Notes from the Edge

What happens when being capable becomes the very thing that keeps people from seeing you’re struggling?

In this episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy sits down with Nigerian-American physician, novelist, and storyteller Dr. Nneka Oluoha for a conversation about high-functioning depression, cultural expectations, motherhood, immigrant identity, and the roles we perform to survive.

Dr. Nneka explores why the person who appears strongest may be carrying the most, why “I’m fine” can become a practiced performance, and how competence, strength, and responsibility can eventually become a prison when we never allow ourselves to put them down.

She also shares her experience moving from Nigeria to the United States, navigating multiple identities as a physician, mother, wife, immigrant, and writer, and finally reclaiming the part of herself that had always wanted to write.

Her novel, Live For Me Nkem, uses fiction to take readers inside depression not only through the person experiencing it, but through the family living beside her.

In this episode:

• High-functioning depression and performing “fine”

• Competence and strength as survival roles

• Immigrant identity and navigating two cultures

• Motherhood, responsibility, and mom guilt

• Why successful people struggle to ask for help

• Depression’s impact on the entire family

• Listening instead of trying to fix someone

• Reclaiming parts of yourself buried beneath responsibility

• The power of storytelling to create empathy around mental health

Sometimes support is not having the perfect advice. Sometimes it is simply being willing to sit beside someone in the dark.

Connect with Dr. Nneka Oluoha:

LinkedIn-Nneka Oluoha

Connect with Lisa Lacy:

https://www.lisalacy.com

What did you perform in order to survive?

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What happens when something that happened to you starts defining who you are?

In this episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy sits down with author and survivor advocate Amy McKiernan for a raw conversation about sexual assault, trauma, identity, addiction, boundaries, consent, and rebuilding a life beyond survival.

Amy shares how being raped at fifteen shaped her identity, relationships, coping mechanisms, and sense of self-worth. She and Lisa explore numbing through drugs and alcohol, toxic relationships, motherhood, mental health labels, and the long process of reclaiming agency after choice has been taken away.

They also talk about why healing is not linear, how small choices can become acts of recovery, and why trauma can remain part of your story without remaining in control of your life.

In this episode:

• Sexual assault and trauma identity

• Addiction and emotional numbing

• Boundaries, self-worth, and toxic relationships

• Healing that is messy and nonlinear

• Mental health labels and identity

• Consent, intoxication, and accountability

• Reclaiming agency and choosing yourself

Connect with Amy McKiernan:

https://amymckiernan.com

Connect with Lisa Lacy:

https://www.lisalacy.com

What did you perform in order to survive?

Welcome to the Edge.

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What if the person you became to survive is no longer the person you want to be?

In this episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy sits down with speaker and leadership consultant Jon Symes to explore the unconscious stories we build around identity, masculinity, success, leadership, and survival.

Jon calls this work Narrative Liberation: recognizing the roles and beliefs we adopted to navigate life, then deciding which ones still belong to us.

They talk about the cost of being “the strong one,” the provider, the good guy, the high performer, or the person who always has it together. Jon also shares how early survival adaptations can begin, including changing the way he walked as a boy to avoid social judgment and carrying that performance for nearly twenty years.

Together, Lisa and Jon explore midlife reinvention, masculinity, people-pleasing, leadership, family roles, authenticity, and what happens when the identity that once protected you starts costing you pieces of yourself.

In this episode:

• Survival performance and identity

• Narrative Liberation

• Masculinity and provider pressure

• Midlife reinvention

• The “good guy” mask

• People-pleasing and self-abandonment

• Leadership and authenticity

• Family roles and inherited stories

• Reclaiming the parts of yourself you learned to hide

Connect with Jon Symes:

https://www.wholeandfree.me

Connect with Lisa Lacy:

https://www.lisalacy.com

What did you perform in order to survive?

Welcome to the Edge.

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What happens when a pastor trades the pulpit for a 24-year career inside the FBI?

Eric Robinson spent 12 years in Christian ministry before becoming an FBI Special Agent, eventually serving 15 years as a SWAT operator and working investigations involving counterterrorism, crimes against children, gangs, drugs, financial crime, civil rights violations, political corruption, and national security.

