The L Podcast

TW: Mentions or suggestions of suicide and intrusive thoughts. When you live with anxiety and depression, sometimes it can be hard to reach out for help. Yes everyone says "reach out anytime" or "call me if you need me", but when you're in those moments, the really dark ones, a big barrier is the feeling of bothering, or being a burden, or sometimes even embarrassment. It's hard to ask for help. B...

TW: This episode mentions murder, suicide, and suggestions of abuse. Childhood trauma isn't something that ends with childhood. Sometimes that shit follows you into adulthood. As adults processing and healing from childhood trauma, my bestie Brittney and I are talking about what it's been like. Spoiler alert: It's been hard AF. Childhood trauma impacts mental health, which in the Latinx community...

Life can feel really big, really heavy sometimes. I know it's felt like that a lot lately for me. That heaviness just feeds anxiety and depression, and before you know it, a bad morning turns into a bad day and into a bad week. You blink and it's been a month of feeling like shit. Yesterday I woke up to a panic attack and expected it to ruin my day, my week. But it didn't. It was actua...

No one likes to talk or think about death, but it’s all around us. Death has been on my mind lately for a few reasons, mainly with my dog Burberry’s health changing. It hit me that she’s getting older and being able to see it, well it’s fucked with me. I started pre-grieving. Let’s talk about why we start to pre-grieve when we see death coming. I know death can be a difficult subject and if it’s s...

Do you know how awesome you are? Probably not. Sometimes when we're always focused on who we want to be, we overlook and undervalue who we ALREADY are (which is pretty f*cking awesome). Not knowing who we are means we don't know our worth. But what's the big deal with not knowing our worth? Who does that hurt? Everyone. Not knowing your worth means you miss out on opportunities that ca...

Who knew three words to add up to such a big question! WHO ARE YOU? I thought I knew who I was at 14. Then I thought for sure I knew who I was at 24. Now at 32, I've realized the answer will always be changing. These past three decades I've put so much pressure on myself to know exactly who I am so I could figure out what she should look like, what she should be achieving, etc. But all that's real...

Who Are You? Miniseries : It's my birthday month, meaning it's a month full of self-reflection. So in this four part miniseries we're answering the question Who Are You? I know it's a bit of a vague, yet loaded question, but who we are impacts our lives and those around us. In this first part we're talking about how our morals and values shape who we are. Thinking about what ou...

Life can really throw some shit in your face, but society tells you that you should rub that shit into your face and call it a mud mask. Make the best of it. Turn it into something positive. But it's literal shit. in. your. face. Sometimes situations are just that. Shitty. Yet we feel the pressure to find gratitude in everything and to turn bad situations into good ones but you know what, that tak...

Stories of trailblazers breaking cultural traditions and norms are always feel-good and inspiring, but that's because you don't see what the road looked like before they paved the way. First-gen students, Americans, and those who immigrate to this country for a better future are the trailblazers that take the beating building paths so those after them can enjoy the stroll. I'm very lucky to have s...

Just got laid off or looking for a better opportunity? Then you don't want to miss today's episode! We're chatting with Nick Kopco (yes, my awesome brother-in-law) about how he's managed to changed positions 7 times, and always for a better role and better pay. But wait, isn't changing jobs often bad for your resume? Well, staying loyal to one employer for 20 years may have bee...

Have you ever tried cannabis? Most portrayals of weed and cannabis depict a stereotypical stoner who talks slowly and just eats cheetos all day in their mom's basement. But what if it helps manage your stress or helped your pain more than any pharmaceutical has? Today I'm talking with the amazing BJ Garceau about all things cannabis, including the health benefits for diabetes management an...

Losing a loved one sucks, whether it happened unexpectedly or you saw it coming a mile away with illness. But there's more to grief than just the rollercoaster of emotions. Today my bestie Noe and I are talking about all the tons of extra SHIT you deal with after losing a loved one like canceling their phone service and figuring out how to arrange a funeral. All these extra little tasks become...

