As the wheel of the year turns to Samhain—the Celtic threshold between light and dark—we’re invited to honor endings, release what no longer serves, and open to the quiet wisdom of winter.

Join Lisa for a gentle 5-minute guided meditation to connect with your Self energy, honor your ancestors, and find peace in the pause between seasons.

🌒 Listener Reflection Prompts

1. What is asking to be released or completed as this season ends?
2. Which parts of you resist rest, stillness, or letting go?
3. How can you honor your inner ancestors—the wise and enduring energy within you?
4. What renewal or new beginning might be quietly forming beneath the surface?

🪶 Journal, walk, or sit with these questions. There’s no need to force answers—just listen.

Music by RA, upbeat.io

What does it really mean to belong together?

In this final episode of the Belonging Series, Lisa explores how authentic connection is cultivated — not by performance or perfection, but through presence, protection, and purpose.

Drawing inspiration from Priya Parker’s The Art of Gathering, the No Kings Gathering, and the Mighty Women community she co-created, Lisa reflects on how intentional spaces invite authenticity and co-regulation. She also shares her yearly pilgrimage to Red Rocks to see the Avett Brothers — where strangers become friends and joy becomes collective.

Through these stories, we’re reminded that belonging isn’t something we find — it’s something we create, one grounded, compassionate presence at a time.

✨ Topics include:

• The nervous system and co-regulation in belonging
• Midlife friendship and self-protection patterns
• How we gather with purpose and equality
• Joy, music, and effervescent connection
• Belonging as collective care

💛 Reflection Prompt:
Where in your life are you cultivating the kind of belonging that feels mutual, nourishing, and alive?

Music by RA, upbeat.io

This week on The Liberated Middle, I’m offering a short bonus episode — a guided meditation to help you come home to yourself.

We’ve been exploring what it means to belong — to ourselves, to each other, and to the world around us. This IFS-informed practice is an invitation to pause, breathe, and offer belonging to every part of you — even the ones that feel outside the circle.

Take ten quiet minutes to settle your body, soften your heart, and remember:
you don’t have to chase belonging — you can come home to it, again and again, inside yourself.

✨ Next week: the final episode in the Belonging Series — “The Art of Belonging Together.”

Music by RA, upbeat.io

This is Part 2 of The Belonging Series.

Fitting in asks, Who do you need me to be?
Belonging asks, Can I be who I am and still stay?

In this episode, Lisa explores the wilderness between those two questions—where authenticity and approval often collide.

Drawing on Brené Brown’s research, Polyvagal Theory, and an IFS lens,  she unpacks the loneliness that comes from performing for acceptance and the courage it takes to show up as your unedited self.

You’ll explore:

• The key difference between true belonging and fitting in
• How early attachment and nervous system safety shape your need for approval
• The emotional cost of performing for connection
• Simple ways to practice belonging to yourself in daily life

Because when you belong to yourself, you give everyone around you permission to do the same.

About The Belonging Series:
Belonging is one of our most essential human needs. In this special series of The Liberated Middle, Lisa explores belonging from the inside out—from coming home to yourself, to the difference between true belonging and fitting in, to the loneliness epidemic, the art of gathering, the neuroscience of connection, and how belonging shifts across the lifespan.

Music by RA, upbeat.io

Belonging begins with a homecoming.

In this opening episode of The Belonging Series, Lisa explores what it means to come home to yourself—and why that’s the foundation for every other kind of belonging. She weaves Internal Family Systems, interoception research, and polyvagal theory into a conversation about self-abandonment, nervous system safety, and the freedom of building home inside your own body.

You’ll walk away with reflection prompts and a simple practice to begin strengthening your own self-belonging.

Because coming home is the return. Belonging is the staying.

About The Belonging Series:
Belonging is one of our most essential human needs. In this special series of The Liberated Middle, Lisa explores belonging from the inside out—from coming home to yourself, to the difference between true belonging and fitting in, to the loneliness epidemic, the art of gathering, the neuroscience of connection, and how belonging shifts across the lifespan.

Music by RA, upbeat.io

Midlife isn’t a crisis — it’s a liberation.

In this first full episode of The Liberated Middle, host Lisa Hamilton opens up about why she started this podcast and what liberation really means in the messy middle of life. She shares her own “FFT” (Brené Brown’s fcking first time*) of launching the show, her lifelong dance with perfectionism, and the career and life pivots that shaped her path.

From body changes and relationship transitions to career curveballs and fresh starts, Lisa reframes midlife as a powerful turning point — a middle way between extremes, and a chance to come home to yourself.

You’ll walk away with a new perspective, a simple reflection tied to the autumn equinox, and a sense of what to expect from the real, unfiltered conversations ahead.

Special thanks to my soul sister, Jen Wilking, for continued encouragement, learning and accountability in getting this project out into the world!

Music by RA, upbeat.io

Music by RA, upbeat.io