SheSez with Linda Grasso

  The best-selling book Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage —which is being adapted into a film starring Gwyneth Paltrow— has put midlife aka gray divorce in the zeitgeist. In the book, Belle Burden recounts marrying a wildly successful businessman who, at the height of the pandemic, discovers her husband is having an affair.   He leaves her the next day, abruptly ending their 20-year marriage. She th...

By now, most of us are familiar with LASIK, which can correct both near- and farsighted vision. But there's a newer option that LASIK can't address—the aging eye. As we get into our mid-40s and beyond, the eye's natural lens loses flexibility, leading to presbyopia and that all-too-familiar need for (i.e. hassle of) reading glasses. Lens replacement surgery offers a solution: the aging lens is swa...

The story of how Yvette Lanneaux started reimagining her life during the pandemic, and ultimately made a pivot from NYC-based attorney to sheep farmer in rural Vermont. Today, farming the artisan wool of Merino sheep (she also has Babydoll Southdown sheep as pets), Yvette lives in a shape-shifting structure that couldn't be more different than the suburban New Jersey home where she raised her kids...

Let's face it: getting a natural look with synthetic fillers is a challenge. Fat grafting—essentially having your own fat taken from a part of your body and having it injected into anothr part—can provide a more subtle visage (think "refreshed" rather than puffy and bulbous) and it lasts longer. San Francisco-based plastic surgeon Dr. Carolyn Chang explains the procedure—plus her take on what the...

Shaina Feinberg experienced the struggle that so many women face:  being a mom of two kids and having a career as a filmmaker. In recent years, she felt she was failing at both and wondered if she gave one up, would she be more successful at the other? But, when it came to her career, she had a monkey on her shoulder: Shaina's mother had given up her career aspirations to be a full-time mom and sh...

When you see Stephanie Koenig on the screen, you might do a double take. You might have seen her before on the TV series The Flight Attendant or The Offer . But with her role in the upcoming Apple+ series Lessons in Chemistry (debuting October 13), you'll soon not just recognize the face but the name as well. Indeed, Stephanie is a star on the rise and defeating the odds of being a working actress...

34-year-old Anna Todd, author of the best selling fan fiction series  After , shares the story of how she went from being a military wife, working a minimum wage job with a special needs son, and living in Ft. Worth, Texas to a best selling author and movie producer in Hollywood. 

A heartfelt and personal discussion as Linda talks with her sister-in-law Ginge Cabrera about how she turned her pain over her mother's battle with Alzheimer's Disease into a passion for advocacy. Ginge's grandmother was struck with the disease at age 75; and then—in a cruel twist of fate—her mom years later, at the exact same age.   Ginge recounts how helpless and despondent she felt at not being...

There's a little question being tossed around among my girlfriends right now: are you going to stick to injectables? Or—at some point—do you think you'll consider a a facelift? The consensus seems to be: why go under the knife, when you can achieve the same results with injectables? But can you really? And from a cost standpoint, does a facelift—particularly the popular lower aka mini-facelift—mak...

A deep dive into that strange phenomenon known as fight-or-flight—when you have all the physical signs of stress and anxiety but are in no immediate danger. Research has shown that repeatedly having the fight-or-flight response is bad for your health. In this episode, Dr. Kim D'Eramo, founder of The American Institute of Mind Body Medicine , breaks down the how and why—and offers some concrete adv...

Award-winning writer and science journalist Donna Jackson Nakazawa shares what she has discovered in her new book: Girls On The Brink: Helping Our Daughters Thrive in an Era of Increased Anxiety, Depression and Social Media . Armed with an extensive amount of research, Donna examines the alarming increase in numbers (1 out of 4 adolescent girls reports suffering from symptoms of major depression;...

The grit and resilience-filled comeback story of Geralyn Ritter who was critically hurt in a 2015 Amtrak train accident that killed 8 people and injured more than one hundred others. At the time, the mother of three was a senior VP at the pharmaceutical company Merck & Company—an A-type essentially— used to moving fast and getting things done. Here she shares with Linda her journey over the past 7...

Journalist Rina Raphael puts the four trillion dollar wellness industry under the microscope with her new book The Gospel of Wellness: Gyms, Gurus, Goop….and the False Promise of Self-Care. From charcoal-infused cheddar cheese to crystal-infused water to multi-week cleanses, Rina explains why we fall for products lacking substantive scientific evidence supporting claims; how and why seductive mark...