But this conversation isn’t really about badges, guns, or cases.

It’s about what happens to your understanding of human beings when you’ve spent decades sitting across from victims, informants, criminals, survivors, and people living through some of the darkest circumstances imaginable.

In this episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy and Eric Robinson talk about:

• Going from the pulpit to the FBI

• 24 years inside federal law enforcement

• What ministry taught Eric about interviewing, trust, and human behavior

• Witnessing trauma without losing your humanity

• Why context matters when we judge another person’s choices

• The relationship between trauma, circumstance, crime, and survival

• Why mentorship and nonjudgmental support matter

• The psychological weight of believing you have to be perfect

• Dropping the mask Eric wore as a pastor

• Fear, competence, repetition, and learning to trust yourself

• Why making the “wrong” decision doesn’t have to destroy your life

• Humanizing people without excusing harmful behavior

• Choosing curiosity over judgment

• Why Eric believes we need more kindness in difficult conversations

• His upcoming book chronicling the unlikely journey from preacher to FBI Special Agent

Eric’s story is a reminder that people are almost always more complicated than the headline, the crime, the job title, the mistake, or the label we’ve been given.

Sometimes understanding another human being starts with getting curious enough to ask what happened before we decide who they are.

Connect with Eric Robinson:

https://preachertobreacher.com

Connect with Lisa Lacy:

https://www.lisalacy.com

What did you perform in order to survive?

Welcome to the Edge.

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What if the behavior we’re trying to stop is actually trying to tell us something?

Bryan Post is a child behavior expert and creator of the Fear to Love Method whose work challenges parents to see difficult behavior not as defiance, but as communication from a nervous system experiencing stress, fear or unmet needs. 

In this conversation, Bryan and Lisa explore what changes when adults stop trying to control behavior and start looking underneath it. They unpack why a stressed parent cannot regulate a stressed child, how consistency creates safety, and why the feelings we learned to suppress in childhood can continue driving our reactions decades later. Bryan also shares his “Reflect, Relate and Regulate” approach and a powerful story illustrating what can happen when a parent gets curious about the fear beneath a child’s behavior instead of immediately trying to correct it. 

In this episode:

• Childhood trauma and nervous system regulation
• Trauma-informed parenting and difficult behavior
• Adoption, attachment and emotional safety
• Why punishment and control can intensify stress
• Parent self-regulation and co-regulation
• How childhood survival patterns follow us into adulthood
• Grief, emotional healing and unresolved trauma
• Reflect, Relate and Regulate
• Moving from fear-based reactions toward connection
• Why behavior can be an opportunity rather than a problem 

Connect with Bryan:

www.feartolove.com

Connect with Lisa:

www.lisalacy.com

What did you perform in order to survive?

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Why can peace feel more uncomfortable than the crisis you spent years trying to escape?

Lisa Lacy, trauma educator and host of Notes From the Edge, explores one of trauma’s strangest contradictions: the nervous system can mistake what is familiar for what is safe.

In this solo episode, Lisa gets personal about becoming extraordinarily good at functioning inside chaos, from building a high-pressure career around competence and crisis management to constantly monitoring the emotional weather around her. She explores what happens when the emergency finally ends, but your body is still waiting for the next one, and why ordinary moments of safety can become part of retraining the nervous system.

In this episode:

• Trauma, hypervigilance and the nervous system
• Why peace can feel boring, suspicious or unsafe
• When competence and productivity become survival strategies
• Overfunctioning, caretaking and monitoring other people’s emotions
• The difference between connection and intensity
• Why stable relationships can initially feel unfamiliar
• Learning to tolerate other people’s disappointment
• Resting without feeling like you have to earn it
• Teaching the nervous system that calm is safe
• How ordinary can eventually begin to feel like freedom

Connect with Lisa:

www.lisalacy.com

What did you perform in order to survive? 

Welcome to the Edge.

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What did we know at five years old that we somehow forgot along the way?

