What do we reach for when the thing that gave us purpose, identity, adrenaline, and belonging is suddenly gone?

Sean Carberry is an award-winning journalist and former NPR Kabul correspondent whose experience raises a difficult question: what happens when you come home from years of danger, but your mind and body are still wired to look for it?

In this episode of Notes From the Edge, Sean and Lisa Lacy talk about what happened after Afghanistan, when Sean returned to civilian life carrying undiagnosed PTSD, without the structure, intensity, or sense of purpose that had defined his years overseas. He describes walking into a Maryland casino about six weeks after coming home, initially gambling a few hundred dollars, and how the risk, rewards, recognition, casino perks, and escalating bets gradually began filling something that was missing outside those walls.

The conversation goes far beyond gambling. Sean talks candidly about identity loss, loneliness, relationships, the psychological impact of years spent witnessing human suffering, and eventually recognizing patterns he could not see while he was living inside them. He also discusses how writing became part of processing his experiences and why we need to take much more seriously what happens when veterans, journalists, humanitarian workers, and others who have spent years operating in dangerous environments are expected to simply come home and resume ordinary life.

In this episode:

• PTSD after war and conflict reporting

• Gambling addiction and compulsive gambling

• Adrenaline seeking, risk, and the nervous system

• Identity loss after leaving high-intensity environments

• Returning home and adjusting to civilian life

• Why danger can begin to feel familiar

• Casino rewards, validation, and escalating gambling behavior

• Loneliness, relationships, and destructive coping patterns

• Mental health among journalists and war correspondents

• Supporting veterans, reporters, humanitarian workers, and civilians after high-risk assignments

• Why being functional does not necessarily mean someone is okay

• Writing, memoir, and processing trauma

• Learning to recognize patterns before they become destructive

• Why coming home deserves as much attention as going into danger

Sean’s work and books:

passport-stamps.com

Lisa Lacy and Notes From the Edge:

lisalacy.com

What did you perform in order to survive?

Welcome to the Edge.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What if the behavior you’re trying hardest to get rid of was once the very thing that helped you survive?

Carol Look is a psychotherapist and founding EFT Master who has spent decades helping people understand the emotional patterns underneath self-sabotage, and why lasting change often begins with asking what the behavior is protecting us from.

In this episode of Notes From the Edge, Carol and Lisa Lacy explore the idea that the problem was once the solution. Addiction, procrastination, people pleasing, overworking, staying invisible, and even creating chaos can serve a purpose when the nervous system believes they are keeping us safe.

Carol explains why we are wired for safety before success, and why someone can consciously want more visibility, healthier relationships, greater success, or a completely different life while unconsciously pulling themselves backward when the next level doesn’t feel safe.

Lisa shares her own experience of appearing highly successful while privately unraveling, using alcohol to avoid painful emotions, and later discovering how uncomfortable peace and stillness could feel after years of chaos. They also talk about functional freeze, grief, hypervigilance, the importance of mentorship, learning to regulate reactivity, and what becomes possible when we stop asking, “What is wrong with me?” and start asking, “Why am I doing this, and what is it protecting me from?”

Carol also shares how growing up in an alcoholic family shaped her tendency to take care of everyone around her, how that survival skill eventually became an asset in her work, and why learning to extend that same care toward herself changed everything.

In this episode:

• Why self-sabotage may actually be a protective response
• Nervous system regulation and why safety comes before success
• Fear of success, visibility, and “up-leveling”
• Why procrastination can have an emotional payoff
• Addiction as a way of anesthetizing difficult emotions
• EFT tapping and Emotional Freedom Techniques
• Trauma responses, hypervigilance, and emotional patterns
• Why peace and stillness can initially feel uncomfortable
• Functional freeze and appearing capable while internally checked out
• Grief, emotional avoidance, and learning to feel again
• People pleasing and taking care of others as survival strategies
• Why changing your own reactivity can change your relationships
• Gratitude, emotional well-being, and Carol’s Yes work
• The value of mentorship and support in personal growth
• Why healing doesn’t mean life stops being difficult
• The power of stillness, space, and finally hearing yourself

Learn more about Carol Look and her work:

www.carollook.com

Learn more about Lisa Lacy and Notes From the Edge:

www.lisalacy.com

What did you perform in order to survive?

