The Raising Hope Podcast

You've done the therapy. You've read the books. You can explain your own patterns perfectly — and you still repeat them under pressure. Why?

This week on Raising Hope, I sit down with Dr. Katelyn Lehman, a clinical psychologist, public health leader, and founder of Quantum Clinic, where she developed the Coherence Method — a framework built over 15+ years of work with trauma survivors, immigrant communities, and people navigating complex emotional terrain. Her work has been featured in Vogue, NBC, and Forbes, and she's presented at Oxford and Harvard Medical School on the science of emotional regulation. Her new book, The Coherence Method: How to Overcome Adversity and Embody a Life of Care and Connection, releases July 11th.

In this conversation, we get into:

• What coherence actually feels like in the body (and the physiology behind it)
• Why the "messy middle" feels so disorienting — and what it means developmentally
• Why insight alone doesn't change behavior, and what actually does
• How high achievers can start rebuilding a sense of safety in the body
• Moving from symptom management to reorganizing the underlying system
• Practicing self-compassion with the inner critic that says "I should do better"
• The shift from "ego" to "eco" — and why it prevents burnout
• Dr. Lehman's own messy middle: closing her business after her father's cancer diagnosis
• The one question to ask yourself when you feel stuck

If you're in your own messy middle right now, this episode will give you language for it — and a place to start.

Connect with Dr. Katelyn Lehman:Website: www.askdrkaitlin.comInstagram: @drKaitlinBook (releasing July 11th): available at askdrkaitlin.com, Amazon, Walmart, and other retailers

Ready to figure out your own next move?Grab my Next Move Blueprint at www.kristygiarratano.com/next-move — a strategic session to help guide you to finally get unstuck and take real, aligned action in your messy middle.

In this episode, I sit down with Cheryl Stelte — master healer, spiritual coach, and energy work practitioner with over 33 years of experience guiding women through deep personal transformation.

We dive into something Cheryl calls "dissolving toleration levels" — the phenomenon where mature women who've already done significant inner work suddenly find they can no longer tolerate relationships, situations, or patterns they used to accept without question. Cheryl breaks down why this is happening on such a widespread scale right now, and why trying to "think" your way through it rarely works.

We also explore:

• Why doing all the "right" work (therapy, coaching, mindset shifts) can still leave you feeling stuck — and what that glass ceiling really means
• How unprocessed emotional blocks formed in early childhood (and even in the womb) shape our adult patterns, and how releasing them creates a ripple effect through every area of life
• The connection between your root chakra and your ability to speak your truth
• A real client story of decades-old triggers from a difficult parent dissolving in a matter of weeks
• What it actually looks like to become "the hub of your own wheel" — grounded, aligned, and no longer needing to fight for anyone to change

If you've been feeling like you simply can't tolerate things the way you used to — in your relationships, your work, or your own inner world — this conversation will help you understand what's happening and how to move through it with grace.

Connect with Cheryl: starofdivinelight.com — grab her free meditations and a complimentary 15-minute chakra reading (links in show notes).

If this episode resonated, here's your next step:

If you're feeling that pull toward change but aren't sure what your actual next move is, I'd love to help you find clarity. My Next Move Blueprint™ Session blends your natal chart, Human Design, and where you're at right now to map out your ideal client, your money mindset blocks, your burnout signs, and a real 90-day plan forward — so you're not just feeling the shift, you're actually moving with it.

👉 DM me "NEXT" on Instagram [@raisinghopepodcast] to get started, or head to kristygiarratano.com to learn more.

Some of the biggest surprises of building something new aren’t about the work itself — they’re about the loneliness that comes with carrying an idea, a business, or a version of yourself that no one else can quite see yet.

In this episode, Kristy gets honest about what it really feels like to build something that doesn’t exist anywhere except in you — the moments of doubt, the isolation of being the only one who can “see her” before she’s real to anyone else, and why that loneliness isn’t a sign something’s wrong, but a sign something true is happening. This episode is for anyone in the middle of becoming — a new business, a new identity, a new life — who needs to hear that the disorientation is part of the process, not proof you’re off track.