Tiffany Dennison is a kindergarten and first-grade educator with 22 years of experience whose work centers on play, belonging and social-emotional development. Her classroom offers a fascinating reminder that children may understand some of the fundamentals of being human long before adults complicate them.

In this conversation, Tiffany and I talk about what happens when children are given enough time to actually play, why belonging and emotional safety have to come before learning, and what five-year-olds can teach adults about repairing conflict without dragging yesterday’s resentment into today. We also get into screen time, storytelling, nervous-system regulation and Tiffany’s own journey of recognizing and releasing people-pleasing.

In this episode:

• Play-based learning and why unstructured play matters
• Social-emotional learning and childhood development
• Belonging, emotional safety and nervous-system regulation
• How children repair conflict differently than adults
• The effects of screens on connection, creativity and attention
• Storytelling as a tool for learning and human connection
• What adults model for children without realizing it
• People-pleasing, identity and learning to listen to your body
• Why slowing down may be one of the most important things children can teach us

Connect with Lisa Lacy

https://www.lisalacy.com

What did you perform in order to survive?

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Writer and memoirist Daniel Sterling spent much of his life chasing achievement, recognition, and the next version of success until he discovered that some of the hardest work a man can do happens in the few inches between his head and his heart.

Daniel and Lisa talk about the childhood hunger to be seen that fueled his drive, from becoming a top U.S. alpine ski racer to television, filmmaking, and screenwriting, and what happened when that identity finally stopped sustaining him. They dig into male emotional isolation, the mentor who helped Daniel rebuild his life through self-study and accountability, and why raising emotionally whole boys requires adults willing to examine their own patterns first.

In this episode:

• Male isolation and why emotional connection can be so difficult for men
• Achievement, validation, and using success as a substitute for feeling seen
• Midlife emotional collapse and rebuilding identity beyond performance
• Personal accountability, self-awareness, and dropping defensiveness
• Communication and healthier relationships
• Raising boys into emotionally whole men
• Why a meaningful apology requires changed behavior
• Letting go of ego and discovering who you are beyond accomplishments

Connect with Daniel Sterling:

https://daniel-sterling.com

Connect with Lisa Lacy:

https://www.lisalacy.com

What did you perform in order to survive?

 Welcome to the Edge.

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What happens when everyone in your family knows the truth about your life except you?

Al Isaacs, author of Finding Mary Smith and longtime comedian and improv teacher, joins Lisa Lacy to talk about discovering at 52 that he had been adopted and what happens to identity when the foundation of your own story suddenly shifts.

Al takes us inside the ordinary phone call from his mother’s oncologist that accidentally exposed a secret his family had kept for more than five decades, and the search that followed through DNA, genealogy, Search Angels and the trail of a folk singer named Mary Smith. The conversation also moves into imposter syndrome, forgiveness, the power of improv’s “yes, and,” and the painful cost of family secrets, including the conversations we may lose when truth is withheld.

In this episode:

• Late-discovery adoption and identity
• Family secrets, truth and belonging
• Gray-market adoption in the late 1960s
• DNA testing, genealogy and Search Angels
• Searching for a biological mother decades later
• Imposter syndrome and reclaiming identity
• Forgiveness without erasing what happened
• How “yes, and” helped Al keep moving when he wanted to give up
• The memories and relationships family secrecy can cost us

Connect with Al: AlIsaacs.com

Finding Mary Smith is available in paperback, eBook and audiobook.

Connect with Lisa: LisaLacy.com

What did you perform in order to survive?

Welcome to the Edge.

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What if the traits you think are your personality are actually things you learned to do to survive?

Simone Bowyer is a writer and founder of The Light Within Collective, whose work explores what she calls the “language of survival,” the patterns we develop to feel safe, loved, worthy, and less likely to be abandoned.

In this conversation, Simone and I talk about perfectionism, hyper-independence, control, and overachievement as survival adaptations rather than simply personality traits. She shares her experience with severe treatment-resistant depression, years of psychiatric treatment, and ultimately electroconvulsive therapy, or ECT, which she describes not as a cure, but as something that finally created enough space for her to consider life beyond the darkness.