We've all heard the phrases "no pain, no gain", "push through", "fight through", etc. I've definitely tried living by those phrases in the past, and to some extent, it's probably helped me achieve some pretty awesome things. But the reality is, I probably would've achieved them anyways! Instead, I lived by this mentality of just pushing through life, a...

If there’s one thing this pandemic has taught me, it’s that I’m more of a social being than I thought. I’ve talked in previous episodes about how hard it is to make friends as adults, but now I’m just flat out feeling….lonely. And it sucks. But how do you fix loneliness? For once in my life, I don’t have the answer. Is it time? It’s always fucking time. It’s probably time. So to all my lonely peop...

I've had some very complicated relationships in the past, and one of those was with food. It still is. I love food but because of societal pressures, many of us start assigning foods as "good" or "bad", or as the health industry has labeled "clean" foods. It's all confusing and I always end up feeling dirty and shameful if I eat anything other than a salad—esp...

This week I had to fight with a doctor to order me a cup to shit in. A literal cup. FOR ME TO SHIT IN. The number of stories I’ve heard about people going untreated and undiagnosed because their doctors brushed them off and didn’t listen has to easily be in the hundreds now. Including many stories of my own. Growing up, my mom always told me that when asked, to always say my pain was a 10. I never...

We've all heard the stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. I've gone through most of these but this past weekend I went through the final stage—acceptance. Let me tell you, this is NOT the final stage. Grief is not linear. You may go through one stage onto the next one, but then end up going back into a previous stage at any given time. People tell us we&#3...

Aside from having children, saying something you regret, and maybe donating an organ, very few things in life are permanent. Yet, so many of us are hesitant to try new things or make changes because we think "what if I don't like it?". Well, if you don't like it, you just change it again. After almost a year of changing my hair to different fun colors, I've learned that nothing is really permanent...

I've had my share of breakups in the past, but this one takes the win. I broke up with my goals. If you're a goal-driven person like me, you probably have like anywhere from 5-10 different goals you're always working on. I definitely was. And I always felt behind, in a rush, and burnt out. The thing is, WE set these goals for ourselves, so we can also decide when we want to work on them and when w...

Certain words can trigger us, motivate us, and even change the rest of our lives. It may sound like a simple trick, but choosing the words we use in our day-to-day and to describe ourselves can make a really big impact. This is yet another therapy knowledge nugget I've gained and wanted to share with you. Today we'll chat about how a simple switch from words like "help" to "support" and "control"...

Ever been shamed by Becky with the nice hair for not buying your kids or yourself only organic produce? Yeah, join the club. But is buying organic produce ACTUALLY better? Today Jamie and I are talking about what organic foods are, what it takes to get that shiny label, and whether or not buying organic is worth the extra money. Words like "chemicals" and "organic" have been so skewed by media tha...

If you asked me to describe what someone with an eating disorder looked like, I would probably say a white cheerleader making herself throw up in a bathroom stall because that's the only portrayal of an eating disorder I've ever seen. AND THAT'S NOT TRUE. Today we're joined by Leslie Jordan Garcia and chatting all things women of color, especially black women, and disordered eating: what it is, ho...

Is ignorance always bliss? If you could find out if you were going to get cancer or any disease, would you want to know? Isn’t knowledge power? In today’s episode my husband Jamie and I talk about our experience with genetic testing and what that’s been like for our future as parents.

Stress is everywhere. We can’t avoid it. I’ve always been afraid that stress was going to be the death of me because I didn’t handle stress “well”. The truth is there’s no avoiding stress and unless we learn to live with and embrace the stressors in our lives we’re heading to a life full of disease. But how do we do that? Well today I’m sharing exactly how I’m working on doing that and what I’ve l...

There's no Karate Kid without Mr. Miyagi. Most of us wouldn't be where we are today if it wasn't for mentors taking us under their wing and guiding us. I've always been passionate about mentoring because I've had some pretty amazing mentors myself. Today's guest is one of my own mentors, Margarita López-Uribe, a professor of Entomology at Penn State. Today we're talking about what a mentor is, why...