Notes from the Edge

Would you look away? Ruth E. Stitt is an author and licensed counselor whose family’s preserved letters from Nazi Germany reveal how persecution can unfold gradually, how difficult escape can become, and what happens when ordinary people decide whether to remain bystanders or stand up. In 1938, Ruth’s grandmother in Bridgeport, Connecticut received a letter from relatives in Berlin desperately searching for a way out of Nazi Germany. What followed was five years of correspondence filled with hope, fear, bureaucracy, attempted immigration, love and devastating loss. In this conversation, Ruth a

What if the patterns you keep repeating are not who you are, but behaviors you learned long ago and never stopped to question? Arky Jones, creator of Personality Peek, joins Notes From the Edge to explore how self-awareness can help us recognize the patterns quietly shaping our choices, relationships, work, and identity without turning personality into another label or box.  This conversation gets practical fast. Lisa and Arky talk about what happens when we realize we have been living according to other people’s expectations, how toxic workplace dynamics can make us feel powerless, and why ta

Dr. Christopher Barker is a clinical psychologist and author whose work explores complex trauma, attachment, and one powerful idea: high functioning and psychological health are not always the same thing. In this conversation, we dig into what happens when competence, independence, perfectionism, and overachievement become survival adaptations. We talk about why you can intellectually know a relationship is unhealthy and still feel pulled toward it, why “energizing” can sometimes be mistaken for love, and how the nervous system can keep anticipating danger long after the original threat is gon

Why can leaving someone who hurts you feel almost impossible? Lisa Lacy, trauma educator and relationship advisor, explores trauma bonding and why intelligence alone cannot protect us from relationships that reshape our attachment, reward, and stress systems. At 40, while in inpatient rehab, Lisa was told she was trauma bonded to her husband. Her response was, “I’m too smart for that.” It would take three more years to go fully no contact, and another three to work through the anger and resentment left behind. In this solo episode, she explains the biology of intermittent reinforcement, why se

What happens when the life that looks successful from the outside is quietly falling apart underneath? Rose Ann Forte is an international bestselling author and creator of the Choose Freedom® Program, and her work explores how lasting change can happen without building an identity around shame. In this conversation, Lisa and Rose Ann talk about Rose Ann’s years as a successful executive and church leader while privately struggling with alcohol, toxic relationships, and the pressure to keep everyone else happy. They explore why traditional recovery language did not resonate with her, how neuros

What if suicide prevention is about more than keeping someone alive for the next 72 hours? In this special September Suicide Prevention Month solo episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy speaks from lived experience about her first suicide attempt at 15, later attempts, psychiatric hospitalization, and the complicated work of finding reasons to remain when life has become unbearable. Lisa remembers arriving at the hospital still wearing her cheerleader jacket, being met with shame instead of understanding, and later experiencing psychiatric interventions that contained a crisis without neces

What if the thing you call your personality is actually something you learned to perform in order to survive? Ashley Townsend is a transformational and integration coach and complex trauma recovery specialist who spent 15 years working inside the mental health system before deciding that traditional labels and approaches were no longer enough. In this conversation, Ashley and I go straight into what made her become a self-described “former LCSW gone rogue.” We talk about what she witnessed working across domestic violence, addiction, foster care and trauma treatment, and how being blind shaped

What do we reach for when the thing that gave us purpose, identity, adrenaline, and belonging is suddenly gone? Sean Carberry is an award-winning journalist and former NPR Kabul correspondent whose experience raises a difficult question: what happens when you come home from years of danger, but your mind and body are still wired to look for it? In this episode of Notes From the Edge, Sean and Lisa Lacy talk about what happened after Afghanistan, when Sean returned to civilian life carrying undiagnosed PTSD, without the structure, intensity, or sense of purpose that had defined his years overse