We also take the conversation into the workplace, exploring why we cannot simply leave our wounds at home, what human-centered leadership can look like, and why psychological safety matters when the person who appears to be your highest performer may actually have a nervous system that never learned it was safe to stop.

In this episode:

• How childhood trauma can become perfectionism, people-pleasing, control, and hyper-independence

• Treatment-resistant depression and Simone’s experience with ECT

• Why recovery does not erase survival patterns overnight

• Performing worth in order to feel lovable and avoid abandonment

• Trauma, the nervous system, and high achievement

• Psychological safety and human-centered leadership in the workplace

• Why healing is not linear and does not have a timeline

• Simone’s book, Chasing Light, and finding color again after years of depression

• Moving from asking “What is wrong with me?” to asking “What did I learn to do to survive?”

Connect with Simone Bowyer:

The Light Within Collective

https://lightwithincollective.co.za

Connect with Lisa Lacy:

https://lisalacy.com

What did you perform in order to survive?

Welcome to the Edge.

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Would you look away?

Ruth E. Stitt is an author and licensed counselor whose family’s preserved letters from Nazi Germany reveal how persecution can unfold gradually, how difficult escape can become, and what happens when ordinary people decide whether to remain bystanders or stand up.

In 1938, Ruth’s grandmother in Bridgeport, Connecticut received a letter from relatives in Berlin desperately searching for a way out of Nazi Germany. What followed was five years of correspondence filled with hope, fear, bureaucracy, attempted immigration, love and devastating loss.

In this conversation, Ruth and Lisa go beyond the question, “Why didn’t they just leave?” They explore the financial, legal, political and emotional barriers Jewish families faced while trying to escape, the psychology of denial as danger slowly becomes normalized, and what fear and grief do to human beings under extraordinary pressure. They also talk about the choice that can remain when nearly everything else has been taken away: how we respond, who we love and whether we are willing to speak when someone else is being dehumanized.

In this episode:

• Holocaust history and life inside Nazi Germany

• Jewish refugee immigration and the barriers to escape

• Family letters documenting persecution as it unfolded

• Denial, fear, grief and psychological survival

• Why “Why didn’t they just leave?” misses the complexity of displacement

• Choosing love when control has been stripped away

• Turning documented family history into historical fiction

• The difference between a bystander and an upstander

• Moral courage, dehumanization and the responsibility to speak

• Letting go of perfection, overachievement and the need to always have the answer

Content note: This conversation includes discussion of the Holocaust, persecution, forced displacement, psychological trauma and profound loss.

Connect with Ruth E. Stitt:

https://scripturecomesto.life

Find Ruth’s books on Amazon by searching Ruth E. Stitt.

Connect with Lisa Lacy:

https://lisalacy.com

What did you perform in order to survive?

Welcome to the Edge.

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What if the patterns you keep repeating are not who you are, but behaviors you learned long ago and never stopped to question?

Arky Jones, creator of Personality Peek, joins Notes From the Edge to explore how self-awareness can help us recognize the patterns quietly shaping our choices, relationships, work, and identity without turning personality into another label or box. 

This conversation gets practical fast. Lisa and Arky talk about what happens when we realize we have been living according to other people’s expectations, how toxic workplace dynamics can make us feel powerless, and why taking ownership sometimes starts with something as small as documenting your work, protecting your attention, or changing one percent of a pattern instead of trying to reinvent your entire life overnight.

In this episode:

• Personality as a mirror instead of a label
• Self-awareness and recognizing unconscious patterns
• People-pleasing and living without full authorship of your life
• Stoicism and focusing on what you can actually control
• Toxic workplace dynamics and protecting your work
• Boundaries, attention, and deciding what you are willing to give
• Why honesty with yourself matters more than the personality result
• Arky’s “one percent” approach to practical personal growth
• Money, debt, freedom, and intentional decision-making
• How small conscious choices can change the direction of your life

Personality Peek is designed to help people identify strengths, blind spots, and behavioral patterns without treating personality as something fixed or diagnostic. 

Connect with Arky Jones:

https://personalitypeek.com

Connect with Lisa Lacy:

https://LisaLacy.com

What did you perform in order to survive?

