Circle This

In this episode, Dre sits down with powerhouse actress/producer Constance Zimmer and filmmaker Abby Epstein, the collaborators behind The Midlife Monologues, for a conversation that goes straight to what's rarely said out loud and what needs to be heard.

They talk about the reality of midlife as it actually lands: identity shifts, grief, hormonal changes, loneliness, and the disorientation of becoming someone new without a roadmap. And then, the flip side, how powerful women in midlife actually are and are taking matters into their own hands when it comes to representation.

What began as one shared truth has grown into a body of work that invites women to speak without performance or pretense. From Dressing Room Confessions to their expanding projects, they're creating spaces where honesty breaks the silence—and real information is shared.

This conversation moves through what happens when we stop editing ourselves… how shame dissolves when it's spoken… and why even one person saying "I see you" can change everything.

It's not just about midlife. It's about owning your voice, sharing your truth and what opens when we do it together.

Follow: @constancezimmer, @abbyepsteinxoxo, @midlifemonologues, @mlifecollective, @talkfiftytome

Learn More: https://themidlifecollective.co/

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Stay connected with the Circle This team:

@andreabendewald @circlethispodcast

@emkratter @goodmessmedia @talkwithtrace

For sponsorship inquiries, email: [email protected]

In this episode, Dre sits down with journalist and News Not Noise founder Jessica Yellin for a conversation about how to stay informed without losing yourself in the process.

From her time as Chief White House Correspondent at CNN to now speaking directly to millions from her living room, Jessica shares the real story behind her evolution and the isolation, pressure, and purpose that came with it. They get into the real impact of the 24/7 news cycle on the body, the mind, and the nervous system and why so many of us feel overwhelmed, disconnected, or unsure what's even true anymore.

Jessica shares her concept of a "news diet," how algorithms are shaping our reality, and why uncertainty isn't failure, it's part of being awake in a complex world.

Together, they unpack:

-why "heart-centered news" is a radical shift

-how to build a news diet that supports your nervous system

-why local connection—not more information—may be the real antidote to the loneliness epidemic

Jessica offers a powerful reminder: you don't need to know everything in real time—but you do get to choose how you engage.

Follow: @JessicaYellin Substack: https://newsnotnoisejessicayellin.substack.com/ Learn More At: https://newsnotnoise.com/

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Stay connected with the Circle This team:

@andreabendewald @circlethispodcast

@emkratter @talkwithtrace @goodmessmedia For sponsorship inquiries, email: [email protected]

In this episode, Dre and Em follow the thread of signs, synchronicities, and the moments that feel too precise to be random.

From a spontaneous "Sing with Emily" exchange echoed by a billboard, to ladybugs showing up at pivotal life and creative moments, to standing on the exact New York corner described in a voice note as it plays—they track the patterns that blur the line between coincidence and connection.

They break down the difference between signs and synchronicity (a term coined by Carl Jung), and explore insights from Laura Lynne Jackson on where these messages may come from—whether universal energy, spirit guides, or loved ones who have crossed.

Regardless of where the signs originate, they have a playful conversation about the meaning and the magic of it all.

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Stay connected with the Circle This team: @andreabendewald @circlethispodcast

@emkratter @goodmessmedia @talkwithtrace

For sponsorship inquiries: [email protected]

In this episode Monica Corcoran Harel, screenwriter, bestselling author and founder of PRETTY RIPE and author of the viral essay "The Women Quietly Quitting Their Husbands" joins for a conversation that goes straight to the truth many women have been living but not naming.

What happens when the life you've built no longer fits?

Monica shares how her popular essays tap into a larger cultural shift—where women are questioning endurance, redefining marriage, and choosing agency over performance. The conversation moves into parenting and the practice of letting go, the pull between external transformation and internal acceptance, and the desire to feel fully alive in your own life.

Together they circle around noticing where you've gone quiet… and what it might take to come back to your partnership and ultimately yourself.

Follow Monica: @prettyripe Learn More At: www.prettyripe.com

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Stay connected with the Circle This team:

@andreabendewald @circlethispodcast

@emkratter @goodmessmedia @talkwithtrace

For sponsorship inquiries, email: [email protected]

In this episode of Circle This, Dre sits down with Jared Seide, Executive Director of Beyond Us & Them, a groundbreaking nonprofit bringing compassion, connection, and real tools for transformation into some of the most unlikely places—prisons, law enforcement agencies, healthcare systems, and policy spaces.

Through circle and council practices, along with mindfulness-based techniques, Jared and his team train individuals within these systems to develop self-awareness, emotional regulation, and authentic connection.

These programs go beyond "let's all get along" energy, this is deep, embodied work that is actively shifting how humans relate to themselves and each other inside systems that are rooted in separation and "othering."

Together, they explore what happens when we interrupt the "us versus them" narrative and create spaces where people are truly seen, heard, and humanized. From incarcerated individuals experiencing profound connection to themselves and one another, to police officers learning resilience and relational intelligence, to communities finding their way back to belonging—this conversation reveals what becomes possible when there is an invitation to see beyond the mask and connect on the soul level.

Jared shares the science behind circling and council, including measurable physiological changes that occur when we practice real listening and authentic expression. They unpack why social connection is as vital as food and water, and what it takes to bring this work into environments built on survival, hierarchy, and division.

This is a conversation about re-humanization, choosing connection over contraction and remembering that we were never meant to do this alone.

This conversation is filled with evidence of hope, that real change is possible through practical tools of connection and it all starts with sitting in a circle.

Learn more and support the work at beyondusandthem.org Use code CIRCLE20 for 20% off their merchandise and help spread the message.

Explore Jared's book Where Compassion Begins for deeper practice.