What if the behavior you’re trying hardest to get rid of was once the very thing that helped you survive? Carol Look is a psychotherapist and founding EFT Master who has spent decades helping people understand the emotional patterns underneath self-sabotage, and why lasting change often begins with asking what the behavior is protecting us from. In this episode of Notes From the Edge, Carol and Lisa Lacy explore the idea that the problem was once the solution. Addiction, procrastination, people pleasing, overworking, staying invisible, and even creating chaos can serve a purpose when the nervo

How much longer are you willing to wait for someone else to validate what you already know happened? Lisa Lacy is a trauma educator and relationship advisor exploring one powerful idea: sometimes closure is not something another person gives you, it is something you create by trusting your own experience. In this short solo episode, Lisa shares what she learned from waiting for accountability, explanations, and validation that never came, and why healing began when she stopped requiring someone else’s version of the story to confirm her own. In this episode: Closure after betrayal Rebuilding

What happens when everyone needs you to be okay, but you’re barely surviving yourself? Hollywood screenwriter and producer Lee Ehlers spent years learning how to survive rejection, but nothing prepared him for the loss of his wife, Erin, or for discovering that sometimes the strongest thing you can do is stop pretending you’re okay. Lee’s professional breakthrough and personal devastation collided when his feature film EXES was finally being made as his high school sweetheart and wife of twenty years was dying from breast cancer. Suddenly widowed with children who were just 10, 7, and 5, Lee f

What if real masculine strength has less to do with pushing harder and more to do with learning how to regulate yourself, feel deeply, and stay present under pressure? Michael Ostrolenk, licensed marriage and family therapist and master coach, joins Lisa Lacy to explore one central idea: mature masculinity is not domination, suppression, or performance. It is self-governance. Michael introduces his concept of “Negative 20X,” challenging high performers to consider whether slowing down may require more courage than pushing harder. Lisa and Michael also unpack his Sovereign Gentleman framework,

What happens when you stop the addiction, but the pain underneath it is still running your life? Dr. Dean Sunseri, licensed professional counselor, and HollyKem Sunseri, certified life coach with more than four decades in recovery, explore the work they call emotional sobriety: healing the emotional wounds and protective patterns that can remain long after the substance or destructive behavior is gone. In this conversation, we go beyond abstinence and into what Dean and HollyKem call Stage Two recovery. We talk about why unresolved pain can “seep out” through substitute addictions, anger, isol

Who told you that you were too sensitive, too difficult, selfish, dramatic, unstable, or simply too much? And when did someone else’s opinion become part of your identity? In this solo episode of Notes From the Edge, trauma educator Lisa Lacy explores how labels, family roles, survival adaptations, and other people’s perceptions can quietly become the stories we tell ourselves about who we are, and what can happen when we finally question who handed us those stories in the first place. Lisa examines the difference between personality and adaptation, why competence can become armor, and how a l

What happens when men are taught that vulnerability is weakness, but connection is exactly what they need most? Jason Lange is a men’s embodiment coach and group facilitator who believes men don’t need to become tougher. They need the language, relationships, and spaces that allow them to become more fully human. In this conversation, Jason shares how growing up without emotional or physical connection left him unable to understand what was happening inside his own body, eventually leading to shame, isolation, and unhealthy ways of coping. He takes us inside the somatic breakthrough that chang

What happens when you spend decades believing you’re lazy, too much, unreliable or simply doing life wrong, only to discover your brain has been working differently all along? Ellie AuDHD Capstick is an AuDHD educator and podcast host whose late diagnosis gave her something she had spent a lifetime searching for: language for experiences she once understood as personal failures. In this conversation, Ellie gets candid about the collision of ADHD and autism, years of masking and pushing herself into burnout, and why she doesn’t automatically call neurodivergence a “superpower.” She also shares

What if the secret to a healthier, happier, more sustainable life is hiding in a bin of worms, a jar of sprouts and one really good belly laugh? Cathy Nesbitt is an award-winning entrepreneur and laughter yoga teacher who has spent more than two decades showing people how worms, sprouts, and laughter can create a healthier, more sustainable life. In this episode, Cathy and Lisa go from the surprising story behind Cathy’s “worm empire” to why she believes laughter is an essential tool for navigating stress. They talk about turning food waste into “black gold,” growing your own nutrition through