Welcome to the Edge.

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Dr. Christopher Barker is a clinical psychologist and author whose work explores complex trauma, attachment, and one powerful idea: high functioning and psychological health are not always the same thing.

In this conversation, we dig into what happens when competence, independence, perfectionism, and overachievement become survival adaptations. We talk about why you can intellectually know a relationship is unhealthy and still feel pulled toward it, why “energizing” can sometimes be mistaken for love, and how the nervous system can keep anticipating danger long after the original threat is gone.

In this episode:

• Complex trauma and high achievement

• Attachment injuries in childhood and adulthood

• Perfectionism vs. healthy ambition

• Hypervigilance and waiting for the other shoe to drop

• Why “activated” may be more useful than “triggered”

• Trauma-informed relationships and finding safe support

• Why healing may be better understood as repair

• Rebuilding choice, trust, and freedom through repeated experiences

Maybe the goal isn’t to get rid of every survival strategy that got you here. Maybe it’s simply to stop letting it run the company.

Connect with Dr. Christopher:

https://drchristopherbarker.com

Connect with Lisa: 

https://www.lisalacy.com

What did you perform in order to survive?

Welcome to the Edge.

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Why can leaving someone who hurts you feel almost impossible?

Lisa Lacy, trauma educator and relationship advisor, explores trauma bonding and why intelligence alone cannot protect us from relationships that reshape our attachment, reward, and stress systems.

At 40, while in inpatient rehab, Lisa was told she was trauma bonded to her husband. Her response was, “I’m too smart for that.” It would take three more years to go fully no contact, and another three to work through the anger and resentment left behind. In this solo episode, she explains the biology of intermittent reinforcement, why separation can feel unbearable, and why shame rarely helps someone leave sooner.

In this episode:

• Trauma bonding and intermittent reinforcement
• Coercive control in abusive relationships
• Dopamine, oxytocin, cortisol and the stress response
• Why people leave and return repeatedly
• No contact and breaking the cycle
• Moving from survival to self-trust

Connect with Lisa:

www.Lisa Lacy.com

What did you perform in order to survive? 

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What happens when the life that looks successful from the outside is quietly falling apart underneath?

Rose Ann Forte is an international bestselling author and creator of the Choose Freedom® Program, and her work explores how lasting change can happen without building an identity around shame.

In this conversation, Lisa and Rose Ann talk about Rose Ann’s years as a successful executive and church leader while privately struggling with alcohol, toxic relationships, and the pressure to keep everyone else happy. They explore why traditional recovery language did not resonate with her, how neuroscience helped her understand deeply rooted behaviors, and how her Christian faith became part of rebuilding her identity.

In this episode:

• Alcohol use and behavioral habits

• Recovery without shame-based labels

• Faith and the renewing of the mind

• Neuroscience and habit formation

• Toxic relationships and people-pleasing

• Self-condemnation versus lasting change

• Identity after addiction

• Learning to choose freedom

Learn more about Rose Ann Forte:

https://choosefreedom.today

Learn more about Lisa Lacy:

https://www.lisalacy.com

What did you perform in order to survive?

Welcome to the Edge.

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

What if suicide prevention is about more than keeping someone alive for the next 72 hours?

In this special September Suicide Prevention Month solo episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy speaks from lived experience about her first suicide attempt at 15, later attempts, psychiatric hospitalization, and the complicated work of finding reasons to remain when life has become unbearable.

Lisa remembers arriving at the hospital still wearing her cheerleader jacket, being met with shame instead of understanding, and later experiencing psychiatric interventions that contained a crisis without necessarily addressing the pain underneath it. She also explores what decades of survival have taught her about meaning, spirituality, mortality, human connection, and making life small enough to survive one hour, one breath, or one tomorrow at a time.

