The Baggage Claim with Lisa Najarian

"Sometimes loving someone means leaving the door open, even though you have no idea if they're gonna walk through it."

After seven years of silence with her parents and her sister, a listener sent one letter filled with love, knowing she might never get a reply. Lisa reads her letter and shares her own story as a mother of two adult children who have not spoken to each other in about five years. Then she sits down with Callandra Junaeus, an associate marriage and family therapist and associate professional clinical counselor practicing in Newport Beach, California, and a professional actress and singer whose work has been featured on Netflix, Broadway and the Kennedy Center.

In this episode:

• Why a boundary is not a punishment, and what it can communicate

• When someone simply disappears from your life, and the grief of not knowing why

• Two things can be true at once: you can love someone deeply and still ask for healthy boundaries

• Reaching out without expecting a response, and what to do if the answer never comes

• Leaving the door open, with boundaries for whoever walks through it

Join the You Go Girl Sisterhood: https://www.you-go-girl.com/pages/sisterhood-invite

Get Lisa's book, Girl, Unpack That!: https://www.you-go-girl.com/pages/yougogirl-the-book

More from The Baggage Claim: https://www.you-go-girl.com/pages/baggage-claim

Write to Lisa: [email protected]

Chapters:

0:00 Coming up

0:37 Some of the hardest things we carry

1:00 Welcome to The Baggage Claim

2:23 Why this letter: Lisa's own story

5:26 The letter

6:48 Meet Callandra Junaeus

9:18 What estrangement really is

13:22 Boundaries are not a punishment

14:24 When someone just disappears

15:34 Grief, communication and boundaries

17:50 Two things can be true at once

22:19 Lisa on her own children

24:01 What do you want her to take away?

26:25 The courage to be vulnerable

28:15 If they never write back

29:21 Leaving the door open

31:39 The only person you have ownership over

33:36 Closing thoughts

36:15 As a mother

37:11 Write to Lisa

Lisa sits down with Jo LaMarca Mathisen, Emmy-winning former NBC producer and executive producer of the PBS documentary The M Factor: Shredding the Silence on Menopause, for an honest conversation about the change so many women go through quietly.

In this episode:

• Why perimenopause can last 4 to 10 years, while menopause itself is just one day

• 2002: the year the conversation about menopause stopped, and why it matters

• Where to start if you need help

• Why you were never meant to carry this alone

Join the You Go Girl Sisterhood: https://www.you-go-girl.com/pages/sisterhood-invite

Get Lisa's book, Girl, Unpack That!: https://www.you-go-girl.com/pages/yougogirl-the-book

More from The Baggage Claim: https://www.you-go-girl.com/pages/baggage-claim

Write to Lisa: [email protected]