What if moving forward doesn’t require you to “get over” what happened? Stephanie Renner is an attorney, keynote speaker, and creator of the Regret to Resilience Method™, a framework for moving through unresolved guilt and regret without erasing the people, experiences, or losses that shaped us. After the death of her son Jordan by suicide, Stephanie’s understanding of regret became deeply personal. In this conversation, we talk about the brutal “if onlys” that can follow loss, the illusion of control, and why building a meaningful life after grief doesn’t mean leaving someone behind. We also

What happens when menopause doesn’t create the crisis, but exposes everything your mind and body have spent decades carrying? Lisa Lacy, writer and host of Notes From the Edge, explores how surgical menopause collided with a lifetime of trauma, recovery, psychiatric diagnoses, chronic illness and survival. After having her ovaries unexpectedly removed at 45, Lisa experienced rage, panic, depression, insomnia, brain fog and an unsettling loss of identity. In this solo episode, she examines what happens when hormonal change collides with years of stored stress, hypervigilance and survival patter

What happens to the spouse when the person with the addiction gets all the attention? In this deeply personal conversation, Lisa Lacy sits down with author, speaker and advocate Roxanna Johnson to talk about the side of sexual addiction that is too often forgotten: betrayal trauma and what it does to the partner left trying to make sense of a life that suddenly feels unrecognizable. After nearly 24 years of marriage, Roxanna discovered that her husband had been living with a hidden pattern of sexual addiction. She calls the disclosure “the bomb” because it didn’t simply reveal a secret. It ble

What happens when achievement becomes a substitute for being seen? Writer, memoirist, and speaker Daniel Sterling joins Lisa Lacy for a candid conversation about men’s mental health, male loneliness, emotional vulnerability, masculinity, identity, and what it takes to raise emotionally whole boys. Daniel traces his own journey from an eight-year-old alpine ski racer who discovered the powerful rush of recognition to becoming one of the top ski racers in the country, then pursuing success through television, broadcasting, screenwriting, and filmmaking. But underneath the ambition was something

Why does someone stay in a relationship they know is hurting them? And why can leaving feel almost physically unbearable, even when you know you need to go? In this special solo episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy shares her own experience of spending 13 years in a marriage marked by addiction, betrayal, coercive control, gaslighting and trauma bonding. At the time, Lisa was also carrying diagnoses of borderline personality disorder, bipolar disorder, complex PTSD, chronic alcoholism and codependency while managing a congenital blood disease. Over time, the chaos became so disorienting t

What if psychiatry looked beyond symptoms and asked a different question: What else could be happening here? In this episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy sits down with Dr. Naveen Thomas, board-certified psychiatrist and founder of Clarity Integrative Psychiatry, for a wide-ranging conversation about what mental healthcare can look like when we stop treating the diagnosis as the whole person. Dr. Thomas shares why his approach to psychiatry evolved beyond the familiar cycle of symptoms, diagnosis, medication, adjustment, and another medication. Instead, he explores the biological, psychol

What happens when you realize the life you worked so hard to hold together no longer feels like your own? In this episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy sits down with Jodi Koch, CEO of Elizabeth Erin Designs and host of Designing in 5D, for a conversation that begins with interior design and quickly becomes something much bigger: divorce recovery, people-pleasing, perfectionism, childhood conditioning, hypervigilance, intuition, reinvention, and learning to trust yourself again. Jodi shares how growing up as the child who took care of everyone shaped her into an adult who carried everythin

What if stress isn’t simply something to eliminate, but something trying to show us where healing needs to happen? In this episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy sits down with mental health counselor, meditation teacher, spiritual guide, author, and podcast host Dean Graves for a wide-ranging conversation about consciousness, trauma healing, identity, mindfulness, addiction recovery, spiritual awakening, emotional healing, and the search for meaning. Dean explores the idea that much of what we call our “identity” is something we construct over a lifetime, shaped by experiences, thoughts, e

