitment is a human being trying to survive and a family desperately trying not to lose them.

Learn more about Mark Astor and his work:

https://x.com/AstorSimovitch

https://www.instagram.com/

https://www.tiktok.com/@astorsimovitchlaw

Learn more about Lisa Lacy and Notes From the Edge:
https://www.lisalacy.com

Welcome to the edge.

Notes from the Edge with Lisa Lacy

Human conversations about trauma, identity, recovery, reinvention, relationships, leadership, and the lives we build after survival. 

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Addiction, Bipolar Disorder, and Rebuilding a Life with the S.O.B.E.R. Method

What happens when you remove the substance, but the pain, pressure, and survival patterns underneath it remain?

In this episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy sits down with author, entrepreneur, podcast host, and addiction recovery advocate Massimo Rigotti for an honest conversation about addiction, bipolar disorder, grief, confidence, and the complicated work of rebuilding a life in recovery.

After navigating addiction, mental-health challenges, professional upheaval, and devastating personal loss, Massimo created the S.O.B.E.R. Method™, a framework combining Stoic principles, self-observation, behavior modification, the execution of positive habits, and holistic restoration.

Together, Lisa and Massimo explore why abstinence may be only the beginning, what traditional recovery models can sometimes overlook, and how shame, identity, self-trust, and confidence influence a person’s ability to create lasting change.

They also examine the hidden dependencies of high-achieving professionals, the difference between looking functional and genuinely being well, and what it takes to stop escaping yourself and begin building a life you no longer need to numb.

Learn more about Massimo Rigotti and the S.O.B.E.R. Method:

Digital S.O.B.E.R. Method: Beat Phone Addiction and Reclaim Your Attention in 5 Stoic Steps — Available now!  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H93ZTVS9/

 Free gift! Want the tools I use with clients?  https://sobermethod.com/5tools 

Your Future is S.O.B.E.R.™Website: https://sobermethod.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sobermethod/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@sobermethod

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sobermethod

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sobermethod
Learn more about Lisa Lacy and Notes From the Edge:
https://www.lisalacy.com

Welcome to the edge.

Notes from the Edge with Lisa Lacy

Human conversations about trauma, identity, recovery, reinvention, relationships, leadership, and the lives we build after survival. 

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Richard Spegal on Dark Fantasy, Mental Health, and the Battles Within

Author Richard Spegal returns to Notes From the Edge for a deeper conversation about the profoundly human truths hiding inside dark fantasy.

Richard creates supernatural worlds filled with danger, moral complexity, and characters who are anything but one-dimensional. Beneath the monsters, battles, curses, and impossible choices are people wrestling with grief, trauma, isolation, identity, loyalty, responsibility, and the war taking place inside their own minds.

Drawing from 21 years of service in the United States Army, including the 82nd Airborne Division and the Pennsylvania National Guard, Richard brings an uncommon understanding of discipline, leadership, sacrifice, survival, and the emotional cost of always being expected to remain strong.

In this conversation, we explore:

• Why fantasy can reveal truths that realism sometimes cannot
• How invisible mental health struggles become visible through monsters, curses, and supernatural transformations
• The influence of military service on Richard’s portrayal of trauma and moral injury
• Why flawed, emotionally complicated characters feel more genuinely human
• What readers may be searching for when they enter darker fictional worlds
• Whether the parts of ourselves we fear most are truly monsters or simply wounded places asking to be understood

Richard is the author of the Wolves and Ravens trilogy and the Eternal Nights series, where paranormal danger collides with questions about humanity, survival, love, and the choices we make when there are no easy answers.

Explore Richard Spegal’s books and work:
https://richardspegal.com

Learn more about Lisa Lacy and Notes From the Edge:
https://www.lisalacy.com

Welcome to the Edge.

Notes from the Edge with Lisa Lacy

Human conversations about trauma, identity, recovery, reinvention, relationships, leadership, and the lives we build after survival. 

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this deeply personal solo episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy records at 3 a.m., during the hour when the world grows quiet and every unfamiliar sensation in the body becomes impossible to ignore.

