We Are Women Unapologetically

Melissa K. Range spent years in a marriage that was damaging her confidence before she felt able to leave. In this conversation, she joins Jessica Cumming to talk about the distance between seeing a problem and being ready to act on it.

Melissa shares why divorce did not feel like an option for years, how she kept up appearances while struggling privately, and how Al-Anon helped her turn her focus back to herself. She is clear that nobody in Al-Anon told her whether to get a divorce. They held space for her to do what was best for her and her children.

They also talk about rebuilding confidence, learning to hold boundaries, and why Melissa believes everyone is on their own timeline.

Connect with Melissa: https://reclaimrebuildrestore.com

Connect with Jessica on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessicacumming04

Connect with Jessica on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jessica.cumming

Work with Jessica:

Private executive coaching: https://www.jcnewbeginnings.com/coaching

Keynotes, leadership workshops, and corporate training: https://www.jcnewbeginnings.com/speaking

Liz M. Lopez, an executive coach, author and speaker, took a stable corporate job for security, then realized what it was costing her.

In this episode of We Are Women, Unapologetically, Liz and I discuss why she returned to corporate after building her own business, the expectations she placed on herself as an equal provider and the point when she knew the sacrifice was no longer worth it.

This is Liz’s personal story, not a verdict on any employer or every corporate role.

You’ll hear:

• Why Liz asks “Is it true?” before deciding a stable job is the only safe option

• The difference between your job and your career

• How to decide which sacrifices are worth making

• What pricing too low taught her about the doubts it can create

• Why she chose to do it scared

• What success without apologies means to her

CONNECT WITH LIZ M. LOPEZ

Website: https://lizmlopez.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lizmlopez
Book: https://lizmlopez.com/permission-to-dominate/

CONNECT WITH JESSICA CUMMING

Explore executive coaching:
https://www.jcnewbeginnings.com/coaching

Book Jessica for a keynote, workshop or leadership session:
https://www.jcnewbeginnings.com/speaking

Connect with Jessica on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessicacumming04/

Download the free Clarity in 10 Reset™:
https://www.jcnewbeginnings.com/clarity-in-10

Subscribe and share this episode with someone questioning the personal cost of a stable role.

How do you rebuild when infertility, a near-fatal cardiac emergency, and a permanent arm injury change the life you expected? Resilience coach Cynthia Conigliaro, founder of Workwell Webinars, joins Jessica Cumming to discuss grief, loss of control, identity after physical change, and adapting when returning to your old normal is no longer possible. Cynthia shares how gestational surrogacy, a heart rate of 16 that led to a pacemaker, and a permanently dislocated elbow tested the resilience she teaches others, while helping listeners recognize their own resilience stories without minimizing what they lost.

Connect with Cynthia and Workwell Webinars: https://workwellwebinars.com/

All Paths Infertility Support Group:  https://allpathsfb.org/support/  

Learn more about Jessica Cumming:
https://www.jcnewbeginnings.com

Connect with Jessica on LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessicacumming04/

How does surviving crisis change the way you lead, make decisions, and decide what matters next?

Fay Niewiadomski joins Jessica Cumming to share what living through Lebanon’s 15-year civil war, caregiving for seriously ill parents, and rebuilding after profound loss taught her about resilience, leadership, reinvention, and choice.

If you are navigating a career transition, caregiving season, leadership challenge, or a decision where every option carries a cost, this conversation will give you a grounded way to think about what comes next.

The relationship you have with yourself affects how you set boundaries, communicate what you need, recover from mistakes, and navigate change.

I sit down with Susie Hall, The Sassy Godmother and author of Sassy Godmother’s Pearls of Wisdom: 50 Inspiring Ways to Navigate Your Life, for a wide-ranging conversation about self-love, assertiveness, vulnerability, grief, self-forgiveness, course corrections, and intentionally making room for joy.

If you know how to handle almost anything but want to become more thoughtful about how you treat yourself and spend your time, this conversation is for you.

CONNECT WITH SUSIE

Website and book:

https://thesassygodmother.com/

WORK WITH JESSICA

Private executive coaching:

https://www.jcnewbeginnings.com/coaching

Keynotes, leadership workshops, and corporate training:

https://www.jcnewbeginnings.com/speaking

Start the free Clarity in 10 Reset™:

https://www.jcnewbeginnings.com/clarity-in-10

Connect with Jessica on LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessicacumming04/

How do you find yourself again after divorce, especially when your career, faith and identity are changing too?

In this episode of We Are Women, Unapologetically, Jessica Cumming talks with self-discovery travel coach Dawn Pick Benson about starting over in midlife, learning to trust her own voice and building a career around what brings her alive.

After 19 years of marriage, Dawn began questioning her relationship, career and the expectations she had spent years trying to meet. Much of that questioning began several years before her divorce was final. Walking away carried personal, professional and spiritual consequences. It also forced Dawn to confront a difficult truth: she had spent much of her life looking outside herself for answers.

Dawn shares how therapy, solo travel and time away from familiar expectations, including extended stays in Kosovo, gave her space to hear her own voice. She also opens up about accepting an available job without first deciding what she truly wanted. Later, the words “travel coach” came to her during meditation and eventually led her to build Brave Journey.

In this conversation, we discuss:

• Finding yourself after divorce
• Midlife career reinvention
• Learning to trust your own voice
• Leaving a career that no longer fits
• Solo travel and self-discovery
• Making major life changes one step at a time
• Choosing work that brings you alive

If you are facing divorce, questioning your career or wondering who you are after years of meeting everyone else’s expectations, this conversation is a reminder that you do not need every answer before taking your next step.