In this episode:

• Suicide prevention through the lens of lived experience
• Surviving a suicide attempt as a teenager
• Why shame can deepen an already unbearable crisis
• Psychiatric hospitalization and the limits of crisis containment
• Trauma, suicidal thoughts, and emotional pain
• Why asking directly and listening without judgment matters
• Finding meaning when purpose feels impossible
• Spirituality, ancestors, and feeling connected when physically alone
• Surviving one hour instead of trying to solve an entire life
• Why a temporary state of consciousness should not make a permanent decision
• What Lisa wishes the 15-year-old version of herself could have known

This is not a clinical guide to suicide prevention. It is one survivor’s perspective on what helped her continue, what did not, and why sometimes staying alive begins with making the horizon small enough to reach.

If you are in immediate danger or believe you may act on suicidal thoughts, call or text 988 in the United States, contact emergency services, or go to the nearest emergency department.

Connect with Lisa Lacy:

https://LisaLacy.com

What did you perform in order to survive?

Welcome to the Edge.

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 thing you call your personality is actually something you learned to perform in order to survive?

Ashley Townsend is a transformational and integration coach and complex trauma recovery specialist who spent 15 years working inside the mental health system before deciding that traditional labels and approaches were no longer enough.

In this conversation, Ashley and I go straight into what made her become a self-described “former LCSW gone rogue.” We talk about what she witnessed working across domestic violence, addiction, foster care and trauma treatment, and how being blind shaped her own experience of trying to belong inside systems that often failed to see the whole person. Ashley also challenges the idea that personality is fixed, arguing that some of what we call personality may actually be protection we practiced until it became familiar.

Then the conversation gets even deeper. Ashley shares how she performed being the “nice girl,” performed being sighted as she progressively lost her vision, and eventually performed the role of rescuer, believing she could carry systems and other people on her back. We explore why those protections were once brilliant, why they eventually become heavy, and what happens when we stop building our lives from fear and begin creating from love.

In this episode:

• Complex trauma and the protective patterns underneath behavior
• Why Ashley chose to leave the traditional therapy model
• Disability advocacy and the experience of performing being sighted
• Mental health diagnoses, labels and the limitations of treating personality as fixed
• Why “just do it” can completely miss the context of trauma
• The difference between an explanation and an excuse
• Recovery as an ongoing process rather than a finish line
• Psychedelic preparation and integration, and why Ashley does not view psychedelics as a magic fix
• The “nice girl,” the rescuer and other identities we perform to belong
• Self-trust, play, the inner child and why healing does not always have to hurt
• What becomes possible when we stop fighting everything and start creating from love

Connect with Ashley:

http://www.findingyourphoenixcoaching.com/

Connect with Lisa:

www.lisalacy.com

What did you perform in order to survive?

Welcome to the edge

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What do we reach for when the thing that gave us purpose, identity, adrenaline, and belonging is suddenly gone?

Sean Carberry is an award-winning journalist and former NPR Kabul correspondent whose experience raises a difficult question: what happens when you come home from years of danger, but your mind and body are still wired to look for it?

In this episode of Notes From the Edge, Sean and Lisa Lacy talk about what happened after Afghanistan, when Sean returned to civilian life carrying undiagnosed PTSD, without the structure, intensity, or sense of purpose that had defined his years overseas. He describes walking into a Maryland casino about six weeks after coming home, initially gambling a few hundred dollars, and how the risk, rewards, recognition, casino perks, and escalating bets gradually began filling something that was missing outside those walls.

The conversation goes far beyond gambling. Sean talks candidly about identity loss, loneliness, relationships, the psychological impact of years spent witnessing human suffering, and eventually recognizing patterns he could not see while he was living inside them. He also discusses how writing became part of processing his experiences and why we need to take much more seriously what happens when veterans, journalists, humanitarian workers, and others who have spent years operating in dangerous environments are expected to simply come home and resume ordinary life.

In this episode:

• PTSD after war and conflict reporting

• Gambling addiction and compulsive gambling

• Adrenaline seeking, risk, and the nervous system

• Identity loss after leaving high-intensity environments

• Returning home and adjusting to civilian life

• Why danger can begin to feel familiar

• Casino rewards, validation, and escalating gambling behavior

• Loneliness, relationships, and destructive coping patterns

• Mental health among journalists and war correspondents

• Supporting veterans, reporters, humanitarian workers, and civilians after high-risk assignments

• Why being functional does not necessarily mean someone is okay

• Writing, memoir, and processing trauma

• Learning to recognize patterns before they become destructive

• Why coming home deserves as much attention as going into danger

Sean’s work and books:

passport-stamps.com

Lisa Lacy and Notes From the Edge:

lisalacy.com

What did you perform in order to survive?