Women have it harder. There, I said it. And no, this is not a man-hating manifesto. I love men. In fact, parts of my romantic history would suggest I may have loved them a little too enthusiastically. This conversation is not about blaming men. It is about refusing to lie about what women experience in order to make anyone more comfortable. In this solo episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy explores the cumulative cost of moving through the world as a woman: the expectation of self-sacrifice in motherhood and family life, the invisible labor women carry, the gender pay gap, sexual violence

The drug landscape facing teenagers is changing faster than many parents realize. In this second conversation with author, educator, private investigator, and ASAP Community founder Dave Kopeny, we go straight into what parents need to know about adolescent substance use, prevention, and the increasingly easy access young people have to potentially addictive substances. Dave discusses Kratom, products being sold in convenience stores and gas stations, changing marijuana potency, social media exposure, peer influence, family patterns, and why waiting until a child is already struggling with add

What if designing a kitchen and designing a life have more in common than we think? In this episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy sits down with kitchen designer and longtime construction professional Marvin Towler for a conversation that begins with kitchen remodeling, budgets, and beautiful spaces, then takes the kind of unexpected rabbit holes we love around here. Marvin shares why a dream isn’t enough when you’re renovating a home. You need a plan. From kitchen layouts and cabinetry to flooring, appliances, construction costs, and the unexpected expenses that can derail a remodel, Marv

What if the story that will not leave you alone is not merely asking to be written, but asking to become a message that changes lives?In this live episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy sits down with her publisher, award-winning author, publishing strategist, and Light Warrior Publishing founder Missy Maxwell Worton for an honest conversation about writing through fear, publishing with purpose, and turning lived experience into lasting impact. Missy has helped hundreds of purpose-driven authors move from an idea to a completed manuscript, publication, launch, platform growth, and bestsel

This conversation includes candid discussion of suicide, suicidal ideation, attempts, grief, and the emotional realities carried by survivors and the people who love them. What happens when someone finally tells the whole truth and discovers that the person listening does not panic, turn away, or try to make the story more comfortable? In this episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy sits down with Sean Wellington, founder and host of the Suicide Noted podcast, for a candid conversation about suicide, survival, silence, and what it means to truly listen. Since launching Suicide Noted in

What happens when success arrives before you have had the chance to understand who you are? In this episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy sits down with transformational mentor, trauma-informed coach, motivational speaker, former child performer, and Licensed Vocational Nurse Hilary Momberger Powers. Hilary began working in front of the camera at five years old as the voice of Sally Brown in the Peanuts cartoons. Behind the early success, however, were unresolved childhood wounds that later contributed to addiction, painful choices, and a life that began to unravel. After entering re

What happens when empathy feels less like a gift and more like carrying everyone else’s emotions inside your own body? In this episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy sits down with former client, author, entrepreneur, and radio host Saylor Cooper for an honest conversation about blindness, disability, emotional intelligence, nervous-system awareness, boundaries, and learning how to become the container instead of the sponge. Saylor shares how understanding his emotional depth helped him become calmer, more grounded, and more connected to who he has always been at his core. We also explo

When doing everything “right” in recovery leaves you smaller, sicker, and further away from yourself.For two years, I did exactly what I was told. Six days a week. Sometimes two meetings a day. Inpatient rehabilitation. Outpatient rehabilitation. Sponsors. Step work. Inventories. Confessions. Amends. I stayed sober. But I was not becoming healthier. I was becoming smaller. In this deeply personal episode of Notes From the Edge, I explore what happens when a recovery model fails to recognize the person sitting in front of it, especially when that person is also carrying childhood trauma,