If you’re building something nobody else can see yet — a business, a dream, a version of yourself — this one’s for you.

Next Move Blueprint Session: HERE

Becoming Her application: Apply

Growth doesn’t always feel exciting.

Sometimes it feels like grief.

In this episode of the Raising Hope Podcast, we’re exploring the hidden side of transformation: grieving old identities, old versions of ourselves, old dreams, and old ways of surviving that no longer fit who we’re becoming.

If you’ve ever felt guilty for changing, scared to let go, or caught between who you’ve been and who you’re becoming, this conversation is for you.

Because maybe you aren’t lost.

Maybe you’re simply in the middle of becoming.

www.kristygiarratano.com

Be the first to know when Becoming Her opens: Sign up here

Have you ever caught yourself saying…

“I don’t even know who I am anymore.”

If so, I want you to know something:

I don’t actually think most women lose themselves.

I think life simply becomes so loud that they stop hearing themselves.

In this special episode of the Raising Hope Podcast, we’re exploring why so many high-achieving women become disconnected from themselves—and why the first step toward creating what’s next isn’t pushing harder…

It’s creating enough internal safety to hear yourself honestly.

Together, we’ll explore:

✨ Why survival mode makes self-awareness so difficult

✨ The hidden cost of constantly putting everyone else’s needs first

✨ What I learned from years working in emergency medicine—and how triage became a powerful metaphor for the way so many women live

✨ Why awareness is the beginning of hope

⸻

Join the Raising Hope Guided Experience

If this episode resonates with you, I’d love to invite you to join our free five-day Raising Hope Guided Experience.

Together, we’ll slow down, reconnect with ourselves, regulate our nervous systems, reflect honestly, and begin creating what comes next with greater clarity, confidence, and self-trust.

Join here: HERE

You finally said no. So why doesn’t it feel like the relief you thought it would be?

In this episode, Kristy picks up right where last week left off — not the moment you say no, but the strange, disorienting space that opens up after. The guilt that creeps in. The grief for a version of yourself you didn’t even like. And the question nobody prepares you for: if that’s not who I am anymore… then who am I?

This is exactly the space Kristy built Becoming Her for — a 12-week experience for high-achieving women ready to stop performing “fine” and start reconnecting with who they actually are underneath the exhaustion.

Before Becoming Her opens, Kristy’s running a free 5-day challenge, Beneath the Exhaustion, starting July 6th. If this episode hit home, it’s the perfect next step — [Join the free challenge →]

Links:

• Join the free 5-day challenge (starts July 6) → HERE

• Learn more about Becoming Her → HERE

• kristygiarratano.com

If this episode resonated, share it with someone who needs it. And if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, a review genuinely helps a growing show — I read every one. 🧡

What if the secret to actually thriving — not just surviving — starts with a word you’ve been taught to avoid your whole life?

This week on Raising Hope, I sit down with Dr. Wendy O’Connor, a Stanford-trained positive psychologist and life strategist for women. Wendy had the career, the marriage, the kids — everything she thought she wanted. Then she woke up one day with three daughters under 15 months old, two thriving private practices, and a quiet, unshakeable feeling that something was missing.

We talk about:

• Why high-achieving women are wired to say yes — and what it costs us

• The real connection between chronic people-pleasing and your self-confidence

• What “living a life by design” actually means (hint: it starts with knowing your values, strengths, and desires)

• How to say no without blowing up your life or your relationships

• Why your kids are watching how you handle boundaries, whether you realize it or not

If you’ve been quietly drowning under everyone else’s expectations and you’re ready to reconnect with what you actually want, this conversation is your permission slip.

Connect with Dr. Wendy on Instagram @drwendyoconnor, and grab her free resources HERE.

If you’re a high-achieving woman who’s checked every box and still feels like something’s missing — you’re in the right place. I help women like you figure out who they are underneath the exhaustion, using astrology, Human Design, and real talk (no toxic positivity allowed).