Connect with Dawn Pick Benson:

Website: https://dawnpickbenson.com
Instagram: @dawnpickbenson
Substack: Wandersmitten

Connect with Jessica Cumming:

Website: https://jcnewbeginnings.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessicacumming04/

If this conversation has you questioning whether your career or life still fits who you are now, connect with Jessica to explore executive coaching. Organizations can also work with Jessica through keynote speaking, corporate training and organization-sponsored coaching.

Subscribe to We Are Women, Unapologetically for honest conversations about career transitions, leadership, reinvention and building a life that reflects who you are now.

#MidlifeReinvention #LifeAfterDivorce #CareerChange #SoloTravel

After 28 years of marriage, Sandy Colling left a husband struggling with alcoholism. Within days, she was evicted. She went from food stamps and rock bottom to rebuilding her life and starting her own travel business.

In this episode of We Are Women, Unapologetically, I sit down with Sandy to talk about marrying at 20, the independence she developed early in life, and the exhaustion that came from feeling like she had to handle everything alone.

We also talk about loyalty, staying “for the kids,” and the difficult realization that staying may not protect a family in the way you intended. Sandy shares what it took to begin again financially, trust herself, and rebuild everything from nothing.

Travel has been part of Sandy’s story since childhood. When she was six, her nine-year-old brother died, and her family traveled as a way of coping with the loss. That connection eventually became a career built around helping other women experience the confidence and transformation that can come from navigating somewhere new.

Sandy is a travel advisor, author, and host of The Travel Lounge Life podcast. She also leads small-group trips for women who are ready to stop waiting and go.

Follow We Are Women, Unapologetically for more honest conversations about navigating change, rebuilding your life, and choosing what comes next—because shift happens, but you don’t have to do it alone.

Connect with Sandy:

Website: https://justtravelwithsandy.com
Email: [email protected]
Facebook group: Luxury Travel Advisor Sandy European Vacations and Group Tours for Women 45 Plus

Connect with Jessica:

Website: https://jcnewbeginnings.com
Email: [email protected]

What happens when shame becomes part of your identity before you are old enough to understand it?

For 40 years, Chantelle Botha carried three words that shaped how she saw herself: broken, deviant and twisted. Those words followed her into her relationships, career, sexuality, addiction and the life she kept trying to rebuild.

In this candid conversation, Chantelle shares how she survived crystal meth addiction, relapse, homelessness, the loss of her father and a moment when she came dangerously close to ending her life. She also explains what changed when she stopped hiding, began examining the story beneath her shame and finally said the words she had been afraid to say.

Jessica and Chantelle discuss:

• How shame can quietly become a subconscious identity

• Why addiction is often about more than the substance

• The moment Chantelle’s 13-year-old son forced her to face what was happening

• The final words her father gave her: “Stop asking why. Start asking what next.”

• Why shame can return even after years of personal growth

• The connection Chantelle sees between desire, creativity and leadership

• Why saying the words out loud can become the beginning of change

Chantelle’s story is direct, provocative and deeply human. Reinvention does not erase your past. It changes the authority your past has over your future.

Connect with Chantelle Botha:

• Website: https://phoenixconfidence.com

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chantellebotha-confidence/

Connect with Jessica Cumming and JC New Beginnings:

• Website: https://jcnewbeginnings.com

• Email:[email protected]

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessicacumming04/

Content note: This episode includes candid discussion of addiction, recovery and relapse, suicidal thoughts and planning, childhood sexual behavior, adult sexual experiences and themes of shame and self-abandonment. Please take care of yourself while listening. If you or someone you know is experiencing a mental health crisis in the United States, call or text 988 for immediate support. The 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline is free, confidential and available 24/7. https://988lifeline.org

Jessica Cumming, executive coach and former Dell Technologies leader, revisits the exact moment self-trust turned into second-guessing, and how to reverse it. If you already know the answer but keep asking everyone else first, this encore episode is for you.

This episode traces the turning point when instinct became hesitation, from a nine-year-old alone on the Stockholm subway to a black car she never wanted parked in a Texas driveway. Jessica breaks down why capable, high-achieving women learn to override their own judgment, why certainty starts to feel like it needs permission, and what the research says about the pressure to seek outside validation before trusting your own decisions. You'll hear the data on why 59% of women feel pressure to meet others' expectations, why the average adult's 35,000 daily decisions hit differently when self-trust is missing, and a simple weekly practice for rebuilding your own instincts one choice at a time.

If you have been outsourcing your knowing, waiting for permission you never needed, this is the episode to start reversing it.

Connect with Jessica on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessicacumming04/

Book Jessica to speak: https://www.jcnewbeginnings.com/speaking

Amber Swenor, founder of Soul Seed Strategy, has built a marketing business past seven figures, written a Wall Street Journal bestseller, and fronted a metal band for nearly two decades. In this conversation, she explores what happens when success no longer fits and how she's redefining success on her own terms through growth, joy, energy, creativity, and work that fits who she's becoming.

Amber and Jessica also discuss the self-editing beneath outward confidence, the money wounds that shaped some of her early pricing decisions, the editor feedback that helped her keep writing, and why she won't outsource her creative voice to AI.

Connect with Amber: https://amber-swenor.com

Connect with Jessica: https://jcnewbeginnings.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessicacumming04/