Connected Chaos: The Family Table

Most of us grew up with a pretty clear idea of what it meant to be a responsible adult. You turned 18, you got a job, you figured it out. Simple. Except it's not that simple anymore — and if you are still parenting from that playbook, this episode might be worth a listen. In this episode of Connected Chaos: The Family Table, we talk about the transition from teen to financially responsible yo...

The goal is not to win. The goal is to keep the door open. _________________________________________________________ At some point, most parents hit a moment they did not see coming. Their child- the one they raised, the one they poured everything into- starts thinking differently. About religion. About politics. About how the world works. And instead of the conversation they imagined, there is de...

Nobody expects you to be Superman every day. But this episode might help you figure out who to call when you're not. ___________________________________________________________________ It usually starts small.   You wake up not feeling well. You have clients to see, kids to take care of, and a full day that did not get the memo that you are running on empty. So you do what most parents do: yo...

Nobody wants to talk about it.   And yet, at some point, someone in your family is going to have to deal with the will that was never updated, the junk drawer that was never cleaned out, and possibly (if you're related to anyone like the people at this table) a chest freezer in the garage with very specific instructions. In this episode of Connected Chaos: The Family Table, we went somewhere...

This one might make you want to reach out to someone you have not talked to in years... There is a particular kind of relationship that doesn't have an official name. Not a cousin, not a neighbor, not quite a friend in the ordinary sense. The family up the street whose mom made chocolate chip cookies and showed up to your games when your own parents didn't. The boy at the door every morn...

Most of us have gotten pretty good at it: the smile that says everything's fine. The voice that stays steady when nothing inside is. The mask we put on before we walk out the door, or sometimes before we even walk into the next room. In this episode of Connected Chaos: The Family Table, we talk about what it actually costs to keep that mask on - and what starts to become possible when you fin...

Nostalgia is a funny thing. It can wrap you in something warm and remind you of everything good. It can also quietly keep you standing in the past while your actual life is happening somewhere else. In this episode of Connected Chaos: The Family Table, we follow Shawn into a question his daughter's 18th birthday dropped right in his lap: how do you honor what WAS without missing what IS? From...

Nobody tells you that one of the HARDEST transitions in family life is not a crisis. It's a graduation. A packed car. A kid who is technically fine, actually excited, and ready to go- while you are standing in the driveway trying to figure out who you are now that the daily job of raising them looks completely different. In this episode of Connected Chaos: The Family Table, we talk about empt...

There is something about family travel that strips away the polished version of everyone and gets right down to the real thing. You find out pretty quickly how people handle delays, missed connections, hungry toddlers at 30,000 feet, and the particular chaos of an airport when the plan has completely fallen apart. In this episode of Connected Chaos: The Family Table, we swap travel stories, and no...

Take a seat at the family table      ... with Sonja Merritt, Shawn Bradbury, Lisa Brody, Melinda Burkhart, & Niyati Patel

Welcome to Connected Chaos: The Family Table With Sonja Merritt, Shawn Bradbury, Lisa Brody, Melinda Burkhart, & Niyati Patel What happens when the plan changes, life gets messy, and a real conversation turns out to be more powerful than anything you originally set out to create? In this debut episode of Connected Chaos: The Family Table, we share how this podcast was born from an honest, unfi...