Sink and Swim

Ashley Martinez is a women's health pelvic floor PT, integrative nutrition health coach, single mom, and highly sensitive person who spent years leading with her credentials — until life made that impossible.

In this episode, Ashley shares her story publicly for the first time: the deployment, the divorce, the infidelities on both sides, the church that excommunicated her, the family that demanded achievement in exchange for love, and the body that quietly kept score through it all. What emerged on the other side wasn't a redemption arc with a bow on it. It was something messier and more honest — a woman who stopped trying to be righteous and started getting curious.

We talk about what it really means to create healing space for patients (hint: it starts way before the intake form), why your symptoms are your body speaking and not your identity, the difference between a groove and actual health, and what happens when you finally stop running from the uncomfortable thing and just... sit in it.

This one went beautiful places. Come ready to feel something.

00:00 — The Ick Factor of Polished People
16:50 — Floor to Flourishing: The First Three Years of Single Motherhood
29:14 — There Are No Villains Here
34:02 — Boundaries Are Between Me and Me
47:06 — Your Body Was Always Speaking
58:46 — Stop Making Your Diagnosis Your Identity
01:00:39 — What She'd Whisper to Her Younger Self

If this episode speaks to you, hit subscribe, leave a review, and share it with a friend

👉Looking for more of where this came from? 

Get career and coaching support from Julie in a Career Compass Activation Coaching Session

Need some space to sit with your career questions and journal about them? Download the free Be the Boss of Your Career Guide

Want to know you're not the only woman in healthcare choosing differently in your career? Come hang at a free monthly Just Be with Julie meditation circle

Keep up with what's going on by joining the Notes from a Fart Walk Newsletter and don't miss an episode or update

Watch full video episodes and clips on Youtube

Social Media: Follow Julie for clips, bonus content, and updates throughout the week. You can also shoot her a DM to connect!

Instagram @drjuliegranger, 

Substack @drjuliegranger

On April 1st, 2026, I opened a patient portal and read the words that officially closed an 11-year chapter of cancer surveillance. No fanfare. No one else in the room. Just me, the screen, and a quiet exhale that had been building for over a decade.

But this episode isn't really about a scan result.

It's a story I've never told publicly — the plot twist that added an extra year to my surveillance, the six-month stretch of unexpected medical news that cracked me open in ways cancer treatment never did, and the slow, devastating process of wriggling my identity free from both the Good Patient and the Good Provider I'd been trained to perform.

From Christmas Eve biopsies to crying through Taylor Swift at the Eras Tour in Paris, to throwing myself a 10-years-cancer-free party before I was technically "done" — I trace how I rebuilt my relationship with my own body, reclaimed sovereignty inside a system designed to strip it away, and learned what true co-regulation in medical care actually feels like. And how rarely I'd experienced it.

This one is for the high-achieving women in healthcare who have spent years knowing their patients' bodies better than their own. Who go full provider-mode at their own appointments. Who brush off subpar care because they understand the system. Who have never once been asked — really asked — how they're doing in the middle of it all.

I'm asking those questions out loud in this episode. The ones most of us have never let ourselves finish.

00:00 — The Portal Moment: What 11 Years of Waiting Felt Like in Two Seconds

09:17 — Benedict and the Backstory: The Cancer Diagnosis Nobody Saw Coming

13:49 — The Good Patient™: On Surveillance, the Sick Cycle, and Handing Over Dominion

22:14 — The Plot Twist: When the Year-Nine Scan Added a Year You Didn't Have to Give

31:08 — Defiant Joy: How She Held Lung Nodules, Dog Crises, and the Eras Tour in Paris at the Same Time

47:52 — The Beet-Red Breast Specialist and the Nurse Who Reached for Her Hand

01:00:49 — Declaring Yourself Free Before Anyone Else Does

If this episode speaks to you, hit subscribe, leave a review, and share it with a friend

👉Looking for more of where this came from? 