Curious what’s actually misaligned in your life? Book a free Next Move Blueprint™ Session, or learn more about 1:1 coaching and Becoming Her, my 12-week group program, at kristygiarratano.com.

You have been the strong one your whole life. The one who handles it. The one everyone leans on. The onewho shows up — always, without fail — regardless of what it costs you. In this episode Kristy gets real aboutwhat that identity actually costs, what it looks like when it starts to crack, and what it means to let it evolveinto something that finally serves you instead of everyone else. Including her own story of being passed overfor a role she had already been doing for a year — and what her body did when she kept going anyway.

What we cover:• Who the strong one actually is and how she got that way• The real physical and emotional cost of carrying too much for too long• Kristy's story: the senior director role, the betrayal, Covid, and the decision that changed everything• Julie's story: VP of HR, two kids under five, laid off overnight — and what she found on the other side• Four practices for letting the strong one identity evolve without losing yourself

Links:

• Becoming Here Waitlist → HERE
• Comment BLUEPRINT on @raisinghopepodcast latest post to enter the giveaway
• Book your Next Move Blueprint Session → HERE
• Follow on Instagram → ⁠@raisinghopepodcast

If you’ve ever been praised for holding everything together — and you’re exhausted from it — this episode is for you.

Renee Calhoun is a licensed marriage and family therapist with over a decade of experience in trauma, family systems, and human trafficking prevention. In this conversation, we dig into the real roots of over-functioning: where it starts in childhood, why it gets praised, and what it’s quietly doing to your body, your relationships, and your kids.

We cover:

• The family roles that shape how you show up as an adult

• Why over-functioning isn’t controlling — it’s hypervigilant

• The generational patterns Xennials and Gen X are finally breaking

• What the breaking point usually looks like — and what comes after

• Practical tools to interrupt the cycle without burning everything down

Free resource: Renee is offering a free journaling guide for over-functioning women on her new site, Therapy Snacks — use code word HOPE to download it for free.

Find Renee at TherapySnacks.com or  ReneeCalhounLMFT.com.

 Book directly with her if you’re in Pennsylvania or New York. 

Enjoying the show? Here are two ways to go deeper:

🔗 Download the free “Who the F*ck Am I Now?” workbook — the starting point for women who are ready to stop surviving and start figuring out what’s next. [link]

📩 Ready for your next move? DM me NEXT on Instagram @kristygiarratano

What if the life you’ve been living isn’t wrong — it just needs to be rewoven?

This week I’m sitting down with Laura Nespoli, strategic storyteller, founder of Meshin Movement, and author of the newly released memoir-meets-workbook Threads of Me and You. Laura spent 20 years helping brands like Google, Meta, and Southwest Airlines shape their stories — and from the outside, her life looked exactly like it was supposed to.

Until it didn’t.

At 38, something cracked open. And what followed was a two-year journey through emotional breakdown, childhood trauma, identity crisis, and ultimately — a complete reweaving of who she was and what she was here to do.

In this episode we talk about:

• What it actually means to be a highly sensitive person and empath — and why so many high-achieving women don’t know they are one

• How your body keeps score long before your brain catches up

• The cycle of beliefs, thoughts, feelings, and actions — and how to hack it when you have zero self-worth to start with

• Why growth in one partner can feel threatening to the other (and what Laura and her husband actually did about it)

• The concept of wonderlust — and why curiosity about your inner world is the fuel for everything

• What self-awareness looks like in practice (hint: it’s not a vibe, it’s a skill)

And her most powerful mic-drop of the episode: “You don’t need to tear it all down. Your life doesn’t need to be rebuilt. It needs to be rewoven.”

If you’ve ever felt like something was missing but couldn’t name it — this one’s for you.

Connect with Laura:

meshinmovement.com

Threads of Me and You — [Grab it on Amazon HERE]

Ready to figure out your next move?

DM me NEXT on Instagram or grab your Next Move Blueprint™ Session [HERE]

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