Beth Granger on visibility, digital trust, critical conversations, and staying human in an increasingly automated world Technology can help us reach thousands of people, write polished messages, and build impressive networks. But it cannot create trust for us. Beth Granger is a speaker, consultant, trainer, emcee, and LinkedIn and networking strategist who helps professionals communicate more confidently, navigate critical conversations, and turn online connections into meaningful relationships. Her message is simple and increasingly urgent: You can’t automate relationships. In this episode of

What happens when nothing you accomplish ever seems to be enough? In this solo episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy explores the long-term impact of chronic devaluation, especially when it begins in childhood. She shares personal stories of earning straight A’s, leading teams, serving on committees, excelling in performance, and still feeling as though the finish line kept moving. When you are told to go left and then criticized for not going right, you may stop trusting your own direction. Over time, that confusion can shape your confidence, your relationships, your ambition, and your

Bryan Blackmon left Texas for California chasing a dream. Instead, he found himself homeless, sleeping in his car, and drowning in alcohol and addiction. Then an elderly landlord named Elaine chose not to give up on him. Her belief became a turning point, but Bryan still had to do the work of becoming someone he could believe in, too. Today, Bryan is sober, a recovery advocate, transformation coach, and the creator of Crab Crew Life, a community built around recovery, resilience, adaptability, accountability, and belief. Bryan says the crab does not swim. It does not fly. It claws its way forw

It is exactly midnight, I am editing Notes From a Certified Madwoman, and I have finally realized something: Maybe I was never crazy. Maybe I was wounded, dysregulated, surviving, and just slightly feral. In this solo episode of Midnight Menopausal Meanderings, I talk about what happens when trauma is mistaken for personality, survival responses are reduced to mental illness, and the context of a person’s life disappears beneath the diagnosis. This is not an argument against therapy, psychiatry, medication, recovery, or mental health treatment. Those things save lives, including mine.

The Price of Waiting for Permission and the Power of Becoming Visible Anyway What happens when a woman stops waiting to feel confident, stops explaining every decision, and starts building the life she knows she is capable of creating? In this episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy sits down with award-winning entrepreneur, author, podcast host, and founder of the Badass Queen™ movement, Renee Carbone Fleming. Renee filed for bankruptcy. Her marriage ended. She found herself rebuilding from the ground up and made a two-word decision that would shape everything that followed: Watch m

Female Anger, Menopause, and What Happens When the Manageable Woman Disappears People celebrate strong women until those women get angry, set boundaries, stop apologizing, or remove access. In this episode of Midnight Menopausal Meanderings, Lisa Lacy explores female anger, menopause, nervous-system overload, and what happens when the emotionally manageable woman begins to disappear. Menopause may not create a new, irrational woman. It may reveal the woman who spent decades swallowing betrayal, exhaustion, grief, emotional labor, and uncomfortable truths to keep everyone else comfortable.

What happens when the thing that made you feel most alive nearly kills you? “Rocketman” Dan Schlund is one of the last professionally trained Rocketbelt pilots in the world. For a decade, he flew jet packs at events across 25 countries and six continents, performing hundreds of flights without a parachute and with only seconds of fuel strapped to his back. But Dan’s most extraordinary story began after the spectacle ended. Following devastating burns, extensive skin-graft surgeries, and a crash that left him with a broken neck, Dan lost far more than his ability to fly. He lost his income, his

Psychiatric labels, medical dismissal, and what happens when a human being becomes paperwork What happens when a provider sees your psychiatric history before they truly see you? In this deeply personal solo episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy explores the dangerous gap between being treated as a medically complex human being and being reduced to “the psychiatric patient.” Drawing from her lived experience inside mental health facilities, jail, addiction recovery, emergency rooms, and repeated life-threatening medical crises, Lisa examines how quickly dignity, autonomy, and credibility c

What happens when you grow up without hearing “I love you,” without being held, and without learning what safe, enduring affection feels like? In this deeply personal solo episode of Midnight Menopausal Meanderings, I explore the difference between loving someone and knowing how to experience love. My parents never told me they loved me. My father wrote the words in letters I would not open until decades later, after he died. My mother never said them. I learned touch through violation rather than comfort, and when I became a mother, I had to consciously teach myself how to hug my daughter and

