The messy middle isn't always about a crisis you can name. Sometimes it's the slow realization that the timeline you had in your head — married by 30, partnered by 35 — just isn't happening. And instead of asking what's wrong with you, what if you asked something different?

Shani Silver has been single for over 13 years. She's 43, she deleted her dating apps in 2019, and she wrote the book — literally — on reframing singlehood. Her newest book, What If We Never Get Married? A Happily Ever Answer, sits with the question most of us are too scared to ask — and finds out the answer is so much better than what we've been taught to fear.

In this episode, Shani and I talk about the anxiety and life transitions that come with aging into singlehood, the grief of a timeline that didn't happen, and what it actually looks like to be happy while single — without swearing off love or pretending you don't still want it. We talk about how the dating industry destroyed dating culture for profit, why light bulb moments are for movies and not real human lives, and what partnered people don't realize they're doing to their single friends.

This is a conversation about permanence, grief, desire, and radical permission. You can want love and be happy alone. You can be in the messy middle of a life that doesn't look like what you planned — and still be living a full one.

For anyone navigating major life changes in how they see themselves, their relationships, or their future — this one is for you.

Get Connected & Support the Show:

- Listen to the companion podcast: It's Both- Guided Meditations for Anxiety, Emotional Regulation, & Real Life Transitions

- Order Shani's book HERE

- Follow Shani on Instagram,  on TikTok, or visit her website 

- Subscribe, rate, & review It's Both on Apple Podcasts

The messy middle of being surrounded by people and still feeling completely alone. Jason Lange is a men's embodiment coach who helps men reconnect to their hearts, their bodies, and to each other. The data is staggering: in 1990, 3% of men reported having fewer than three close friends. By the late 2010s, that jumped to 15%. Post-COVID? Likely even higher.

This is a conversation about life transitions, anxiety, and major life changes for men navigating the loneliness epidemic. About why male friendships stay surface level, why so many men turn to alcohol, porn, or overworking to self-regulate, and what it actually takes to go deeper.

We talk about triangulation — the default mode of male connection where the focus is always on a third thing (sports, an activity) instead of each other. About why men collapse in shame during sex instead of staying connected. About the difference between sexual performance and sexual connection. And why men's groups might be one of the most powerful tools we're not talking about.

In this episode:

— Why 15% of men now report having fewer than three close friends (and it's getting worse)

— The both/and of having friends AND feeling lonely because you never talk about what's real

— Triangulation: why men bond over sports games instead of eye contact

— How to take the first step: go first, don't wait, lead with vulnerability

— Living in your head vs. living in your body — why embodiment matters

— Why so many men in their 20s are showing up with ED (performance anxiety, not physiology)

— The missing nutrient of masculine connection, peer support, and love

— Why belonging and purpose are the two deepest needs for men

This is for anyone who's wondered why men struggle to go deep. For men ready to feel fully alive. For partners who want to understand what's beneath the surface.

Jason is a men's embodiment coach, podcast host (Evolutionary Men), and facilitator of men's circles.

Life isn't either/or. It's both. And you're allowed to hold all of it.

Get Connected & Support the Show:

- Listen to the companion podcast: It's Both- Guided Meditations for Anxiety, Emotional Regulation, & Real Life Transitions

- Follow Jason on Instagram , visit his website, & listen to the Evolutionary Men podcast

- Subscribe, rate, & review It's Both on Apple Podcasts

The messy middle of getting everything you thought you wanted — and still feeling empty. Cassidy Gard spent years at Good Morning America producing breaking news stories that shaped the national conversation. Emmy Award-winning TV producer. High-achieving. Living the dream in LA. And also carrying generational trauma from growing up with an alcoholic father, absorbing vicarious trauma from the stories she told, and battling anxiety and depression behind the scenes.

Then the pandemic forced stillness upon her. She drove to Montana, bought a cabin she named Cosmic Goodness, and started rebuilding. She met her partner at a sound bath in Joshua Tree. She became a mom to two boys under two. She left the high-pressure career.

But then came the next messy middle. She moved to the suburbs of Long Island — a beautiful beach town where the nearest Target was an hour away. And she loved her kids fiercely AND she was bored, isolated, disconnected from the creative communities that fed her soul. This is a conversation about life transitions, major life changes, and the both/and of ambition and motherhood.

At two months postpartum with her second son, she made a radical choice: rent out the house and become a nomadic family, moving to a new city every six weeks.

In this episode:

— The both/and of loving your kids deeply AND feeling suffocated by suburban life

— Growing up with an alcoholic father and how perfectionism became survival

— Vicarious trauma from producing breaking news stories about mass shootings and the Me Too movement

— When the pandemic forced stillness and everything changed

— Meeting her partner at a sound bath on 2/22/22 in Joshua Tree

— The identity crisis of early motherhood: "Shouldn't I be content just doing mom life?"