Welcome to the Edge.

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What if the behavior you’re trying hardest to get rid of was once the very thing that helped you survive?

Carol Look is a psychotherapist and founding EFT Master who has spent decades helping people understand the emotional patterns underneath self-sabotage, and why lasting change often begins with asking what the behavior is protecting us from.

In this episode of Notes From the Edge, Carol and Lisa Lacy explore the idea that the problem was once the solution. Addiction, procrastination, people pleasing, overworking, staying invisible, and even creating chaos can serve a purpose when the nervous system believes they are keeping us safe.

Carol explains why we are wired for safety before success, and why someone can consciously want more visibility, healthier relationships, greater success, or a completely different life while unconsciously pulling themselves backward when the next level doesn’t feel safe.

Lisa shares her own experience of appearing highly successful while privately unraveling, using alcohol to avoid painful emotions, and later discovering how uncomfortable peace and stillness could feel after years of chaos. They also talk about functional freeze, grief, hypervigilance, the importance of mentorship, learning to regulate reactivity, and what becomes possible when we stop asking, “What is wrong with me?” and start asking, “Why am I doing this, and what is it protecting me from?”

Carol also shares how growing up in an alcoholic family shaped her tendency to take care of everyone around her, how that survival skill eventually became an asset in her work, and why learning to extend that same care toward herself changed everything.

In this episode:

• Why self-sabotage may actually be a protective response
• Nervous system regulation and why safety comes before success
• Fear of success, visibility, and “up-leveling”
• Why procrastination can have an emotional payoff
• Addiction as a way of anesthetizing difficult emotions
• EFT tapping and Emotional Freedom Techniques
• Trauma responses, hypervigilance, and emotional patterns
• Why peace and stillness can initially feel uncomfortable
• Functional freeze and appearing capable while internally checked out
• Grief, emotional avoidance, and learning to feel again
• People pleasing and taking care of others as survival strategies
• Why changing your own reactivity can change your relationships
• Gratitude, emotional well-being, and Carol’s Yes work
• The value of mentorship and support in personal growth
• Why healing doesn’t mean life stops being difficult
• The power of stillness, space, and finally hearing yourself

Learn more about Carol Look and her work:

www.carollook.com

Learn more about Lisa Lacy and Notes From the Edge:

www.lisalacy.com

What did you perform in order to survive?

Welcome to the Edge.

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How much longer are you willing to wait for someone else to validate what you already know happened?

Lisa Lacy is a trauma educator and relationship advisor exploring one powerful idea: sometimes closure is not something another person gives you, it is something you create by trusting your own experience.

In this short solo episode, Lisa shares what she learned from waiting for accountability, explanations, and validation that never came, and why healing began when she stopped requiring someone else’s version of the story to confirm her own.

In this episode:

• Closure after betrayal
• Rebuilding self-trust
• Letting go of the need for an apology
• Boundaries without agreement
• Why unanswered questions keep us attached
• Moving forward without validation

Connect with Lisa:

https://www.lisalacy.com

What did you perform in order to survive? 

Welcome to the Edge.

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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 spouse
• Widowed fatherhood and raising children through loss
• Performing strength when you’re falling apart
• Depression, isolation, and asking for help
• Self-medication and coping with acute grief
• Why grief doesn’t follow a predictable process
• Supporting someone who is grieving without prescribing how they should heal
• The strange collision of happy memories and devastating loss
• Starting over after losing the person you built your life with
• Identity after loss
• Persistence through rejection and uncertainty
• Nearly two decades of pursuing a Hollywood career
• Screenwriting, creativity, and finding your own writing process
• What repeated rejection can teach us about survival
• The making of EXES
• Why 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

What did you perform in order to survive?

