Episodes

We know our parents as Mom and Dad. We know the stories they’ve told us, the family history, the traditions, the big moments. But how well do we really know the people they were before they became our parents? In this episode of Message in the Middle, I’m talking with Neil Taylor, founder of Me and My Old Man, about the conversations we so often put off with our aging parents and the stories we may never get to hear if we wait too long. Neil’s own journey into this work began in 2021, when he...

What if your child’s success has quietly become your success, and their struggles feel like your failures? For many mothers, that connection can be hard to see, especially after our children become adults. We know we can't control their choices, yet we still worry, advise, fix, compare, and sometimes lie awake at 2 a.m. wondering if we somehow got it wrong. That is exactly where today’s conversation with Gigi Baxter begins. Gigi spent thirty years quietly grading herself as a mother. When one...

There are some life changes we choose. And then there are the ones that choose us. In January 2024, Jennifer White woke from a coma following brain tumor surgery and found herself facing a life she barely recognized. A retired registered nurse, Jennifer knew the healthcare system from one side of the bed. Suddenly, she was experiencing it from the other. She had to relearn how to walk, think and talk. Some memories returned slowly through writing. Others may never return. And while many of th...

Sometimes life isn’t falling apart because of one big thing. It’s just… a lot. The news feels relentless. The world feels increasingly complicated. Family dynamics can be difficult. Aging parents bring a whole new set of responsibilities. Health concerns, work, relationships, and the everyday stuff of life keep piling on. And somehow, we’re still supposed to keep going. In this solo episode of Message in the Middle, Marianne talks about what it feels like when life is really, truly “lifing.” ...

What if your marriage doesn't need a new person? What if it needs two people willing to become new versions of themselves, intentionally choosing each other, over and over? That's the question at the heart of my conversation with Kameran Alareqi, a Gottman Certified marriage coach, host of the Married and Connected podcast, and founder of the Recognizing Potential Coaching Program. Kameran doesn't talk about marriage from a textbook. She's lived through infidelity, infertility, divorce...

Anxiety doesn't always arrive with racing thoughts or panic attacks. Sometimes it shows up as perfectionism. People pleasing. Constant overthinking. Staying busy so you never have to slow down long enough to notice how exhausted you've become. It quietly convinces us to stop taking chances, stop trusting ourselves, and settle for surviving instead of truly living. This week on Message in the Middle, Marianne sits down with registered psychotherapist, internationally certified EMDR therapist, ...

We spend years preparing for retirement. We save, invest, plan for healthcare, and think about how we'll spend our time. But what about preparing for who we'll be when the work is gone? What no one tells you about life after work is that retirement isn't simply a change in schedule. It's a change in identity. When the meetings end, the calendar goes quiet, and the role you've spent decades becoming disappears, the freedom you imagined can sometimes feel surprisingly unfamiliar. In this episod...

Episode Description What happens when you've achieved everything you thought you wanted, only to discover there's something deeper calling you? For more than thirty years, Kathy Robinson built an impressive corporate career, rising to become Chief Audit Executive and Chief Risk Officer at a Fortune 250 company. Then, at the height of her success, she made the courageous decision to walk away. What followed wasn't the end of her story. It was the beginning of a profound transformation. In this...

For years, Nancy Deyo lived by the same rules many of us have been taught to follow: work hard, stay disciplined, push through discomfort, and keep going. Those strategies helped her build a successful career as a Silicon Valley CEO. But after a medical crisis on Mount Kilimanjaro left her living with chronic pain, years of misdiagnosis, opioid dependence, and an entirely different reality than the one she had planned, she was forced to ask a difficult question: What do we do when the strategi...

What happens when the person who once cared for you begins to need your care? For many people in midlife, one of the most unexpected transitions isn't retirement, an empty nest, or a career change. It's becoming the caregiver for an aging parent. In this deeply moving episode of Message in the Middle, Marianne sits down with psychologist, memoirist, and poet Sarah Vosburgh to discuss her memoir, Who Will Name the Bees?, a powerful reflection on her mother's journey through Alzheimer's disease...

Some questions don't have easy answers. Have you ever experienced an unexplained fear that didn't seem connected to anything in your life? Felt an immediate connection with someone you had just met? Or found yourself repeating the same emotional patterns despite years of self-reflection and personal growth? In this follow-up conversation, Marianne welcomes licensed somatic psychotherapist and certified spiritual integration hypnotherapist Melanie Smithson back to Message in the Middle to expl...

Why do we keep reacting in ways we don't fully understand? Why do certain situations seem to hit harder than they should? And why can we have years of insight into our patterns and still feel stuck repeating them? In this episode of Message in the Middle, Marianne sits down with Karen Rubinstein, speaker, author, and creator of The RETURN Way™, to explore the hidden fears and stories that often drive our reactions, relationships, and behaviors. Drawing from her own journey through alcoholism,...