Sign up for the Beyond Us & Them newsletter and follow them on social media @beyondusandthem

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Stay connected with the Circle This team:

@andreabendewald @circlethispodcast

@emkratter @goodmessmedia @talkwithtrace For sponsorship inquiries, email: [email protected]

Award-winning filmmaker, writer, actor, and creative force Jenna Laurenzo joins Dre and Emily for a conversation about storytelling, representation, and the courage to create the stories we long to see.

When Jenna entered the film industry, she quickly realized that the stories reflecting her own experience as a queer woman were largely missing. Instead of waiting for them to appear, she began creating them herself. Her award-winning film Lez Bomb and the viral Girl Night Stand series opened doors for representation, humor, and deeply human storytelling to take center stage.

In this episode, they circle the idea that representation itself can be a remedy, when we see ourselves reflected in story, something inside connects and we realize we are not alone.

Together they explore how writing can help us metabolize emotion, why humor often lives alongside grief, and how shared experiences of art, laughing, crying, and witnessing stories can reconnect us to our own humanity.

Jenna also shares her reflections on creative resistance, building safe and collaborative spaces on set, the loneliness that can exist even within community, and the deeper pursuit of our soul's expression.

To follow Jenna or find out more about her work:

@jennalaurenzo

www.jennalaurenzo.com

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Stay connected with the Circle This team:

@andreabendewald @circlethispodcast

@emkratter @goodmessmedia @talkwithtrace

For sponsorship inquiries, email: [email protected]

In this episode Dre shares the ongoing integration of her recent death doula training — an experience that began with a surprising invitation: before learning how to support others at the end of life, she first had to face her own mortality.

What started as curiosity quickly opened into something deeper. Dre and Em circle around grief, awe, ritual, and the ways our culture avoids talking about death — often making loss even harder when it inevitably arrives.

Dre reflects on her father's passing, the unexpected healing that can happen in the dying process, and the truth she discovered through the training: the body knows how to die, just as it knows how to be born.

They explore why we are such a death-phobic culture, what it means to "die well," and how learning to witness — rather than fix or control — may be one of the most sacred roles we can play for one another.

This conversation moves through grief, laughter, fear, love, and even Dre's imagined memorial service. Because for Dre, death is not simply an ending — it's part of the same mystery that makes life so precious.

If facing death can bring us more fully into the present moment, maybe learning how to die is actually one of the greatest invitations to live.

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Stay connected with the Circle This team:

@andreabendewald @circlethispodcast

@emkratter @goodmessmedia @talkwithtrace For sponsorship inquiries, email: [email protected]

In this episode, Dre sits down with Ashley Turner—licensed depth psychotherapist, yoga and meditation teacher, psychedelic therapist, and menopause advocate—to explore what's rising at the intersection of midlife transformation, mental health, sovereignty, and the psychedelic renaissance.

Together, they unpack perimenopause vs. menopause, myth-bust the most common symptoms, and explore the link between libido, creativity, and inner fire. They dive into trauma resurfacing during midlife, hormone therapy, medical bias, and the staggering truth that women's bodies weren't required to be included in medical studies until 1993.

The conversation also explores psychedelics and integration—how the default mode network quiets, how new neural pathways can form, and why connection—not isolation—is the medicine.

At one point, Ashley drops an iconic truth straight from the heart: "There's nothing scarier than someone who doesn't need you." Now we see menopause as more than a health conversation— but possibly a cultural revolution.

FOLLOW: @ashleyturner1, @haven_membership LEARN MORE AT: https://yoga-psychology.co/

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Stay connected with the Circle This team:

@andreabendewald @circlethispodcast

@emkratter @goodmessmedia @talkwithtrace For sponsorship inquiries, email: [email protected]

Odette and Dave Annable return for Part 2 to take us deeper into the rupture, the repair of their partnership and their choice to begin again. They were on the brink of divorce, separate homes, papers nearly signed, when COVID forced them back under one roof with nowhere to escape. What followed became what they now call "our second marriage… it just happens to be with each other."

But reconciliation didn't begin together. It began alone, through therapy, retreats, journaling, and the courageous work of facing their own patterns. As one therapist asked them, Are you both done hurting one another? Their answer changed everything.

We talk about what brought them back into the same room and how understanding each other's brains softened blame and defensiveness. We explore why healing is a group sport, what happens when you give six months of your best with zero expectations, and how conflict can become a doorway to deeper intimacy instead of a reason to leave.

FOLLOW: @OdetteAnnable & @dave_annable

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Stay connected with the Circle This team: @andreabendewald @circlethispodcast

@emkratter @goodmessmedia @talkwithtrace

For sponsorship inquiries, email: [email protected]

Actors and real-life married couple Odette Annable and Dave Annable join Dre for a candid conversation about what it actually takes to stay connected in modern marriage—through the peaks, the valleys, and the chapters you don't post.

Odette and Dave share their near-miss origin story, the season when "this shouldn't be this hard" almost became the end, and how therapy helped them reframe conflict into something wildly more honest: Dave's core question is "Am I safe?" and Odette's is "Am I worthy?" Once you can name that, you can stop fighting the surface and start tending to the root.

They open up about separation and recommitment, the loneliness that can exist even inside love, Odette's infertility journey, and Dave's experience of grief—plus a powerful reminder: your partner can't be your everything, and that's not a failure, it's a design feature. Community matters. Self-reflection matters. And love isn't "happily ever after"… it's choosing each other again and again, with eyes open.

Follow: @odetteannable @dave_annable

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Stay connected:

@andreabendewald @circlethispodcast

@emkratter @goodmessmedia @talkwithtrace

Sponsorship: [email protected]