Done Pretending

Lucy Dutton used to hide at the back of photographs and forgot her own name the first time she spoke on stage. Today, she's a certified peak performance coach helping entrepreneurs align mindset, purpose, and strategy for success with ease and fulfillment. This conversation reveals the hidden cost of perfectionism, why vulnerability creates deeper connection than polished presentations, and how th...

Tom Pizio thought he had it all figured out. Four decades in business, a 5x sales increase in an industry that grows at 3%, director-level success. Then the company sold, his health crashed, and he found himself with tubes coming in and out of his body, jobless, asking one simple question: what's next? The external validation was there, but the foundation wasn't. What followed was a journey from c...

We're all desperate to be seen and heard, but most of us are going about it completely wrong. We talk louder, explain more, polish our message, and somehow still don't land. What if the problem isn't that people aren't listening, but that we're speaking from the wrong place entirely? In this episode, I explore the uncomfortable truth about why performing never gets us the connection we crave, and...

What happens when a six-year-old in a pink dress gets told "it's not nice to show off"? For most of us, we learn to shrink. We perform instead of express. We seek approval instead of connection. Faith Rumer, Bestselling Author and Voice Coach to Academy Award winners and global CEOs, reveals why we're living in an epidemic of people not feeling truly seen and heard. She breaks down the science of...

What happens when a struggling artist discovers her true calling isn't in selling her work, but in using her lived experience to help others heal? Sage Homan-Muise shares her powerful journey from navigating invisible disability as a child to becoming a mental health peer support specialist in Portland, Oregon. In this deeply personal conversation, Sage opens up about learning to self-advocate thr...

Family dynamics have a way of following us into adulthood, especially when childhood pressure, unspoken rules, and complicated relationships are part of the story. I open up a real conversation about how those early experiences shape our identity, our choices, and who we trust when things get hard. We talk about why having the right support system is often the difference between staying stuck and...

The end of the year has a quiet way of asking us to pause, even when the world is telling us to hurry up and move on. Before I jump headfirst into 2026, I wanted to sit with what 2025 actually brought up for me and why that matters more than another list of resolutions. In this episode, I talk about why reflection is a necessary part of moving forward. If you’ve ever felt tired before February eve...

Being around people doesn’t always mean you feel connected, and that quiet kind of loneliness can sneak up on you fast. I’m talking about crowded loneliness, those moments when you’re in a room full of people but still feel invisible or out of place. I share some very real experiences where I felt that disconnect firsthand, even when I thought I “should” feel connected. This conversation starts by...

Healing is rarely neat or linear, and most of the time it doesn’t look like progress at all. I talk about what it’s really like to begin healing when you still feel messy, unsure, and very much in the middle of things. This episode is a reminder that you don’t need to look healed to start healing. If you’ve ever thought, “I should be further along by now,” this conversation is for you. I share a s...

The holidays have a way of pulling us right back into old roles, especially when family dynamics start testing your patience and your sense of self. I talk about how to stay grounded and calm in the middle of the chaos, using simple, science-backed tools that actually work when emotions run high. If you’ve ever felt judged, triggered, or completely exhausted after a family gathering, this will fee...

It still amazes me how our brains shift the moment we stop pretending and start showing up as our real selves, and I share a little story about that spark of authenticity that changes everything. In this episode, I break down the brain science behind being true to yourself: how self-awareness, emotional regulation, and social prediction work together in everyday life. You’ll hear how understanding...

It’s wild how much judgment, both fearing it and dishing it out, can quietly shape our lives without us realizing it. Today, I’m breaking down how those tiny moments of “What will they think?” slowly pull us away from who we really are. You’ll hear the real reasons we start shrinking ourselves to fit other people’s comfort zones and why it leaves us feeling disconnected and exhausted. This episode...

I’ve spent so much of my life trying to outrun other people’s opinions, and in this episode, I open up about the moment I finally realized I was done pretending. I share the childhood memory that taught me how quickly judgment can shape the way we shrink or show up. You’ll hear how that old story followed me into adulthood and built a life that looked “fine” but didn’t feel aligned. And you’ll get...

What if the most exhausting thing you've ever done was pretending to be fine for too long? Welcome to Done Pretending, where healing meets authentic living. Hosted by Susan Houston, this podcast is a movement for anyone who's tired of hiding, for the people pleasers, the perfectionists, and the ones who've spent their whole lives being strong for everyone else. Susan knows what it'...