Lisa lives with hereditary antithrombin deficiency, a rare congenital blood disorder that allows her blood to clot even while she is taking medication designed to prevent it. After surviving multiple pulmonary embolisms, permanent lung damage, years of medical dismissal, and surgical menopause, she knows what it means to live inside a body that cannot be completely trusted.

But this episode is about more than illness.

It is about the unbearable loneliness of carrying something no one else can see.

It is about looking capable while quietly monitoring every cramp, pressure, breath, and unfamiliar sensation. It is about needing accommodations without appearing visibly sick, explaining limitations other people cannot understand, and constantly trying to determine whether the danger is physical, hormonal, psychological, or all three.

Invisible illness can turn a person into the patient, investigator, advocate, and frightened witness of their own body. It can make ordinary life feel like a continuous negotiation between vigilance and joy.

Lisa explores medical trauma, mortality, menopause, fear, purpose, and the exhausting expectation that people living with chronic illness should perform strength simply to remain worthy of care.

This is not a story about becoming fearless.

It is a conversation about learning to live fully while acknowledging that fear is sometimes reasonable, uncertainty is real, and invisible does not mean imaginary.

Learn more about Lisa and Notes From the Edge at:
https://www.lisalacy.com

See you at the edge.

Notes from the Edge with Lisa Lacy

Human conversations about trauma, identity, recovery, reinvention, relationships, leadership, and the lives we build after survival. 

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Recovery, AI, and the Human Cost of a Missed Moment in Addiction Treatment

What happens when someone finally finds the courage to ask for help, calls a treatment center, and no one answers?

To an organization, it may look like a missed call or a dead lead. But on the other end of that phone is a human being standing inside a brief and potentially life-changing moment of willingness.

In this episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy sits down with David Sichel, founder of Blueshirt Media and a person in long-term recovery who understands this experience personally.

Before entering recovery, David reached out for help with his addiction and never heard back. Today, he has built a HIPAA-compliant AI platform designed specifically for addiction treatment centers, helping them answer calls around the clock, reconnect with people who previously asked for help, and transfer qualified callers directly to admissions professionals. 

Together, Lisa and David explore:

The performance of appearing okay while actively drowning
What silence communicates when someone finally asks for help
The human being behind every so-called “dead lead”
Whether AI can protect human connection rather than replace it
Where technology must stop and trained professionals must step in
The ethical, emotional, and human cost of an unanswered call

This is not simply a conversation about technology. It is a conversation about timing, shame, recovery, responsibility, and what can happen when someone answers at exactly the right moment.

Host: Lisa Lacy
https://www.lisalacy.com

Guest: David Sichel, Blueshirt Media
https://www.blueshirtmedia.com

What did you perform in order to survive?

Welcome to the edge.

Notes from the Edge with Lisa Lacy

Human conversations about trauma, identity, recovery, reinvention, relationships, leadership, and the lives we build after survival. 

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On August 9, 1969, while the world’s attention turned toward the Manson murders across town, another woman was killed on what society considered the wrong side of Los Angeles.

Her name was Cletha, and she was my grandmother.

She was a poor mother of six whose injuries left her face unrecognizable, yet her death was recorded as natural causes. The man responsible never faced a courtroom. There was no justice, no public outrage, and no lasting headline to make sure the world remembered her.

But her story did not end there.

In this deeply personal episode, I honor my grandmother and confront the generational trauma, domestic violence, silence, and survival that traveled through the women in my family. This is a conversation about what happens when pain is inherited, when women are denied justice, and when one generation finally decides the cycle will end with them.

Cletha, you are the reason I teach trauma-informed martial arts in domestic violence shelters. I cannot help but believe that if you had been given the skills I have today, you might still be here with us.

I pass those skills on to other women so they do not suffer the same fate and so they know how to defend themselves, their bodies, and their lives.

My grandmother may never have received justice, but she will not be forgotten.

Her legacy lives in every woman who learns to protect herself, reclaim her voice, and refuse to disappear quietly.

This one is for Cletha. Welcome to the Edge.

Notes from the Edge with Lisa Lacy

Human conversations about trauma, identity, recovery, reinvention, relationships, leadership, and the lives we build after survival. 

