Love From the Inside Out: Real Life Conversations for Women Going Through Midlife, Menopause Body Changes and Identity Shifts

If choosing yourself makes you feel guilty, selfish, or wrong, this episode will help you understand why that discomfort may not mean you’re doing anything wrong. In this episode of Love From the Inside Out, Susan explores why choosing yourself can feel so uncomfortable, especially when you’ve spent years being the dependable one, the helpful one, the person who figures it out, or the one who says...

Music has a way of taking us right back to ourselves. In this holiday weekend replay of The Soundtrack of Your Life , we’re revisiting one of my favorite episodes about music, memory, mood, nostalgia, and the songs that remind us who we were, who we are, and who we’re still becoming. In this episode, I share stories from my own life soundtrack, from childhood car rides and teenage freedom to dance...

If you've been overthinking a situation you can't control, replaying conversations in your head, worrying about what might happen next, or feeling stuck in uncertainty, this episode is for you. In this episode of Love From the Inside Out, Susan shares a personal story about catching herself in a spiral of overthinking and anxiety during a workout, and how an unexpected song brought her b...

Why trying harder isn’t helping and backing off isn’t giving up. In this episode of Love From the Inside Out , Susan explores midlife burnout, the addiction to effort, and why pushing through, doing more, and overriding your body can stop working at a certain point in life. For many women in midlife, effort has been the thing that worked. It helped us build careers, care for others, move through h...

What happens when the thing you imagined your whole life finally arrives... and it doesn't feel the way you expected? For most of my life, I assumed I would change my last name when I got married. I actually looked forward to it. Growing up with a difficult-to-pronounce last name, I dreamed of the day I would take a simpler name and step into what I thought would be an easier identity. But wh...

If your body feels different in midlife and you’ve found yourself wondering what you missed, what you did wrong, or why all the “right” things aren’t working the way they used to, this episode is for you. In this episode of Love From the Inside Out, Susan explores the difference between caring for your body and trying to control it, especially during menopause and midlife, when body changes, aging...

In this episode of Love From the Inside Out® , Susan explores why some of us feel responsible for other people’s moods and how that pattern can quietly lead to emotional exhaustion, overthinking, people-pleasing, and self-abandonment. If you’ve ever walked into a room and immediately wondered what you did wrong, replayed a conversation to figure out why someone seemed “off,” or felt like it was yo...

Why do we keep trying to be perfect at life, even when we know life is a practice? In this episode of Love From the Inside Out, I’m exploring the pressure so many of us feel to get life right — to make the right decision, respond the right way, grow faster, heal faster, know better, and somehow skip the messy middle of living what we’re learning. This conversation started over lunch with one of my...

What is it about having your picture taken that can bring up so much? In this episode of Love From the Inside Out , I’m talking about a recent headshot experience that brought up more than I expected around being seen, body image, self-doubt, visibility, and the very human desire to feel like ourselves in the way we are seen by others. At first, it seemed simple. I needed new photos. I had a beaut...

Some dates stay with us. Grief anniversaries, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, birthdays, and the moments our bodies seem to remember before we do. In this episode of Love From the Inside Out , I’m reflecting on the emotional memory certain dates can hold, especially as I move through the month of May, which marks the anniversaries of both of my parents’ passing. My father passed away seven years ago o...

Have you ever been in one of those no-clean-answer moments where both choices make sense and both choices cost you something? In this episode of Love From the Inside Out , I’m talking about the love-hate relationship we can have with choices that are good for us, choices that feel good in the moment, and choices that come with consequences later. This conversation came up for me after a full weeke...

I went into our storage unit looking for my mother’s mahjong set and a few things I wanted to give to my brother. Instead, I found old family photos, childhood keepsakes, handwritten notes, and pieces of my life I hadn’t seen in years. What started as a search for one meaningful thing turned into a reflection on memory, grief, legacy, and the strange emotional weight of the things we keep. In this...

If your body, your energy, or your life has ever stopped cooperating with the pace you were trying to keep, this episode is for you. A rough stomach bug forced me to slow down in a way I never would have chosen for myself, and once the worst of it passed, I started to realize this week was about more than just being sick. It showed me how much I had been pushing through stress, pressure, overdoing...