Get career and coaching support from Julie in a Career Compass Activation Coaching Session

Need some space to sit with your career questions and journal about them? Download the free Be the Boss of Your Career Guide

Want to know you're not the only woman in healthcare choosing differently in your career? Come hang at a free monthly Just Be with Julie meditation circle

Keep up with what's going on by joining the Notes from a Fart Walk Newsletter and don't miss an episode or update

Watch full video episodes and clips on Youtube

Social Media: Follow Julie for clips, bonus content, and updates throughout the week. You can also shoot her a DM to connect!

Instagram @drjuliegranger, 

Substack @drjuliegranger

Dr. Jessica Drummond has spent two decades training clinicians and coaches in women's health. She built the only women's health coach certification program in the world. And somewhere in the middle of all of that, she started going to the French bakery just because she felt like it.

That tension — between what we've built and what we actually want — is at the heart of this conversation.

We talk about what it looks like to stay grounded when your day is anything but linear. The systemic pressure behind personal branding and why it's not just vanity. The analog friendships we've quietly stopped having. Perimenopause as a portal, not a problem. And the historic moment we may be living inside — the first time in history that a meaningful number of women have enough money, power, and autonomy to actually ask what they want.

And mean it.

This one is for the woman who has built something real and is starting to wonder what she actually built it for.

00:00 — Who Is Dr. Jessica Drummond

08:56 — The High Achiever Who Learned to Stop Overriding

14:16 — Why Everyone Feels Pressure to Have a Personal Brand (It's Not What You Think)

19:29 — Analog Friendship and What We've Quietly Lost

38:50 — The Internet Is Polluted — and the Swing Back to Human

45:24 — AI, Ethics, and the Healthcare Provider's Dilemma

54:05 — The First Generation of Women Who Get to Ask What They Want

01:05:25 — Perimenopause as a Portal: The Veil Lifts

01:13:19 — Outro

--

Love what you hear and want to learn more from Jessica?

•  Discover more on Instagram:

Integrative Women's Health Institute: @integrativewomenshealth

Jessica's instagram: @drjessicadrummond

• Tune in to the Integrative Women's Health Podcast

If this episode speaks to you, hit subscribe, leave a review, and share it with a friend

👉Looking for more of where this came from? 

Get career and coaching support from Julie in a Career Compass Activation Coaching Session

Need some space to sit with your career questions and journal about them? Download the free Be the Boss of Your Career Guide

Want to know you're not the only woman in healthcare choosing differently in your career? Come hang at a free monthly Just Be with Julie meditation circle

Keep up with what's going on by joining the Notes from a Fart Walk Newsletter and don't miss an episode or update

Watch full video episodes and clips on Youtube

Social Media: Follow Julie for clips, bonus content, and updates throughout the week. You can also shoot her a DM to connect!

Instagram @drjuliegranger, 

Substack @drjuliegranger

You see the LinkedIn announcement from a colleague. You see them celebrate pivoting from Point A to Point B.

But you don't don't see what happened in the middle of the pivot for it to actually happen. 

In this episode, Julie breaks down the four stages of a healthcare career pivot — and why the messy, invisible middle is actually where the real transformation lives. This isn't a how-to. It's a map. And it's the conversation nobody posts about.

Through real stories of clients who went from pelvic PT to somatic coach, from viral Instagram influencer to brick-and-mortar practice, from corporate PT manager to web designer, from neuro clinician to top real estate broker, and from nurse practitioner to hospital chaplain, Julie names what actually happens between who you were and who you're becoming.

If you've been circling the same question for months — or years — this episode will help you figure out exactly where you are, why you're not stuck, and what it actually takes to move forward without losing yourself in the process.

03:54 — Why Nobody Talks About the Middle of a Career Pivot

09:02 — The 4 Stages of Career Change (And Why You Can't Skip Them)

18:36 — Stage 1 & 2: Scouting, Seeking, and Running on the Treadmill

29:50 — Stage 3: Emerging — The Birthing Process Nobody Warned You About

38:01 — Subtracting to Add: Why Grief Is the Thing That Actually Moves You Forward

52:17 — Real Clinician Stories: What Pivots Actually Look Like From the Inside

If this episode speaks to you, hit subscribe, leave a review, and share it with a friend

👉Looking for more of where this came from? 

