Illuminated Recovery

Childhood emotional neglect can hide in plain sight for years, but it quietly shapes how you feel, cope, love, and relate to yourself. Therapist Katie Egge breaks down the invisible wounds of CEN and emotionally immature parents, revealing why so many adults feel confused, disconnected, lonely, or too much without ever knowing why. She also explains what low effort parenting is and gives us tangib...

Jess Frost is a returning guest on Illuminated Recovery Podcast. This time she shares her progress on her healing journey and how she rose up from the depths of narcissistic abuse. She has broken through old trauma cycles, exposed her abuser and the enmeshed patterns and then compares it to the larger collective and the corrupt leaders in charge today.  This is a raw conversation about rebuilding...

Debbie Saroufim is a body acceptance coach and dives into how diet culture and toxic wellness messaging keeps us stuck. We talk about how body acceptance is body liberation work as well as ways anti-fat bias shows up in healthcare, social settings and in our own inherited biases. Join us if you are interested in unsubscribing from diet culture and building a better relationship with your body, foo...

Join us as Tom and Charity O'Reilly share their journey of co-writing the upcoming book How to Understand and Deal with ADHD . This episode explores the neurobiology of ADHD, effective treatments, societal barriers, and personal perspectives, providing valuable insight for anyone navigating neurodiversity. This isn’t just about managing ADHD—it's about celebrating a brain that’s wired diff...

In this solo episode, Lisa shares what’s ahead for the show and opens up about the wide-ranging, deeply connected themes shaping her work right now — from eating disorder recovery, body liberation, and sobriety to ADHD, emotional neglect, fawning, nonviolent communication, and the mind-body connection. She reflects on how healing is often messy, ongoing, and layered, and why so much of this work c...

This episode, Kara Rabii joins me to deconstruct the systemic oppression of diet culture.  Kara Rabii, MS, RDN, CDN is a registered dietitian, socialist organizer, and founder of Revolutionary Dietetics, a weight-inclusive and anti-diet nutrition practice. We break down: How diet culture perpetuates systemic inequality, the role of capitalism in maintaining weight bias, the importance of systemic...

This is so much more than a sobriety story! Anne Marie Cribbin joins me to share her sobriety and recovery story and we cover all the things: recovery as an act of liberation, Celtic spirituality, community building, social justice, generational trauma, alcohol in our family systems and perfectionism. Anne Marie is a sober coach and writer who embraces the idea of expansion in recovery. Whether yo...

In this episode of Illuminated Recovery, Kathy Ziola, a certified NVC trainer and author of Live Compassion , talks about the transformative power of Nonviolent Communication (NVC) which is a practical model for self-connection and communication with others. It  supports compassionate giving and receiving and is used to create a quality of understanding where everyone’s needs matter and people wor...

Many women are conditioned to shrink—to stay small, quiet, and overlooked. Kelly’s journey from rock-bottom to radical self-acceptance reveals how awakening from that cycle of shame, addiction, and societal conditioning can be a game-changer. Her story is a powerful rallying cry for women tired of playing small and ready to step into their true power.  In this episode, Kelly shares the raw, unfilt...

Most of us are unknowingly caught in a web of diet culture, weight stigma, and trauma responses that keep us disconnected from our true selves. In this eye-opening episode, Julie Norman joins Lisa to expose the hidden mechanisms fueling our societal obsession with shrinking and controlling our bodies—and reveal how these patterns are deeply intertwined with trauma, oppressive systems, and collecti...

Carly Kilbourne, a licensed therapist, joins me to explore the hidden impacts of childhood emotional neglect and estrangement on adult relationships. Discover how sobriety led her to uncover deep emotional wounds and embrace authenticity. Learn practical tools to unlearn people pleasing behaviors and reconnect with your inner child, set boundaries, and reclaim your power. She brings a grounded, re...

Night terrors can be a terrifying experience for both the person experiencing them and their loved ones. If you or someone you know struggles with these distressing episodes, you're not alone. In this episode, Charity O'Reilly, a trauma therapist, shares her personal journey with night terrors, which began in childhood due to trauma. We explore the differences between night terrors and nig...