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Childhood Trauma, Self-Destruction, and Reclaiming the Person Beneath the Performance

Content note: This episode includes discussion of childhood sexual abuse, suicide attempts, addiction patterns, abusive relationships, and trauma recovery. Please listen with care.

What happens when the version of you that learned how to survive becomes the identity you no longer know how to remove?

From the outside, high-functioning survival can look like success. It can look like earning degrees, building businesses, raising children, creating projects, and continuing to show up for everyone around you.

Underneath the achievement, however, may be a nervous system still running on fear, people-pleasing, overworking, perfectionism, and the relentless need to prove your worth.

In this episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy sits down with trauma specialist, embodiment coach, author, podcaster, filmmaker, entrepreneur, and founder of Victim 2 Victor, Anu Verma.

Anu has survived childhood trauma, suicide attempts, addiction patterns, abusive relationships, financial manipulation, and years of self-destruction disguised as coping. While appearing successful and capable to the outside world, she was often disconnected from herself and driven by the identities she had created to feel safe.

Today, she helps others understand the unconscious beliefs and survival patterns shaping their lives, rebuild self-trust, regulate their nervous systems, and move toward emotional resilience and lasting transformation.

Together, Lisa and Anu explore:

How high-functioning survival hides beneath achievement
Why people-pleasing and overworking can become trauma responses
What harmful coping mechanisms are trying to protect us from
How childhood trauma can distort love, intimacy, and self-worth
The difference between being desired and being valued
How financial and emotional abuse erode identity and boundaries
What people misunderstand about suicide and hopelessness
Why healing requires compassion for the person you became to survive
What rebuilding yourself actually looks like in the messy middle

This is not a polished transformation story.

It is an honest conversation about the masks we wear, the pain we numb, the roles we perform, and the courage it takes to reclaim the person underneath them all.

Host: Lisa Lacy

https://www.lisalacy.com

Guest: Anu Verma, Victim 2 Victor
https://linktr.ee/healing.journeyy

What did you perform in order to survive?

Welcome to the edge.

Notes from the Edge with Lisa Lacy

Human conversations about trauma, identity, recovery, reinvention, relationships, leadership, and the lives we build after survival. 

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The dogs woke me up. Menopause made sure I stayed awake. And suddenly my nervous system was hosting a 3:00 a.m. board meeting about every decision I have made since 1997.

In this episode of Midnight Menopausal Meanderings, we are talking about the biology behind menopause-related insomnia, including hormonal changes, temperature dysregulation, nervous-system activation, and why one small interruption can leave you staring at the ceiling for hours.

But this conversation goes deeper than sleep.

What happens when exhaustion, hormonal changes, and limited emotional bandwidth make it harder to keep performing, accommodating, and pretending everything is fine?

Maybe menopause does not create a new woman.

Maybe it reveals the woman who no longer has the neurological energy to tolerate bullshit.

We explore:

• Why sleep becomes more difficult during menopause
• How estrogen and progesterone changes affect the brain
• Why hot flashes and nighttime awakenings can trigger hypervigilance
• How sleep deprivation affects emotional regulation
• Why your tolerance for emotional labor may suddenly disappear
• How to listen to the truths that surface at midnight without immediately blowing up your entire life before breakfast

You are not failing at sleep.

Your biology has changed, your nervous system is adapting, and your body may finally be refusing to finance the performance.

 Learn more about Lisa Lacy:
https://www.lisalacy.com

Notes From the Edge is where we have the conversations we should have been having all along.

Welcome to the edge.

Notes from the Edge with Lisa Lacy

Human conversations about trauma, identity, recovery, reinvention, relationships, leadership, and the lives we build after survival. 

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What happens when the person you learned to abandon in order to survive is yourself?

Many of us learned early how to stay quiet, become useful, keep the peace, earn approval, and make ourselves smaller so other people would remain comfortable. Those adaptations may have helped us survive childhood, but they can follow us into our relationships, our faith, our work, and the way we understand our own worth.

In this episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy sits down with international award-winning author, speaker, trauma-informed, faith-aware self-love coach, and relationship repair specialist Danielle Bernock.

Danielle is a childhood trauma survivor who did not fully come into her own until her fifties. After publishing her memoir, Emerging With Wings, she transformed the story she was once afraid to tell into a body of work helping others move from survival into a life rooted in freedom, value, connection, and love.