Gina Schaefer shares the story of how she went from working in software tech to founding a successful chain of Ace hardware stores in the DC metropolitan area, and why she started hiring recovering drug addicts as employees. Not only have they turned out to be some of the best employees she's had in the nearly 20 years she's been in business, Gina says she's learned invaluable lessons from them ab...

Charmaine DeGraté, co-executive producer and writer on HBO's  Game of Thrones: House of the Dragon talks with Linda about working on the hit series, her amazing career trajectory and her philosophy of being truthful about what you know and what you don't when taking a new job (she's not a believer in faking it until you make it). The Texas native also shares about some of her other TV projects inc...

Want to live healthier and longer? Shift your mindset about aging says Yale University professor Dr. Becca Levy. Examining various cultures and outliers around the world, Dr. Levy has conducted research, concluding that if we can shift our attitudes about aging, it will foster positive beliefs which will, in turn, improve our health in later years and quality of life—as well as lengthen lifespan....

Journalist Jessica Yellin, founder of News Not Noise, a rapidly growing social media platform aimed at delivering the news in a   calm, unbiased, factual manner that won't leave viewers feeling yelled at and anxious, but rather more informed and equipped to form intelligent opinions. The award-winning journalist shares with Linda how she worked in news for 17 years, working at the local level and...

Dr. Katie Lawlor, a trained trauma psychologist who specializes in pet grief and loss, on the mental health crisis facing vets. A 2019 study shows vet professionals are experiencing the highest rates of suicide among all medical professions. And those numbers were noted before the pressures of the pandemic, during which 23 million people adopted pets. Plus, why we experience such profound (and som...

LA-based divorce/custody attorney Lisa Helfend Meyer a.k.a. "the pit poodle" shares what it is like to be a high-profile litigator for the uber wealthy and famous. As founder of Meyer, Olson, Lowey & Meyers (all the partners are women), over the past 35 years Lisa has represented the ex-wives of Dr. Dre, Caesar Milan and Tony Danza. Having been immersed in the details of so many bad relationships,...

Two NIH researchers—Dr. Sarah A. Rudzinskas and Sarah Spector—on studies they are helping conduct for a new drug aimed at helping women in midlife who suffer from depression-typically for the first time in their lives. An estimated 20% of American women have depression at some point during menopause; and 38% experience depression in  perimenopause. The researchers are exploring the link between lo...

Best-selling author and illustrator Alessandra Olanow, whose drawings and musings, shared on Instagram as @aolanow , have attracted a highly engaged community of 372K followers, including celebrities such as Katie Couric and Jennifer Garner. In 2019, dealing with a divorce, Alessandra started drawing her feelings at her kitchen table each morning, posting her illustrations and simple phrases to In...

Fasting Coach Laurie Lewis on the do's, don'ts and health benefits of intermittent fasting. Laurie, who owns and operates Fast Forward Wellness , details how not eating for an extended period of time each day puts our bodies in restorative mode, allowing us to regenerate and better fight off disease (there is, by the way, scientific research that supports this). She credits intermittent fasting to...

Monica Wyatt shares her journey from top TV producer ( Providence, My So Called Life, LA Law ) to being an accomplished mixed media artist who reimagines unexpected and overlooked materials, transforming them into intimate assemblage sculpture. The challenging delivery of her second child was the breaking point for Monica. "I was physically exhausted from the birth and I knew I couldn't go back to...

Charlotte Hanna shares the story of how she pulled off her dramatic mid-life pivot, moving from successful careers on Wall Street and real estate to founding the innovative cannabis company Rebelle . Plus, how part of her mission is to change the perception of cannabis from that as a dirty, nefarious habit to that of a mindful, elevated experience—one that is widely accepted as simply a way of enh...

The story of how, at the age of 40, Christine Morrison walked away from her long and successful career as a fashion executive and beauty marketer (at the time she was a VP for Calvin Klein in NYC) to become a freelance writer. A lifelong fashion aficionado (think Carrie Bradshaw here, ladies) Christine had dreamed of a career as a writer when she younger; she'd even majored in journalism. But life...