David Hilton joins me to talk all things IFS (Internal Family Systems). David is an IFS practitioner and in this episode, we explore this powerful framework for healing that starts with one radical idea: nothing inside us is wrong. We talk about how to build a relationship with yourself by welcoming the parts we’ve pushed away, ignored, or bypassed, and learning to open to the burdens we didn'...

In this episode of Illuminate Recovery , I sit down with trauma therapist Cassie Krajewski, to explore the root causes and the layered grief of estrangement  as well as sibling abuse — a dynamic often minimized or overlooked. We discuss the often invisible traumas of omission — what wasn’t protected, acknowledged, or repaired — and how emotional neglect shapes our identity and  our self-perception...

Welcome to season two! I diver deeper into my healing journey and discuss some new approaches that have helped me over the years and share what's coming up this season, some episodes with guests and also some solo episodes. Show notes:  Charity O’Reilly: https://charityoreilly.com/ Nicole Sachs: https://www.yourbreakawake.com/about Dani Fagan: https://mytmsjourney.com/ Dr Ingrid Clayton: author of...

In this conversation with Deb Benfield, we unravel the beliefs we’ve inherited about beauty, worth, and aging. We talk about adequate nourishment, menopause, ageism and the hierarchies that tell us some bodies are more worthy than others. We also touch on the growing use of GLP-1 medications. This is a soft rebellion — a call to dismantle fear, reclaim autonomy, and remember that our bodies were n...

Katie LaCelle is a leadership and IFS coach. She combines her training as an IFS coach with Somatic Experiencing and joins me today to talk about the deep healing work. Her definition of the difference between PTSD and CPTSD is so brilliant. And we talk about all the trauma work including interoception and exteroception, non violent communication and simple slowing down in general. She also consid...

Description: Tom O’Reilly is an IFS coach, somatic embodiment coach and enneagram coach. He joins me today to talk about a bit of his background, including what led him to getting an ADHD diagnosis and bravely shares what it was like before and after his diagnosis. He really does a deep dive into some of the struggles of living with ADHD including masking and executive functioning and shares his e...

Jess Frost courageously shares her story about her childhood and its impact on her adult life. She shares about struggles with alcohol and codependency but her real story is in her recovery. She talks about how self compassion and shame resilience are the foundation of her work and how we can retrain our nervous system and help us protect our peace. Jess inspires others with her raw and authentic...

Hannah Husband joins me today to talk about body liberation. Hannah helps people reclaim their body autonomy. They are a coach who works with folks who have been harmed by mainstream fitness offerings. They help clients explore their relationship with movement and tune into their body’s unique language of sensation.  You can find Hannah on Instagram @hannahusband And on their website: www.hannahus...

Melissa Guttman joins me to deconstruct the complexities of estrangement. She shares her insight  on narcissistic abuse and being the adult child of emotionally immature parents. She also explains family dynamics  and the role they play. And also how we can heal from toxic relationships.  Melissa is a therapist and also an HSP, highly sensitive person, which we also talk about in this episode! Con...

Join me as Jess Fry dives deep into the complexities and nuances of Intuitive Eating. She also talks about how shame can show up in our lives and how it affects our relationship with our bodies. Jess highlights how our deeply rooted belief systems are connected to our worthiness, self trust and intuition. This episode is part 2 of our first conversation, Episode 11 Connect with Jess Fry: https://w...

I am talking to four of the six women who created and run Sober Mom Collective which is an online space for moms working at staying sober. They give us all the details of this magical community and then, they each share their own sober story.  Leah shares her story about the pressure of ‘mommy wine culture’ and the importance of having a village of women/moms to support her in sobriety. Lainy open...

I’m talking to Jacqui Stilling, she’s a therapist in Maryland and the founder of The Both/And Way.  Jacqui talks about how she integrates mindfulness and meditation with IFS and the Enneagram. She talks about how we all have a feeling meter and a pause button and how the power of the pause is the foundation of her recovery journey.  She hosts amazing retreats which you can find out about on her we...

In today’s solo episode, Lisa shares her story about her experiences with therapy. She illuminates the importance of therapy as well as different modalities, including IFS: internal family systems, which transformed her relationship to herself.  Show notes: CBT: cognitive behavioral therapy. DBT: dialectical behavioral therapy. EMDR: eye movement desensitization and reprocessing.  IFS: internal fa...