Get career and coaching support from Julie in a Career Compass Activation Coaching Session

Need some space to sit with your career questions and journal about them? Download the free Be the Boss of Your Career Guide

Want to know you're not the only woman in healthcare choosing differently in your career? Come hang at a free monthly Just Be with Julie meditation circle

Keep up with what's going on by joining the Notes from a Fart Walk Newsletter and don't miss an episode or update

Watch full video episodes and clips on Youtube

Social Media: Follow Julie for clips, bonus content, and updates throughout the week. You can also shoot her a DM to connect!

Instagram @drjuliegranger, 

Substack @drjuliegranger

Many high-achieving and active women in perimenopause and teen athletes in puberty pride themselves on discipline, resilience, and doing everything “right.” But what if the very habits that helped you succeed are quietly draining your energy, disrupting your hormones, and disconnecting you from your body?

In this episode, Julie sits down with Dr. Katherine Hill (Stanford-trained physician) and Megan Hellner (registered dietitian) — co-founders of AthleteMD, a multidisciplinary practice specializing in Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport (RED-S).

What begins as a conversation about young athletes quickly expands into something much bigger: the hidden epidemic of under-fueling among ambitious humans, especially women navigating intense careers, motherhood, and changing bodies.

They explore why many driven people unknowingly fall into chronic under-fueling while trying to follow “healthy” advice — from clean eating to high-protein trends to restrictive wellness culture. They also unpack the surprising parallels between teen athletes and women in midlife, where changing hormones, high performance expectations, and misinformation collide.

This episode is a powerful reminder that health isn’t something you earn through restriction or optimization — it begins with enough fuel, enough flexibility, and enough compassion for the body you live in.

Whether you’re an athlete, a healthcare professional, a parent of a young competitor, or simply someone learning to soften after years of pushing yourself, this conversation will challenge the way you think about food, performance, and self-trust.

00:00 — Why High-Performing Women and Athletic Teens Often Run on Empty

08:21 — Building AthleteMD: Creating Care That Puts People First

14:23 — RED-S: The Hidden Energy Deficiency Affecting Athletes of all Ages Everywhere

22:20 — When “Healthy Eating” Becomes Under-Fueling

32:29 — The Overlooked Parallel: Teen Athletes and Women in Midlife

42:44 — Recognizing the Warning Signs of RED-S

58:09 — What True Nourishment Actually Looks Like for Athletes

-- Love what you hear and want to explore more? --

Stay connected with the founders of AthleatMD:

Instagram: @athleatMD

Website: https://www.athleatmd.com/

If this episode speaks to you, hit subscribe, leave a review, and share it with a friend

👉Looking for more of where this came from? 

Get career and coaching support from Julie in a Career Compass Activation Coaching Session

Need some space to sit with your career questions and journal about them? Download the free Be the Boss of Your Career Guide

Want to know you're not the only woman in healthcare choosing differently in your career? Come hang at a free monthly Just Be with Julie meditation circle

Keep up with what's going on by joining the Notes from a Fart Walk Newsletter and don't miss an episode or update

Watch full video episodes and clips on Youtube

Social Media: Follow Julie for clips, bonus content, and updates throughout the week. You can also shoot her a DM to connect!

Instagram @drjuliegranger, 

Substack @drjuliegranger

Welcome to the second-ever Notes from a Fart Walk — your monthly, come-as-you-are digest for ambitious women who are tired of urgency, polarization, and performative “fix yourself” wisdom.

In this episode, Julie sinks into real-time, unpolished truth: the “recovering good girl” moment at a big event when her body was pleading to leave… and the shame spiral that followed when she looked around and assumed everyone else was “fine.” She unpacks why this isn’t a personal flaw — it’s inherited conditioning — and how self-trust is rebuilt through simple noticing, not more optimizing.

From there, she moves into what feels stinky and unfinished right now: body image narratives, perimenopause, and the deeper cultural roots of fatphobia and “health” standards — plus the permission to be in process, without needing a tidy conclusion. You’ll also hear what’s been keeping her up at night (in a nerdy, grounding way): curiosity about civics, systems, and how to stay informed without doom-scrolling or martyring yourself.