Welcome to the Edge.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

How much longer are you willing to wait for someone else to validate what you already know happened?

Lisa Lacy is a trauma educator and relationship advisor exploring one powerful idea: sometimes closure is not something another person gives you, it is something you create by trusting your own experience.

In this short solo episode, Lisa shares what she learned from waiting for accountability, explanations, and validation that never came, and why healing began when she stopped requiring someone else’s version of the story to confirm her own.

In this episode:

• Closure after betrayal
• Rebuilding self-trust
• Letting go of the need for an apology
• Boundaries without agreement
• Why unanswered questions keep us attached
• Moving forward without validation

Connect with Lisa:

https://www.lisalacy.com

What did you perform in order to survive? 

Welcome to the Edge.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What happens when everyone needs you to be okay, but you’re barely surviving yourself?

Hollywood screenwriter and producer Lee Ehlers spent years learning how to survive rejection, but nothing prepared him for the loss of his wife, Erin, or for discovering that sometimes the strongest thing you can do is stop pretending you’re okay.

Lee’s professional breakthrough and personal devastation collided when his feature film EXES was finally being made as his high school sweetheart and wife of twenty years was dying from breast cancer. Suddenly widowed with children who were just 10, 7, and 5, Lee found himself trying to grieve while becoming the person they still needed every day. We talk about the private cost of performing the “strong dad,” the period when alcohol became the only way he could sleep through overwhelming grief, and the moment he

finally admitted, “I’m not okay. I’m struggling.”

In this episode:

• Grief after the death of a spouse
• Widowed fatherhood and raising children through loss
• Performing strength when you’re falling apart
• Depression, isolation, and asking for help
• Self-medication and coping with acute grief
• Why grief doesn’t follow a predictable process
• Supporting someone who is grieving without prescribing how they should heal
• The strange collision of happy memories and devastating loss
• Starting over after losing the person you built your life with
• Identity after loss
• Persistence through rejection and uncertainty
• Nearly two decades of pursuing a Hollywood career
• Screenwriting, creativity, and finding your own writing process
• What repeated rejection can teach us about survival
• The making of EXES
• Why saying “I’m not okay” can be the beginning of getting help

Watch Lee Ehlers’ film EXES on Amazon:

EXES on Amazon

⁠

Lisa Lacy | Notes From the Edge:

https://www.lisalacy.com

What did you perform in order to survive?

Welcome to the Edge.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What if real masculine strength has less to do with pushing harder and more to do with learning how to regulate yourself, feel deeply, and stay present under pressure?

Michael Ostrolenk, licensed marriage and family therapist and master coach, joins Lisa Lacy to explore one central idea: mature masculinity is not domination, suppression, or performance. It is self-governance.

Michael introduces his concept of “Negative 20X,” challenging high performers to consider whether slowing down may require more courage than pushing harder. Lisa and Michael also unpack his Sovereign Gentleman framework, including how unconscious conditioning shapes identity, why men need spaces to experience and express emotion, and what disciplined presence actually looks like inside a relationship.

In this episode:

• Healthy masculinity and masculine maturity
• Nervous system regulation under pressure
• The Sovereign Gentleman and psychological sovereignty
• Male loneliness, mentorship, friendship, and the need for tribe
• Why high performers struggle with rest and recovery
• “Negative 20X” and the drive to constantly prove yourself
• Emotional intelligence, anger, sadness, shame, and healthy expression
• Masculinity versus domination
• Disciplined presence during relationship conflict
• How childhood and cultural conditioning shape adult identity
• Martial arts, self-defense, capability, and personal responsibility 
• Why kindness can be an expression of strength

Connect with Michael Ostrolenk:

Website: www.michaeldostrolenk.com

Substack: Michael D. Ostrolenk / @michaeldostrolenk

LinkedIn: Michael Ostrolenk, MA, MFT

YouTube: @michaeldostrolenk

Podcast: Resilience Redefined with Michael D. Ostrolenk

Team Fudoshin: teamfudoshin.com

Connect with Lisa Lacy:

What did you perform in order to survive? 