What happens after you speak up? In this deeply thoughtful conversation, Marianne sits down with broadcaster, author, and keynote speaker Lisa Cornwell to explore truth, conflict, accountability, emotional healing, and the complicated aftermath that can follow when someone chooses to speak openly. Following her memoir Troublemaker: A Memoir of Sexism, Retaliation, & the Fight They Didn’t See Coming and a Washington Post investigation into systemic issues in sports media, Lisa became a cen...

What happens when we slow down long enough to truly see another human being? In this deeply thoughtful episode of Message in the Middle, Marianne sits down with Jody Zarn, an author, corporate trainer, and TEDx speaker whose life changed after buying a cup of coffee for a man named Leroy who was experiencing homelessness. What began as one small act of kindness became a life-changing friendship that challenged everything Jody thought she understood about trauma, mental illness, dignity, and h...

Retirement is something many of us prepare for financially, but few of us prepare for emotionally. What happens when the career that shaped your identity, routines, and sense of purpose suddenly disappears? And how do you rediscover yourself when the role you carried for decades is no longer there? In this episode, Marianne sits down with George Jerjian, an Emmy Award-winning producer, author, and retirement mindset mentor who helps people navigate the emotional and psychological side of retire...

There’s no shortage of advice when it comes to gut health right now. Parasite cleanses. Heavy metal detoxes. Protocols that promise to fix everything in a matter of weeks. And if you’ve been dealing with bloating, fatigue, constipation, or symptoms that never quite resolve, it makes sense why those promises are so appealing. But what if some of the things you’re doing to heal are actually putting more stress on your body instead of helping it? In this episode of Message in the Middle, Mariann...

There comes a point in midlife that can feel both confusing and surprisingly unsettling. You've built a life. A career. A reputation. Maybe a family. You've worked hard, made sacrifices, and checked many of the boxes you once thought would lead to happiness and fulfillment. And then one day you find yourself wondering: Why doesn't this fit the way it used to? Not because you've failed. Not because your life is falling apart. But because you've grown. In this episode, Marianne sits down with C...

Sometimes the hardest experiences to recognize are the ones we are living through. Many women think intimate partner violence only looks one way. They picture obvious warning signs, visible injuries, or situations that seem dramatically different from their own. But what happens when the harm is subtle? When it shows up as constant self-doubt, walking on eggshells, losing trust in your own instincts, or slowly becoming someone you no longer recognize? In this powerful conversation, Marianne s...

What if the thing standing between you and the life you still want isn’t talent, timing, or confidence—but tenacity? In this episode of Message in the Middle, Marianne sits down with entrepreneur, creative director, and author Scott Scovill to explore what it really takes to keep going when fear, failure, and self-doubt tell you to stop. Scott’s story doesn’t follow a traditional path. He went from a struggling student who felt “broken” and paralyzed by fear of failure to building one of the m...

There’s a moment in midlife that many women recognize, even if they’ve never had the language for it. You’re no longer who you used to be… but you’re not fully who you’re becoming either. In this episode of Message in the Middle, Marianne sits down with Dr. Sarah Andreas, artist, educator, and author of Step Into the Ether, to explore what she calls the identity gap. That in-between space where old identities begin to fall away and something new is quietly forming. Together, they unpack: &nbs...

What if the answer isn’t to change everything… but to change just a few things that change everything? In this episode of Message in the Middle, Marianne sits down with Dr. Michele Kehrer, business growth coach, entrepreneur, and four-time cancer survivor, to explore what it really means to find clarity in the middle of chaos. After building and selling a successful physical therapy practice in downtown Chicago, Michele now helps overwhelmed entrepreneurs and midlife women step out of constan...

There’s a moment many women reach in midlife where they realize something frustrating… They’ve done the work. They understand their patterns. They’ve processed their experiences. They can talk about their past with clarity and insight. And yet, something still feels stuck. In this episode of Message in the Middle, Marianne sits down with somatic psychotherapist and author Melanie Smithson to explore why insight alone doesn’t always create the healing we’re looking for—and what might be missin...

What happens when you wake up one day and realize your life doesn’t look the way you thought it would? In this episode of Message in the Middle, Marianne sits down with Debbie Weiss, best-selling author, speaker, and host of the Maybe I Can podcast for a deeply honest conversation about what it really takes to change your life in midlife. After decades of caregiving, personal loss, infertility, and feeling defined by her circumstances, Debbie reached a turning point at 50. Not because her life...

In this episode of Message in the Middle, Marianne sits down with therapist, relationships coach, and emotional safety expert Diane McDowell to explore a powerful reframe: What if the challenges in your relationships aren’t about communication or compatibility… but about emotional safety? Because when emotional safety is missing, everything changes. You can know the tools. You can have the awareness. You can want to respond differently. But in the moment, none of it seems to matter. That’s ...