Then we shift into community as nervous system medicine — why “care in community” can still be exhausting when everything requires scheduling, childcare, money, or effort — and why Julie is fiercely committed to creating third spaces (game night, book club, analog friendship). There’s also a sweet detour into the dog-mom corner (Aspen: professional screen-time interventionist).

Finally, she brings it into Swim Practice + Swim Meet: easy “fed is best” nourishment in a full season, what’s on repeat in her headphones, what she’s reading, random facts you didn’t ask for, a big personal win (her memoir officially heading to developmental edit), and what’s firing her up — including protecting women’s sports and calling out a missing conversation in perimenopause: low energy availability / RED-S in athletic, driven women who are being sold one-size-fits-all menopause advice.

This episode is a permission slip to be a messy human in process… and still be a powerful, world-changing woman.

1. 06:29 — Urgency, Capitalism, and Why You Feel Like You’re Always Behind
2. 12:33 — Sink Into the Deep End: When Your Body Doesn’t Believe Your “Image”
3. 37:37 — It’s a Team Effort: Loneliness, Co-Regulation, and Building Third Spaces
4. 50:07 — Swim Practice: “Fed Is Best,” Soundtracks, Book Club, and Random Joy
5. 01:08:11 — Swim Meet: What I’m Fighting For (Women’s Sports + RED-S in Perimenopause)

Tap here for Petition to Support Marshall University Swim & Dive

If this episode speaks to you, hit subscribe, leave a review, and share it with a friend

👉Looking for more of where this came from? 

Get career and coaching support from Julie in a Career Compass Activation Coaching Session

Need some space to sit with your career questions and journal about them? Download the free Be the Boss of Your Career Guide

Want to know you're not the only woman in healthcare choosing differently in your career? Come hang at a free monthly Just Be with Julie meditation circle

Keep up with what's going on by joining the Notes from a Fart Walk Newsletter and don't miss an episode or update

Watch full video episodes and clips on Youtube

Social Media: Follow Julie for clips, bonus content, and updates throughout the week. You can also shoot her a DM to connect!

Instagram @drjuliegranger, 

Substack @drjuliegranger

If you’re a highly sensitive being, neurodivergent, or introverted… and you find big, stimulating events hard but don’t want to avoid “peopling” altogether, this episode is for you.

If you've ever left a conference, alumni weekend, wedding, or “inspiring” networking event feeling like you need 72 hours alone in a dark room… and you then start wondering what’s wrong with you because everyone else seems to bounce back, return to normal life, and handle it just fine -- welcome! You're in the right place.

In this episode, Julie unpacks what’s actually happening when your nervous system starts waving the little white flag in big, overstimulating environments — especially for high-achieving, highly attuned women who are used to “handling it”… that is, until their body says (or screams), "Nope! You’re done!"

You’ll hear a real, candid story from a recent event Julie attended, contrasted with a different event: in one of them, she honors her nervous system really well — and in the other, she crashes and burns. 

She walks through what it looked like for her body to speak up, what it felt like to listen to it, and what it felt like to grapple with a decision that worked against it. 

And yes: she highlights the very relatable tug-of-war between “I want meaningful connection” and “I’m past capacity and need to course correct.”

If you’re building a life or career where you want to honor your body, your soul, your spirit — while also harnessing your ambition and your desire to be around other people — this episode offers real and refreshing ways to navigate it without micromanaging yourself, avoiding people, all while trusting and honoring your body's cues and desires.

00:00 — Overstimulation + why “big events” hit different

05:35 — The invisible social rules women are navigating (and exhausted by) in big social spaces

08:07 — “Don’t care what people think” is a lie (and what’s actually true)

13:19 — Resilience isn’t staying regulated — it’s meeting the returning to yourself

15:20 — The “Mullet Method”: friendship first, business second

30:48 — Your body’s signals are invitations: jaw pain, appetite loss, nausea, and the flight urge

42:54 — Integration after the meltdown: turning dysregulation into wisdom

If this episode speaks to you, hit subscribe, leave a review, and share it with a friend

👉Looking for more of where this came from? 