If getting dressed has been feeling more emotional, frustrating, or loaded than it should, this episode is for you. After listening to Mel Robbins’ recent conversation with celebrity stylist Erin Walsh, I thought I was about to feel inspired to clean out my closet, get intentional, and finally connect a few dots around style, confidence, and embodiment. That is not what happened. Instead, I opened...

How do you feel good without earning it first? In this episode, I’m talking about why so many of us wait to relax, enjoy life, or feel better until everything is done — and how choosing joy first can help break negative thought loops, shift your focus, and bring you back to what matters most. This week, I’m sharing a personal story about getting ready to host Passover and noticing how quickly I ca...

What if nothing is exactly wrong, but something still feels off? In this episode, I’m talking about 7 signs you may have outgrown your life and are at a midlife turning point. If you’ve been feeling more irritated, more disconnected, more exhausted, or less like yourself lately, this conversation is for you. I’m talking about the quiet ways self-abandonment can show up, why your life can look fine...

What if abundance isn’t about getting more — but about caring for what you already have? In this episode of Love From the Inside Out , Susan reflects on an unexpected lesson about abundance after repotting a money tree plant. What started as a simple moment turned into a deeper realization about care, attention, self-loyalty, and why things in life rarely fall apart overnight. Through this persona...

A few days before her birthday, Susan shares a personal reflection on what it means to get older, get clearer, and choose how she wants to meet this season of life. In this episode of Love From the Inside Out , she opens up about why birthdays have always meant so much to her, what feels different this year, and how midlife has brought both deeper perspective and a greater sense of possibility. Sh...

Want support you can press play on? Return is my private podcast feed for the moments you can feel yourself slipping into urgency, overthinking, over-functioning, or self-abandonment. Inside, you’ll receive at least two private audio drops each month, plus occasional reflections, prompts, and practices to help you come back to yourself. Join Return here . In this episode, I’m talking about what it...

Join Return (private podcast feed) here. If you’ve been feeling more irritated or resentful lately, this episode will help. Even if anger isn’t your main signal, keep listening because self-abandonment can look like rushing, jaw tension, over-explaining, people-pleasing, doom-emailing, snapping, or feeling “behind.” In When Anger Is the Signal: Irritability, Resentment, and Self-Abandonment , I’m...

Return is live 🎧 Join here . 💛 Stop Self-Abandonment: Nervous System Healing and Learning to Stay With Yourself What does it actually mean to stop abandoning yourself — not in theory, but in real life? In this episode of Love From the Inside Out , Susan names what she stands for. Not as a recap. Not as a how-to. But as a clear point of view rooted in lived experience. This conversation explores...

As the Lunar New Year begins and we enter the Year of the Fire Horse, I’m sharing a grounded reset you can use anytime you feel that “new chapter” energy building. This isn’t a predictions episode. It’s a practical, nervous-system-friendly guide to working with momentum without burning out, overcommitting, or self-abandoning. Think of this as a steadying reset for your nervous system, your mindset...

Learning to Trust Yourself Without Certainty Living Without the Old Map After an internal threshold is crossed, there’s often an expectation that certainty will follow — that clarity will arrive and confidence will lock in. In this episode of Love From the Inside Out , Susan closes the limited series by exploring what actually comes next: learning how to live forward without certainty , guided not...

In this special bonus episode of Love From the Inside Out , Susan shares a heartfelt tribute to her mom, Margie, on what would have been her 80th birthday. Ten years after her mother’s passing, Susan reflects on love, grief, resilience, and the ways the people we lose continue to live on inside us — through the memories we carry, the lessons we inherit, and the strength we find along the way. This...

Hey friends—quick bonus mini-sode, especially for anyone listening here in the Metro Phoenix area. I’m popping in with an invitation to join me in person for Return to Center , a half-day retreat in Central Phoenix on Sunday, Feb. 22 (1:00–4:00 PM) . Early bird pricing ends Friday, Feb. 6 , but that doesn’t mean registration closes— you can still sign up after Feb. 6 as long as space is available...