— Postpartum anxiety after her son's injury at 8 days old

— Postpartum rage and resentment when her partner got to keep working

— The divine timing of life: scripting your future and making micro decisions that lead you there

— Learning to have fun with yourself before you can have fun with anyone else

— Becoming a nomadic family with a toddler and infant (currently living in Paris)

This is for anyone navigating the both/and of success and burnout, gratitude and emptiness, loving motherhood and needing more. For anyone who's built a life that looks good on the outside but feels hollow on the inside. For anyone in their own reinvention.

Cassidy is the author of Cosmic Goodness: Surrendering the Shadows to Live in the Light, a debut memoir published by Simon & Schuster (releasing May 12, 2026). She writes about childhood trauma, perfectionism, ambition, motherhood, and the quiet synchronistic moments that guide us toward what's next.

Life isn't either/or. It's both. And you're allowed to hold all of it.

Get Connected & Support the Show:

- Listen to the companion podcast: It's Both- Guided Meditations for Anxiety, Emotional Regulation, & Real Life Transitions

- Order Cassidy's book Cosmic Goodness HERE

- Follow Cassidy on Instagram or visit her website 

- Subscribe, rate, & review It's Both on Apple Podcasts

Have you ever needed to talk to someone, but you didn't want their advice? You didn't want them to fix you or solve your problem or tell you what to do. You just needed someone to hear you. Not interrupt. Not redirect. Not make it better. Just... listen.

The messy middle of holding it together everywhere else and falling apart inside. Erin Snow spent nearly 17 years as a legal advocate for survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault. She made history as the first paralegal in New Hampshire to represent clients directly in family court. And then she became a mother, went through a divorce, and was navigating life transitions and anxiety — with no space to say what she actually needed to say.

So she created one. The Unmuted Room is a professional listening service for people going through major life changes who need space to speak without packaging it prettily, without making it palatable, without managing how the truth comes out. This is a conversation about why sometimes the answer isn't advice, it's just being heard.

In this episode:

— The both/and of being an expert in trauma advocacy AND hitting rock bottom yourself

— Why what goes unspoken doesn't disappear — it just grows heavier

— The difference between therapy, friends, and a neutral listening space

— How we manage ourselves in every single room (work, home, relationships)

— "How do you want me to listen to you today?" — the question that changes everything

— When you need to say it out loud but you're terrified of what might come out

— The verbal smash room: letting it out however it comes out, no filter, no fixing

— Why listening is not "just" anything — it's the thing we're all missing

This is for anyone who feels like they're holding it together in public but falling apart in private. For anyone who needs permission to not be fine. For anyone managing how much truth they reveal because they're worried about the response.

Erin's work lives in the gap between therapy and friendship — a space where you can show up messy, raw, unfiltered, and just be heard. No treatment plan. No diagnosis. No solutions unless you ask for them. Just space.

If you've ever thought "I just need someone to listen," this episode is for you.

Get Connected & Support the Show:

- Listen to the companion podcast: It's Both- Guided Meditations for Anxiety, Emotional Regulation, & Real Life Transitions

- Schedule a FREE 10 minute consultation with Erin HERE

- Follow Erin on Instagram, Facebook, or visit her website 

- Subscribe, rate, & review It's Both on Apple Podcasts

The messy middle of making a decision your brain knows is right, but your body doesn't believe yet. I'm moving my family across the country. Logically, I know it's the right choice. But my body? My body is still holding onto the fear, the anxiety, the grief of what I'm leaving behind. This is a conversation about life transitions, major life changes, and the gap between knowing something is right and feeling it.

Maybe you're in a relationship you know needs to end, but you're scared to be alone. Maybe the job isn't fulfilling anymore, but starting over feels terrifying. Maybe you've made the right decision, but your shoulders are still up by your ears and you can't shake the pit in your stomach.

In this episode:

— Why your brain can say "we're good" but your body says "I'm still terrified"

— The both/and of being ready to move forward AND grieving what you're losing

— The Chrome browser metaphor: when your nervous system has 20 browsers open with 15 tabs each

— Why saying it all out loud doesn't have to come with a solution

— Microdosing stillness when you don't have time for hour-long meditations

This is for anyone navigating anxiety during a major life transition. For anyone holding contradictory feelings — excited AND overwhelmed, certain about the decision AND uncertain about what comes next. You're not broken for feeling both. You're human.

No toxic positivity. No five-step fix. Just real language for the space between who you were and who you're becoming.

If you're in the messy middle right now — between what was and what's next — you're not alone. You don't have to go through it alone.

