Broken to Brave | Guiding you to heal & break free from anxiety

There is a version of you that has been holding something in for so long it stops feeling like holding. It just feels normal. Today I'm talking with Cassie about the shame cycle she carried for years, the people-pleasing that kept it in place, and the moment she finally stopped avoiding the thing she needed to say. We talk about what it looks like to trust a process that isn't showing re...

Welcome back to Part 2 of my conversation with Jenn Markiewicz. Last week, we replayed her original interview from two years ago to look back at where her inner work journey began. Today, Jenn is back to share a beautiful, grounded update on what has shifted after three years of dedication to her healing. It is easy to get stuck in a loop of fighting life, constantly searching for the exact "...

Two years ago, I sat down with Jenn Marowitz for an incredibly powerful conversation about healing, vulnerability, and what happens when the armor finally comes down. Because of how much growth has happened since that day, this is a special two-part series. This episode is Part 1, where I am replaying that original, profound interview to anchor us in where this journey began.  This conversation ex...

When you were a kid, you probably knew exactly what you wanted to be. And then somewhere along the way, someone told you it wasn't realistic. It wouldn't make money. It wasn't a real job. So you found something more responsible, and the wanting quietly went somewhere you couldn't see it. In this episode, I sit down with Cassandra Wilcox, who spent fifteen years building a tech...

There is a question most of us stop asking somewhere along the way. Not "will this make me anxious," but "what do I actually want?" When you have been living with anxiety for a while, fear quietly becomes the thing you check in with first, the point you reference before you make any decision. And without really noticing, your life starts revolving around avoiding discomfort ins...

From the outside, it can look like you have it all handled. The career, the family, the life you said you wanted. But underneath, something keeps breaking down, and it starts to feel like life is just happening to you. In this episode, I sit down with Chelsea Litsey, who spent years high-functioning on the surface while her body was quietly falling apart. Autoimmune illness since she was nine, anx...

There's a moment in the healing process that can stop everything. Not because something went wrong, but because the mind steps in with something that sounds completely reasonable. "Now isn't the right time." "I need to understand it more." "I'm too overwhelmed to start." Those phrases feel like honesty, like self-awareness even. But sometimes they'...

There's something most people don't realize they're doing. They're speaking to their fear, their anxiety, their scared parts, in a way that's actually making everything worse. I'm walking through what happens when those anxious parts of you get met with frustration instead of understanding. Why minimizing what you're feeling, or telling yourself it's not a b...

Some of us are really good at looking fine. We keep moving, keep achieving, keep showing up, and we get so good at it that even we start to believe the story we're telling. But underneath that, Jen was doing what so many of us do: shoving it all down and powering through. In this episode, I sit down with Jen Armistead to talk about what it actually looks like to rebuild your life more than on...

There's a question I hear underneath almost everything my clients share with me. Not just "how do I understand my anxiety better," but "what would actually be different for me? How would my life feel?" In this episode, I'm walking you through exactly that. What shifts when your nervous system recalibrates. Not the theory, but the real, lived changes that happen in you...

If you're the one who reads the room, keeps the peace, and makes sure everyone is okay, you know how automatic it feels. It doesn't even feel like a choice anymore. But somewhere along the way, staying aware of everyone else's emotions turned into feeling responsible for them. In this episode, I'm walking through why that pattern makes complete sense and where it actually comes...

You've probably spent years thinking, "This is just who I am," when it comes to your anxiety, and let me tell you, it's not. When anxiety has been there long enough, it starts to feel like it belongs to you. Like it's woven into how you think, how you react, how you move through the world. In this episode, I'm walking you through something that shifted everything for...

There's a particular kind of discouragement that comes when you're trying, you're showing up, you're doing everything you're supposed to do, and it still doesn't feel like enough. Not because nothing is changing, but because you can't see it yet, and that gap is where so many people start to question themselves. In this episode, I'm walking through seven thi...

I thought I was doing everything right. I was thinking differently, staying positive, figuring out my triggers. I was working on myself constantly. And yet I was still anxious, still reactive, still stuck more often than I wanted to be. I kept thinking I must be missing something, or maybe this is just the way I am. What I didn't know then is that I wasn't doing anything wrong. I was jus...

If you've ever tried to reason with yourself in the middle of a panic attack and it didn't work, there's a reason for that. It's not because you said the wrong thing or didn't try hard enough. It's because panic isn't happening in the thinking part of your brain. It's a body response, and no amount of self-talk reaches the part of your system that's alr...

There are moments in life where you can feel something shift, where people walk in as strangers and leave feeling deeply connected, seen, and changed. In this episode, I’m reflecting on our first international BRAVE-cation retreat in Costa Rica and sharing some of the moments that stood out the most. From watching women face fears in the ocean, to releasing anger together on the beach, to witnessi...

If positive thinking worked, you’d probably be healed by now. And if you’re anything like me, you already know when your thoughts are irrational. You know when you’re spiraling. And yet your body still reacts like something is wrong. In this episode, I’m talking about why that happens and why it’s not a personal failure. I’m sharing the truth about why the thinking brain can’t override a survival...

If you’re in the thick of parenting and you know you want to break generational cycles, this conversation is for you. In this episode, I sit down with Wendy Snyder to talk about what it really looks like to parent differently, especially when you’re raising strong-willed kids. We talk about the power struggles, the inherited beliefs many of us grew up with, and the moment you realize nothing is wr...

If you’re still trying to think your way out of anxiety, this might be why it hasn’t worked. In this episode, I’m breaking down something that can completely change the way you understand your anxiety. You feel it before you think it. That tight chest, the drop in your stomach, the sudden wave of dread, it starts in the body. And if you’ve been trying to fix it by controlling your thoughts, I want...

What if chronic illness isn’t just something to fix, but a story we’ve been taught to accept as truth? In this conversation, I sit down with Karyn Shanks, MD, to explore what healing really means when we stop treating the body like a broken machine and start listening to the whole person. We talk about disappointment in conventional medicine, the courage it takes to question the stories we’ve been...

There’s a specific kind of pain that comes from knowing you didn’t listen to yourself. From saying yes when your body said no, and realizing later that you abandoned your own truth. In this conversation, Theresa Lear Levine and I talk about what self-betrayal actually looks like, and how it slowly disconnects us from our intuition, our bodies, and ourselves. We explore her healing journey through...

How many times have you thought you were finally okay, only for anxiety to sneak back in the moment life gets heavy? In this episode, I talk about the quiet defeat that shows up when anxiety returns after you’ve done the therapy, used the tools, and felt real progress. I break down why relief can feel temporary when identity doesn’t shift at the nervous system level, and how so many of us unknowin...

You think you’re doing okay, maybe even good, and then it hits. A thought, a sensation, a moment of pressure, and suddenly, anxiety is back. And the part that hurts the most isn’t even the anxiety; it’s the thought, I thought I figured this out. Why is this happening again? In this episode, I’m talking honestly about why anxiety can return even after you’ve done the work, learned the tools, and ha...

Have you ever felt anxious the moment you woke up, before anything even happened? That racing heart, the spiraling thoughts, the pressure to calm down like everyone else seems to. I know that feeling. And I want you to know, there is nothing wrong with you. In this episode, I’m breaking down why most anxiety tools don’t stick. I’ll show you what’s really happening in your body, why calm can feel u...

Megan Caldwell hit burnout twice. The first time, she left her career in education and moved her young family to start over. The second time, everything looked perfect: she was running a thriving fitness business, had three beautiful kids, and was doing work she loved. But inside, she felt broken. In this conversation, Megan shares what it really looked like to fall apart behind the scenes, and ho...