Welcome to the Edge.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What happens when you stop the addiction, but the pain underneath it is still running your life?

Dr. Dean Sunseri, licensed professional counselor, and HollyKem Sunseri, certified life coach with more than four decades in recovery, explore the work they call emotional sobriety: healing the emotional wounds and protective patterns that can remain long after the substance or destructive behavior is gone.

In this conversation, we go beyond abstinence and into what Dean and HollyKem call Stage Two recovery. We talk about why unresolved pain can “seep out” through substitute addictions, anger, isolation, control, relationship conflict, or other coping behaviors, and why simply stopping a behavior doesn’t necessarily heal what created it. They walk us through their framework of the Protector, Wounded Child, and True Self, including how learning to recognize which part of us is speaking can restore choice instead of leaving us controlled by old survival responses. We also explore relationships, why one person changing can change the entire “dance,” and why reconnecting may need to happen before a couple can actually solve the problem they’re fighting about.

In this episode:

• Emotional sobriety and Stage Two addiction recovery
• Why abstinence may be only the beginning of healing
• Substance addiction, behavioral addiction, and substitute addictions
• The emotional pain underneath compulsive and self-destructive behavior
• The Protector, Wounded Child, and True Self
• Trauma, triggers, and protective survival responses
• Why healing doesn’t mean never being triggered again
• Learning to love the parts of yourself you once tried to escape
• Self-compassion versus shame in addiction recovery
• Moving from survival mode into choice, purpose, and emotional freedom
• Relationships, resentment, defensiveness, and emotional disconnection
• Why one partner’s growth can change the relationship dynamic
• Reconnecting before trying to resolve conflict
• Boundaries, responsibility, forgiveness, and healthy communication
• Finding purpose after addiction and survival

Dr. Dean & HollyKem Sunseri:

1. Take the free Emotional Sobriety Assessment: https://dean-jsegmrly.scoreapp.com

2. Get the Book A Roadmap to the Soul Today! https://amzn.to/478rNG8

3. Learn more about Dean & HollyKem Sunseri: https://www.ihaveavoice.com

4. Watch Free Videos on Emotional Sobriety: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsbxvHYHG8El81rdV6eQ7gM7S55jXPm49&si=FOa14n7V-5OLJOQJ

Lisa Lacy | Notes From the Edge:

https://www.lisalacy.com

What did you perform in order to survive?

Welcome to the Edge.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Who told you that you were too sensitive, too difficult, selfish, dramatic, unstable, or simply too much? And when did someone else’s opinion become part of your identity?

In this solo episode of Notes From the Edge, trauma educator Lisa Lacy explores how labels, family roles, survival adaptations, and other people’s perceptions can quietly become the stories we tell ourselves about who we are, and what can happen when we finally question who handed us those stories in the first place.

Lisa examines the difference between personality and adaptation, why competence can become armor, and how a label can stop an investigation before it ever begins. She also shares how this question has surfaced while writing Notes From a Certified Madwoman, now autofiction, and why sometimes finding yourself is less about becoming someone new and more about subtracting everybody else.

In this episode:

• How childhood and relationship labels can become identity
• “Too sensitive,” “difficult,” “selfish,” and the power of labeling
• Competence as strength versus competence as survival armor
• Why boundaries can feel threatening to people who benefited from your compliance
• Family roles, scapegoating, and resistance when one person changes
• The difference between accountability and self-erasure
• Survival adaptations that become adult personality traits
• Why proving a label wrong can still allow it to control your life
• What happens when you enter an environment where you are no longer “too much”
• The question that can interrupt an old identity: Who told you that?

Connect with Lisa Lacy:

https://lisalacy.com

What did you perform in order to survive?