Also check out: It's Both: Guided Meditations for Anxiety, Emotional Regulation & Real Life Transitions — I recorded a meditation called "The Space In Between" for exactly this feeling.

Life isn't either/or. It's both. And you're allowed to hold all of it.

Get Connected & Support the Show:

- Listen to the companion podcast: It's Both- Guided Meditations for Anxiety, Emotional Regulation, & Real Life Transitions

- Subscribe, rate, & review It's Both on Apple Podcasts

Living in the messy middle for three years. Lane Igoudin and his husband Jonathan raised two babies — a newborn and a one-year-old — while not knowing if the court would let them keep them. They were shut out of the court cases determining their daughters' futures. As an interracial, same-sex couple during the pre-marriage equality era, their relationship wasn't legally recognized. And the birth mother? She was a teenager in the state's custody herself.

This is a conversation about life transitions, foster adoption, and navigating major life changes when the system isn't designed for families like yours. It's about the both/and of building a family on uncertainty — the anxiety of desperately wanting to be fathers while knowing it could all be taken away. For anyone holding joy and grief, hope and fear, love and loss — all at the same time.

Lane is the author of A Family, Maybe, a memoir about his family's three-year battle through the Los Angeles County foster care system. He's a professor of English at Los Angeles City College and has shared this story on NBC, NPR, and dozens of podcasts because it's a story that rarely gets told: what makes a parent? Is it biology, or is it care and commitment?

In this episode:

-What it's like to live in the "maybe" for three years while raising babies you might lose

- The both/and of foster adoption: attach fully AND be ready to let go

- How Lane and Jonathan were treated as "non-related caretakers" despite being the only parents their daughters knew

- Why the foster care system prioritizes birth parents' rights over children's wellbeing

- What happened when the judge at their adoption hearing didn't even know their children's names

- The spiritual takeaway that sustained them: love your partner more when everything feels impossible

- Why Lane reads tarot cards (only for himself) and what they told him during the process

- The question his book explores: What really makes a parent?

No toxic positivity. No fix-it mentalities. Just real language for the feelings you couldn't name, and permission to hold all of it at once.

Get Connected & Support the Show:

- Listen to the companion podcast: It's Both- Guided Meditations for Anxiety, Emotional Regulation, & Real Life Transitions

- Follow Lane on Instagram, buy his book, or visit his website 

- Subscribe, rate, & review It's Both on Apple Podcasts

What happens when the parenting advice that promised godly outcomes delivered trauma instead? When you did everything "right" and your family still fell apart?

Marissa Franks Burt is the author of The Myth of Good Christian Parenting and a mother of six with a master's in theology. She spent years researching the evangelical parenting movement — the books, the influencers, the spiritual authority that told parents: Just follow this blueprint, and your kids will follow God.

Spoiler: That's not biblical. And the fallout is a major life change affecting entire generations.

In this conversation, we're talking about the messy middle of faith and harm. About transition anxiety in families deconstructing what they were taught. About parents who intended well but were misled by prosperity gospel promises. About adult children carrying wounds from coercion disguised as discipline. And about what repair looks like when the damage runs deep.

We explore how authority silenced intuition, how obedience training stunted emotional regulation, and how entire families are now grieving relationships built on formulas instead of connection. Marissa doesn't offer another prescriptive parenting method — she offers permission to question, to grieve, and to rebuild with truth and compassion.

In this episode:

- Why evangelical parenting advice became a prosperity gospel for families navigating life transitions

- The spiritual authority that kept parents from trusting their instincts during major life changes

- How instant obedience training grooms children for future abuse

- What it looks like to hold both good intentions and real harm in the messy middle

- The pathway to repair when adult children experience their own faith transition

- Permission to parent without a formula — and still hold your faith through the anxiety

This isn't about villainizing parents. It's about naming what happened so healing can begin. Because you can love God, question the system, and choose connection over compliance — all at the same time.

Listen to the episode with Brian Recker HERE

Get Connected & Support the Show:

- Listen to the companion podcast: It's Both- Guided Meditations for Anxiety, Emotional Regulation, & Real Life Transitions

- Follow Marissa on Instagram, get connected, or visit her website 

- Subscribe, rate, & review It's Both on Apple Podcasts

What happens when the version of strength you've been taught stops working — and being a "strong man" makes you a terrible father?

Olaolu Ogunyemi is a leadership speaker, author, and U.S. Marine Officer who became a dad at 19. He thought leadership meant being the hammer. Then he yelled at his three-year-old daughter and watched her break. That moment changed everything — and put him face-to-face with the gap between who he'd been taught to be and who he actually wanted to become.

This is a conversation about navigating major life changes in how you think about masculinity, emotions, and what it means to lead. About the messy middle between military toughness and emotional presence. For anyone trying to break cycles they didn't even know they were in — whether you're a parent, a leader, or just someone realizing the person you've created isn't who you actually are.