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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 maturity
• Nervous system regulation under pressure
• The Sovereign Gentleman and psychological sovereignty
• Male loneliness, mentorship, friendship, and the need for tribe
• Why high performers struggle with rest and recovery
• “Negative 20X” and the drive to constantly prove yourself
• Emotional intelligence, anger, sadness, shame, and healthy expression
• Masculinity versus domination
• Disciplined presence during relationship conflict
• How childhood and cultural conditioning shape adult identity
• Martial 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:

What did you perform in order to survive? 

Welcome to the Edge.

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 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 recovery
• Why abstinence may be only the beginning of healing
• Substance addiction, behavioral addiction, and substitute addictions
• The emotional pain underneath compulsive and self-destructive behavior
• The Protector, Wounded Child, and True Self
• Trauma, triggers, and protective survival responses
• Why healing doesn’t mean never being triggered again
• Learning to love the parts of yourself you once tried to escape
• Self-compassion versus shame in addiction recovery
• Moving from survival mode into choice, purpose, and emotional freedom
• Relationships, resentment, defensiveness, and emotional disconnection
• Why one partner’s growth can change the relationship dynamic
• Reconnecting before trying to resolve conflict
• Boundaries, responsibility, forgiveness, and healthy communication
• Finding 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

What did you perform in order to survive?

Welcome to the Edge.

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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 labeling
• Competence as strength versus competence as survival armor
• Why boundaries can feel threatening to people who benefited from your compliance
• Family roles, scapegoating, and resistance when one person changes
• The difference between accountability and self-erasure
• Survival adaptations that become adult personality traits
• Why proving a label wrong can still allow it to control your life
• What 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

What did you perform in order to survive?

Welcome to the Edge.

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 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 epidemic
• Healthy masculinity and breaking out of the “man box”
• Why vulnerability can feel dangerous for men
• Emotional neglect, shame, and disconnection
• Somatic therapy and nervous system healing
• Men’s groups, brotherhood, and co-regulation
• Porn, alcohol, overworking, and other forms of emotional numbing
• Building emotional intimacy in relationships
• Learning to identify wants, needs, feelings, and boundaries
• Moving beyond the isolated “lone wolf” model of masculinity
• Authenticity 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

What did you perform in order to survive?

Welcome to the Edge.

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 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 autism
• Late diagnosis, identity and self-understanding
• Neurodivergent masking and autistic/ADHD burnout
• Executive dysfunction versus “laziness”
• Rejection sensitive dysphoria (RSD)
• Trauma, vulnerability and neurodivergence
• Parenting neurodivergent children with confidence
• Self-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

What did you perform in order to survive?

Welcome to the Edge.

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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 soil
• Why Cathy believes worms matter for sustainability and food security
• Growing fresh sprouts at home
• Laughter yoga and nervous-system regulation
• Why adults need more play and laughter
• Stress, isolation, and protecting your mental health
• Recovering from people pleasing
• Saying no without overexplaining or apologizing
• Why shame loses power when we stop keeping it silent
• Choosing simple tools for a healthier, more sustainable life

Cathy Nesbitt: www.kathysclub.com

Lisa Lacy: www.lisalacy.com

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Welcome to the Edge.

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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” cycle
• Suicide loss and unanswered questions
• Responsibility vs. hindsight
• Moving forward without “moving on”
• Self-forgiveness and self-compassion
• The illusion of control
• Finding purpose after profound loss
• Turning regret into resilience

Learn more about Stephanie Renner:

https://www.stephanierennerspeaks.com/

Find Lisa Lacy and Notes From the Edge:

https://www.lisalacy.com/

What did you perform in order to survive?

Welcome to the Edge.

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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 health
• Trauma activation and survival patterns
• Rage, anxiety, depression and identity loss
• Medical dismissal in midlife women
• High-functioning survival and performance
• Why menopause can expose what was already there

Learn more: www.lisalacy.com

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Welcome to the Edge.

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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

What did you perform in order to survive?

Welcome to the Edge.

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 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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Welcome to the Edge.

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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.

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

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.

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

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 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.