Get career and coaching support from Julie in a Career Compass Activation Coaching Session

Need some space to sit with your career questions and journal about them? Download the free Be the Boss of Your Career Guide

Want to know you're not the only woman in healthcare choosing differently in your career? Come hang at a free monthly Just Be with Julie meditation circle

Keep up with what's going on by joining the Notes from a Fart Walk Newsletter and don't miss an episode or update

Watch full video episodes and clips on Youtube

Social Media: Follow Julie for clips, bonus content, and updates throughout the week. You can also shoot her a DM to connect!

Instagram @drjuliegranger, 

Substack @drjuliegranger

You’ve started talking about coaching.

Maybe you’ve taken a certification.
 Maybe you’ve signed a few clients.
 Maybe you’re posting about it online.
 Maybe you’re still seeing patients “for now.”

And yet — you don’t feel fully in.

In this episode, Julie unpacks the real reason so many ambitious women in healthcare struggle to move completely into the coaching lane — even when they know they’re capable. It’s rarely about skill. It’s rarely about intelligence. And it’s almost never about needing “one more training.”

You’ll hear:

• Why the clinician-to-coach shift feels harder than it looks from the outside
• What keeps you hovering in the “almost” stage
• The practical difference between clinician and coach — and why clients respond differently
• Why credentials don’t automatically create confidence
• The mindset shift that allows coaching to become profitable, scalable, and aligned

If you’ve been circling coaching but haven’t fully claimed it yet, this conversation will likely show you exactly where you are in the transition — and why it makes sense that you’re there.

And if you listen and realize, “Okay… this is me. I’m in the in-between and I don’t want to stay here,” that’s usually a sign you don’t need more information — you need clarity and support.

If that’s the case, you can explore a Soul Story Mapping session in the show notes. It’s a private, working session (not a discovery call) where we map what’s true for you right now — your identity, your business direction, and what’s actually keeping you tethered. You don’t have to decide anything afterward. Sometimes seeing the full picture is enough to shift everything.

Either way — you’re not behind. You’re not confused. You’re mid-transition.

And that’s a powerful place to be.

If this episode speaks to you, hit subscribe, leave a review, and share it with a friend

👉Looking for more of where this came from? 

Get career and coaching support from Julie in a Career Compass Activation Coaching Session

Need some space to sit with your career questions and journal about them? Download the free Be the Boss of Your Career Guide

Want to know you're not the only woman in healthcare choosing differently in your career? Come hang at a free monthly Just Be with Julie meditation circle

Keep up with what's going on by joining the Notes from a Fart Walk Newsletter and don't miss an episode or update

Watch full video episodes and clips on Youtube

Social Media: Follow Julie for clips, bonus content, and updates throughout the week. You can also shoot her a DM to connect!

Instagram @drjuliegranger, 

Substack @drjuliegranger

This is the first interview of Sink & Swim 2026, and Julie kicks off Season 2 with Dr. Brianne Grogan (“Dr. Bri”)—a pelvic health PT known for a massive YouTube presence who just made a wildly brave move: she stopped creating for that channel (December 2025), not because she stopped caring, but because she outgrew the role.

Together, they talk in real time—not from a polished “I’ve arrived” place—about what it’s like to be mid–identity shift: secrecy vs. self-expression, rule-following vs. nuance, and the grief of outgrowing old clients, colleagues, and belonging. Bri shares her emerging identity as a Body Medicine Journey Facilitator—where medicine meets magic—and why “weirdness” is often self-judgment wearing a familiar voice.

They also go deep into what modern care often misses: intimacy, safety, and presence. Bri names how her work is returning to in-person, hands-on care in her “healing house” in Bend, Oregon—rooted, luxurious, and profoundly human. The episode closes with an embodied mini-practice for anyone feeling a quiet nudge toward something truer—without pressure to leap.

03:49 — From YouTube Sensation to the Threshold
 Introducing Dr. Breanne Grogan and the moment she realized she’d outgrown her public pelvic health identity.

07:11 — Life in the Healing House
 Empty nesting, relocation, and why place, home, and rooting matter in identity shifts.

10:01 — “Body Medicine Journey Facilitator”
 Outgrowing traditional pelvic health and naming work where medicine meets magic.

14:39 — December 2025: Choosing to Stop
 Ending a 15-year YouTube chapter, resentment as information, and reclaiming agency.