Olaolu shares the moment he knew he had to change, how The Lion King vs. Frozen explains generational shifts in leadership, why vulnerability isn't weakness (it's protecting the injured offensive lineman), and the mood meter tool he uses with his kids to name 50 emotions when he was only taught to name four.

In this episode:

-Why yelling at his daughter broke Olaolu's idea of masculinity

- The Marine Corps mentor who said empathy isn't weakness

- How to stop overthinking your emotions and start naming them

- The both/and of leading and following, controlling and letting go

- Why being uncomfortable isn't the problem — avoiding it is

- How to set boundaries between who you were raised to be and who you want to become

- What "Lead Last" actually means (it starts with leading yourself)

Get Connected & Support the Show:

- Listen to the companion podcast: It's Both- Guided Meditations for Anxiety, Emotional Regulation, & Real Life Transitions

- Follow Olaolu on Instagram & visit his website or his LinkedIn

- Subscribe, rate, & review It's Both on Apple Podcasts

Zach Watson thought he was a good partner. Then he asked if the blueberry muffins were too hot — 90 seconds after watching his wife pull them from the oven. That's when he realized: he wasn't just missing the point. He was adding to her mental load. His marriage almost ended in 2018, not because he was a bad guy, but because he didn't see what his wife was carrying alone.

This is a conversation about navigating major life changes in partnership when one person is the co-founder and the other is a passenger. About the transition anxiety that comes when you realize your relationship isn't equal — and the messy middle of trying to fix invisible labor you can't even see yet. For anyone holding resentment, overthinking every ask, or wondering if setting boundaries around mental load makes you selfish.

Zach is the Mental Load Coach. His blueberry muffin video went viral with 20 million views. Now he helps men stop adding mental load and start showing up. He shares how to tell if you're reacting from emotions or responding to the situation, the BUILD meeting framework for navigating life transitions in your partnership, why "how can I help" actually creates more work, and the emotion wheel that stops defensive spirals before they start.

In this episode:

- Why mental load creates crushing loneliness (not just overwhelm)

- How anxiety multiplies when your partner becomes a passenger

- The BUILD meeting framework (and why it's not boring)

- Why setting boundaries around invisible labor isn't selfish — it's survival

- How men can stop starting over every week and actually own routines

- The emotion wheel for communicating without defensiveness

- Why society devalues $247,000 of annual labor — and refuses to pay it

- The Brené Brown shame rap (yes, really)

Get Connected & Support the Show:

- Listen to the companion podcast: It's Both- Guided Meditations for Anxiety, Emotional Regulation, & Real Life Transitions

- Follow Zach on Instagram & join his free mental load basics community here

- Subscribe, rate, & review It's Both on Apple Podcasts

- Join the Courageous Living Group Transformation

What if the "difficult" kid isn't the problem — it's that we're responding to their energy instead of the actual situation?

Dr. Bethany Bildeau (Dr. B) went from hiding in school bathrooms with panic attacks to becoming the sensory and behavioral specialist who helps the kids everyone else has given up on. She knows what it's like to be labeled "the problem." Now she works with students with trauma histories and teaches parents and educators how to support high-energy kids without breaking their spirit.

This is a conversation about navigating the messy middle of parenting when you're overthinking every decision and wondering if you're doing more harm than good. About the transition anxiety when your kid doesn't fit the mold and you're trying to figure out who you are as a parent. For anyone trying to validate big energy without losing your mind, set boundaries that protect everyone, and stop carrying the shame of "difficult."

Dr. B shares the 30-second stair trick that helps kids focus and regulate, why "suffering is a badge of honor" is killing our kids, the frozen water bottle hack for dysregulation, and how to tell if you're parenting from anxiety or responding to what's actually happening.

In this episode:

- How to support high-energy kids without breaking their spirit

- The 30-second stair trick (it oxygenates the prefrontal cortex)

- Frozen water bottle trick for immediate regulation

- Why parental anxiety shows up as behavioral responses in kids

- Boundaries for parents: validating energy without losing your mind

- How to make kids feel seen when behavior management fails

- Emotional regulation strategies that work for any age

- Starting over after being "the difficult kid"

Whether you're a parent trying not to break your kid's spirit, an educator dealing with the student nobody else will work with, or just someone navigating major life changes in how you understand behavior, this conversation is for you.

Get Connected & Support the Show:

- Listen to the companion podcast: It's Both- Guided Meditations for Anxiety, Emotional Regulation, & Real Life Transitions

- Follow Dr. B on Instagram & visit her website

- Subscribe, rate, & review It's Both on Apple Podcasts

- Join the Courageous Living Group Transformation