Burnout, Boundaries, and Why the Most Capable Person in the Room May Be Closest to the Edge What happens when competence becomes a survival strategy? In this episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy sits down with life coach and former technology leader Loren Silverman for an honest conversation about burnout, overthinking, boundaries, self-abandonment, and the hidden cost of always being the capable one. After nearly two decades working in technology, program management, and digital transformation, Loren realized that the part of his career that mattered most was not the technology. It was h

How Parents Can Recognize Risk, Interrupt Addiction, and Become Their Child’s Strongest Protective Force Every parent wants to believe their child will know how to recognize danger, make the right decision, and walk away when drugs enter the picture. But today’s drug landscape is more accessible, potent, and aggressively marketed than many families realize. By the time a parent knows something is wrong, the problem may already be much larger than anyone understood. In this episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy sits down with author, educator, private investigator, and addiction prevention

Jim Hughes on Identity, Fear, Self-Judgment, and Becoming the Person Beneath the Performance The person who got you here may have been exactly who you needed to become. The achiever. The problem-solver. The founder who never stops moving. The leader who learned how to carry the pressure, meet the expectations, and become whatever the moment required. But what happens when that identity begins keeping you from where you want to go next? In this episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy sits down with coach, author, speaker, and Untamed founder Jim Hughes for a conversation about the stories, fe

Curiosity, Compliance, and Teams That Think. Why do capable, intelligent teams stop taking initiative? Sometimes it is not because people are lazy, disengaged, or unwilling to contribute. Sometimes they have learned that following directions is safer than asking questions, challenging assumptions, or offering an original idea. In this episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy sits down with Dr. Katie Trowbridge, an award-winning educator, TEDx speaker, leadership strategist, author, and CEO of Curiosity 2 Create. After more than 25 years in the classroom, Katie began bringing the principles of

What happens when someone you love is in crisis, refuses help, and waiting for them to become “ready” may cost them their life? In this episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy sits down with attorney, former prosecutor, and family crisis advocate Mark Astor for a necessary and deeply human conversation about addiction, severe mental illness, involuntary treatment, family trauma, and the difficult line between compassion and enabling. Mark is a partner at Astor Simovitch Law, where he helps families navigate crises involving psychiatric instability, substance use, failed treatment efforts, me

Addiction, Bipolar Disorder, and Rebuilding a Life with the S.O.B.E.R. Method What happens when you remove the substance, but the pain, pressure, and survival patterns underneath it remain? In this episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy sits down with author, entrepreneur, podcast host, and addiction recovery advocate Massimo Rigotti for an honest conversation about addiction, bipolar disorder, grief, confidence, and the complicated work of rebuilding a life in recovery. After navigating addiction, mental-health challenges, professional upheaval, and devastating personal loss, Massimo creat

Richard Spegal on Dark Fantasy, Mental Health, and the Battles Within Author Richard Spegal returns to Notes From the Edge for a deeper conversation about the profoundly human truths hiding inside dark fantasy. Richard creates supernatural worlds filled with danger, moral complexity, and characters who are anything but one-dimensional. Beneath the monsters, battles, curses, and impossible choices are people wrestling with grief, trauma, isolation, identity, loyalty, responsibility, and the war taking place inside their own minds. Drawing from 21 years of service in the United States Army, incl

In this deeply personal solo episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy records at 3 a.m., during the hour when the world grows quiet and every unfamiliar sensation in the body becomes impossible to ignore. Lisa lives with hereditary antithrombin deficiency, a rare congenital blood disorder that allows her blood to clot even while she is taking medication designed to prevent it. After surviving multiple pulmonary embolisms, permanent lung damage, years of medical dismissal, and surgical menopause, she knows what it means to live inside a body that cannot be completely trusted. But this episode