Together, Lisa and Danielle explore childhood emotional neglect, trauma that remains invisible, church hurt, spiritual bypassing, self-abandonment, relationship repair, and what it truly means to love yourself after years of performing for acceptance.

They also discuss:

How childhood trauma shapes adult identity and relationships
Why emotional neglect can be so difficult to recognize
What happens when pain is minimized or invalidated
How to separate faith from the harm caused by religious institutions
Why self-love can feel unsafe for trauma survivors
How to tell your story without allowing trauma to become your entire identity
Why it is never too late to finally take up space in your own life

Perhaps healing does not begin when we finally become worthy of love.

Perhaps it begins when we realize we were worthy all along.

Host: Lisa Lacy
https://www.lisalacy.com

Guest: Danielle Bernock
https://www.daniellebernock.com

https://dani-daniellebernock-com.kit.com/de9e550f64

https://dani-daniellebernock-com.kit.com/074c8b6335

What did you perform in order to survive?

Welcome to the edge.

Notes from the Edge with Lisa Lacy

Human conversations about trauma, identity, recovery, reinvention, relationships, leadership, and the lives we build after survival. 

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What happens when a lifetime of caring for people, witnessing loss, raising a family, and navigating life’s hardest moments becomes the foundation for storytelling?

Join me for a new live episode of Notes From the Edge with author, legal nurse consultant, hospice specialist, teacher, and multi-genre storyteller Nancy Jasin Ensley.

Nancy has spent decades working in professions that require empathy, discernment, and the ability to remain present during some of life’s most critical moments. Those experiences now inform the stories she writes across memoir, literary fiction, science fiction, mystery, thrillers, action and adventure, and children’s literature.

Together, we’ll explore:

• How nursing and hospice shape the way we understand life, loss, and what truly matters
• Why writing can help us process the experiences that leave a mark
• How family, faith, service, and lived experience become powerful stories
• The identity of being the helper, the strong one, or the person everyone depends on
• How writers turn real-life experiences into fiction, memoir, and meaningful conversations
• What it means to preserve memory and make sense of life through storytelling

This is a conversation about caregiving, creativity, resilience, reflection, and the stories that are quietly being written through each of us.

Host: Lisa Lacy
Writer, trauma educator, speaker, and host of Notes From the Edge
 https://www.lisalacy.com

Guest: Nancy Jasin Ensley
Author, legal nurse, hospice specialist, teacher, and storyteller
 https://nancyjasinensley.com/

What did you perform in order to survive, and is it still serving you?

Welcome to the edge.

Notes from the Edge with Lisa Lacy

Human conversations about trauma, identity, recovery, reinvention, relationships, leadership, and the lives we build after survival. 

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What happens to the surgeon after a patient experiences a devastating complication?

Clinicians are trained to make life-or-death decisions, perform under extraordinary pressure, and remain calm when everything is at stake. But they are rarely taught how to process the emotional aftermath when an outcome goes wrong.

In this live episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy sits down with trauma and acute care surgeon, educator, author, and healthcare leader Dr. Daniel Eiferman for an honest conversation about the side of medicine most people never see.

Dr. Eiferman is a tenured professor of surgery at The Ohio State University and a Castle Connolly Top Doctor. His book, Cut Open: A Surgeon’s Stories of Loss, Resilience, and Growth, explores the complications, difficult decisions, grief, leadership challenges, and moments of self-doubt that exist behind the operating-room doors.

Together, we will explore:

• Why clinicians often experience complications as personal failure
• The psychological toll of a bad surgical outcome
• How the culture of perfection creates shame and isolation
• What it takes to rebuild confidence after failure
• How clinicians can recover without becoming hardened or disengaged
• What healthcare leadership owes the people working under relentless pressure

This conversation is not only for surgeons. It is for anyone who has worked in a high-stakes environment, experienced an outcome they could not entirely control, and quietly wondered whether they still belonged in the work.

Dr. Eiferman will also share practical tools for clinicians who are expected to remain steady, even when they do not feel steady inside.

Access his complimentary guide at:

https://integritysurgery.org/signup/

What did you perform in order to survive?