18:06 — Rule Followers, Black-and-White Thinking, and the Messy Middle
 Straight-A conditioning, safety through rigidity, and learning to integrate “both.”

24:10 — Weirdness, Woo, and Inherited Stories
 Family narratives, self-judgment, and realizing the chains were never real.

34:31 — Grief, Belonging, and Outgrowing the PT Role
 Leaving clients and colleagues without betrayal; sister wounds and exile.

46:17 — Collapse, Business Divorce, and Clarity
 The implosion that revealed what she can do—and what she no longer wants to carry.

1:04:20 — Water Balloons & Willow Trees
What freedom actually feels like in the body, rooted expansiveness, and a closing practice for listening without pressure.

Love what you hear? 

Keep up with Dr. Bri on IG @vibrantpelvichealth

If this episode speaks to you, hit subscribe, leave a review, and share it with a friend

👉Looking for more of where this came from? 

Get career and coaching support from Julie in a Career Compass Activation Coaching Session

Need some space to sit with your career questions and journal about them? Download the free Be the Boss of Your Career Guide

Want to know you're not the only woman in healthcare choosing differently in your career? Come hang at a free monthly Just Be with Julie meditation circle

Keep up with what's going on by joining the Notes from a Fart Walk Newsletter and don't miss an episode or update

Watch full video episodes and clips on Youtube

Social Media: Follow Julie for clips, bonus content, and updates throughout the week. You can also shoot her a DM to connect!

Instagram @drjuliegranger, 

Substack @drjuliegranger

Welcome to the very first Notes from a Fart Walk—a monthly digest episode inside Sink & Swim where nothing has to be polished, optimized, or resolved to be worth sharing.

This episode is an invitation to metabolize life in real time. Not with hot takes, diagnoses, or “here’s what you should do”—but with honesty, humor, and a body-led pace that lets things stay half-formed. Julie shares why “fart walking” (moving, processing, and sometimes being a little messy with a witness) is her response to urgency culture, performative wisdom, and the pressure to always be the expert—especially for high-achieving women in healthcare, law, corporate, and entrepreneurial spaces.

You’ll hear Julie sink into her own inner world—naming recovering good-girl conditioning, the fear of making waves, and what it feels like to reclaim her voice without needing agreement. She explores the shift from being the internal “wellness manager” to actually experiencing her life, especially in winter, when the body is wired to slow down, not optimize.

This isn’t a teaching episode. It’s not a manifesto. It’s a walk.

00:58 — Orientation: how to listen with your body (without fixing, analyzing, or optimizing)

09:08 — What a “Fart Walk” actually is: creating space for unpolished, in-process life on the internet

13:54 — Why digestion matters more than consumption in a loud, urgent, certainty-obsessed world

27:47 — Sink Into the Deep End: Recovering Good Girl conditioning, palatability, and the fear of making waves

35:59 — Sink Into the Deep End: What feels stinky right now—letting go of urgency, optimization, and inherited narratives

42:48 — Sink Into the Deep End: Listening to your body in winter (slowing down, seasonal rhythms, and the “speed of love”)

47:14 — It’s a Team Effort: Friendship starvation, transactional connection, and why millennial women feel lonely despite success

52:31 — Swim Practice → Swim Meet: Turning inner truth into real life—values, nourishment, identity, and contribution

57:53 — Nourishment in perimenopause: carbs, energy, and unsubscribing from wellness culture fear

01:07:34 — Delight without purpose: maps, geology, and why unexpected connection matters

If this episode speaks to you, hit subscribe, leave a review, and share it with a friend

👉Looking for more of where this came from? 

Get career and coaching support from Julie in a Career Compass Activation Coaching Session

Need some space to sit with your career questions and journal about them? Download the free Be the Boss of Your Career Guide

Want to know you're not the only woman in healthcare choosing differently in your career? Come hang at a free monthly Just Be with Julie meditation circle

Keep up with what's going on by joining the Notes from a Fart Walk Newsletter and don't miss an episode or update

Watch full video episodes and clips on Youtube

Social Media: Follow Julie for clips, bonus content, and updates throughout the week. You can also shoot her a DM to connect!

Instagram @drjuliegranger, 

Substack @drjuliegranger