Welcome to the Edge.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What happens when men are taught that vulnerability is weakness, but connection is exactly what they need most?

Jason Lange is a men’s embodiment coach and group facilitator who believes men don’t need to become tougher. They need the language, relationships, and spaces that allow them to become more fully human.

In this conversation, Jason shares how growing up without emotional or physical connection left him unable to understand what was happening inside his own body, eventually leading to shame, isolation, and unhealthy ways of coping. He takes us inside the somatic breakthrough that changed everything and explains why men’s groups became one of the most powerful forces in his own healing, relationships, and life.

In this episode:

• Men’s mental health and the male loneliness epidemic
• Healthy masculinity and breaking out of the “man box”
• Why vulnerability can feel dangerous for men
• Emotional neglect, shame, and disconnection
• Somatic therapy and nervous system healing
• Men’s groups, brotherhood, and co-regulation
• Porn, alcohol, overworking, and other forms of emotional numbing
• Building emotional intimacy in relationships
• Learning to identify wants, needs, feelings, and boundaries
• Moving beyond the isolated “lone wolf” model of masculinity
• Authenticity instead of performing that everything is fine

Connect with Jason Lange:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonmlange/

Evolutionary Men: https://evolutionary.men

Evolutionary Edge Quiz: https://evolutionary.men/quiz

Connect with Lisa Lacy:

https://www.lisalacy.com

What did you perform in order to survive?

Welcome to the Edge.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What happens when you spend decades believing you’re lazy, too much, unreliable or simply doing life wrong, only to discover your brain has been working differently all along?

Ellie AuDHD Capstick is an AuDHD educator and podcast host whose late diagnosis gave her something she had spent a lifetime searching for: language for experiences she once understood as personal failures.

In this conversation, Ellie gets candid about the collision of ADHD and autism, years of masking and pushing herself into burnout, and why she doesn’t automatically call neurodivergence a “superpower.” She also shares what she wishes she had understood while raising her older neurodivergent children and how diagnosis helped her move from shame toward self-advocacy.

In this episode:

• AuDHD and living with both ADHD and autism
• Late diagnosis, identity and self-understanding
• Neurodivergent masking and autistic/ADHD burnout
• Executive dysfunction versus “laziness”
• Rejection sensitive dysphoria (RSD)
• Trauma, vulnerability and neurodivergence
• Parenting neurodivergent children with confidence
• Self-advocacy, relationships and dropping the mask

Connect with Ellie AuDHD Capstick

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/1Ls1EfoRam/?mibextid=wwXIfr

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ellie-audhd-capstick-b8a971415

Connect with Lisa Lacy

https://www.lisalacy.com

What did you perform in order to survive?

Welcome to the Edge.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What if the secret to a healthier, happier, more sustainable life is hiding in a bin of worms, a jar of sprouts and one really good belly laugh?

Cathy Nesbitt is an award-winning entrepreneur and laughter yoga teacher who has spent more than two decades showing people how worms, sprouts, and laughter can create a healthier, more sustainable life.

In this episode, Cathy and Lisa go from the surprising story behind Cathy’s “worm empire” to why she believes laughter is an essential tool for navigating stress. They talk about turning food waste into “black gold,” growing your own nutrition through sprouts, learning to move toward the weirdness, and what happened when Cathy stopped being a lifelong people pleaser and started giving herself permission to say no.

In this episode:

• Vermicomposting and turning household waste into healthy soil
• Why Cathy believes worms matter for sustainability and food security
• Growing fresh sprouts at home
• Laughter yoga and nervous-system regulation
• Why adults need more play and laughter
• Stress, isolation, and protecting your mental health
• Recovering from people pleasing
• Saying no without overexplaining or apologizing
• Why shame loses power when we stop keeping it silent
• Choosing simple tools for a healthier, more sustainable life

Cathy Nesbitt: www.kathysclub.com

Lisa Lacy: www.lisalacy.com

What did you perform in order to survive?

Welcome to the Edge.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.