Welcome to the edge.

Notes from the Edge with Lisa Lacy

Human conversations about trauma, identity, recovery, reinvention, relationships, leadership, and the lives we build after survival. 

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

How far will we push ourselves before we finally ask what we are running from?

Marc Hopkins has completed the Bigfoot 200, eight Ironman-distance triathlons, and more than 200 endurance events. But the most difficult terrain he has ever crossed was the landscape inside himself.

In this episode of Notes From the Edge, Marc joins Lisa Lacy for a raw conversation about the difference between true endurance and simply enduring life. Together, they explore what happens when grit becomes avoidance, achievement becomes identity, and pushing through becomes the only way we know how to survive.

Marc shares how a grueling 200-mile ultramarathon forced him to confront the anxiety, family patterns, relationship dynamics, and need to prove his worth that had followed him for decades. His memoir, Hard Things, is not simply a story about surviving an extreme race. It is about uncovering the deeper reasons we keep choosing hard things and learning when strength requires us to stop running.

This conversation explores:

• The difference between endurance and enduring
• When grit becomes a form of emotional avoidance
• The hidden motivations behind extreme achievement
• How family patterns shape relationships and parenting
• Who we become when we stop proving our worth
• Why vulnerability may be the hardest form of strength

Learn more about Marc, explore Hard Things, and read the first chapter at HardThingsBook.com.

What did you perform in order to survive?

Welcome to the edge.

Notes from the Edge with Lisa Lacy

Human conversations about trauma, identity, recovery, reinvention, relationships, leadership, and the lives we build after survival. 

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Why do relationships feel harder than ever, even when two people genuinely love each other?

In this episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy sits down with relationship coach, author, speaker, and ordained minister Andre Paradis for an honest conversation about love, communication, commitment, intimacy, and the survival patterns we unknowingly carry into our relationships.

Before becoming a relationship coach, Andre lived an extraordinary life as a professional dancer, performing alongside artists including Michael Jackson, Prince, Paula Abdul, and Julio Iglesias. He later became a husband, father, and successful business owner before discovering a deeper calling to help people build healthier, more fulfilling relationships.

Together, Lisa and Andre explore:

• Why modern relationships feel so complicated
• How childhood wounds influence adult intimacy
• What men and women misunderstand about each other
• What makes someone commit or walk away
• Masculine and feminine energy without rigid stereotypes
• How trauma and protective behaviors can sabotage love
• What emotional safety looks like in a lasting relationship

Learn more about Andre and Project Equinox Coaching:
http://www.projectequinox.net

Learn more about Lisa Lacy:
https://www.lisalacy.com

What did you perform in order to survive, and is it still serving you?

Subscribe for more honest conversations about trauma, identity, relationships, recovery, leadership, and what it means to be human.

See you at the edge.

Notes from the Edge with Lisa Lacy

Human conversations about trauma, identity, recovery, reinvention, relationships, leadership, and the lives we build after survival. 

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We all get the same 24 hours.

So why do some people feel purposeful while others feel overwhelmed?

Join me for a live conversation with keynote speaker, author, and time strategy coach C.W. Hawley as we explore the hidden relationship between leadership, identity, and the way we experience time.

Rather than offering another productivity system, C.W. challenges us to rethink the beliefs, habits, and expectations that keep high performers feeling constantly behind.

Together we’ll discuss:

• Why burnout is often a symptom of misalignment rather than a lack of time.
• How our relationship with time shapes the way we lead, work, and live.
• The connection between identity, expectations, and overwhelm.
• Practical strategies for creating sustainable leadership rhythms.
• How to pursue meaningful success without sacrificing your well-being.

Whether you’re an executive, entrepreneur, leader, or simply someone trying to balance competing priorities, this conversation will leave you thinking differently about what it means to truly own your time.

What did you perform in order to survive?

Welcome to the Edge.

www.lisalacy.com

How to work with C.W.:

Lets Talk Time - Let's Talk TimeC.W. Hawley | LinkedIn

Notes from the Edge with Lisa Lacy

Human conversations about trauma, identity, recovery, reinvention, relationships, leadership, and the lives we build after survival. 

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