A Fresh Story

Divorce is the intersection of the biggest trauma of your life and the biggest financial decisions of your life — happening at the exact same moment. And yet most people navigate it alone, armed with a lawyer's phone number, a group chat of well-meaning friends, and advice that was never really meant for them. Melissa Murphy Pavone grew up watching what happens when someone has to make those decisions without the right team in their corner. Her mother was that person. And it shaped everything that came after.In this episode of A Fresh Story: Book Talk, Olivia sits down with certified financial planner, certified divorce financial analyst, and founder of Mindful Divorce Partners, Melissa Murphy Pavone, to discuss her book Divorce by Design. Melissa's origin story is one of the most quietly powerful in the Fresh Starts community: she became a CDFA because she watched her mother make decisions with her heart instead of her head during divorce — decisions whose consequences still ripple forward today. Every client she now sits across from, she sees her mom. That depth of personal mission infuses every page of this book. Written to be accessible and even — yes — occasionally funny, Divorce by Design dismantles the myths and misinformation that swirl around divorce, and replaces them with something far more useful: clarity, a framework, and a team.At the heart of the book is a simple but radical idea: you don't need one person to guide you through divorce, you need a whole team — emotional support first, financial expertise second, legal strategy third. Melissa argues that most people get this order completely backwards, lawyering up before they've regulated enough to make sound decisions — and paying for it for years afterward. Whether you're in the middle of a divorce, supporting someone who is, or simply want to understand the landscape before you ever need it, Divorce by Design is the book Melissa's mother never had. And now everyone can.

Some writers come to the page to escape. Jordan Rosenfeld has been doing it since she was seven years old — filling journal after journal, reaching for fiction the way a child who's seen hard things reaches for anything that helps make sense of the world. That instinct never left her. It deepened. And after more than twenty years as a novelist, a writing teacher, and a freelance journalist, she's still doing the same thing she did as a little girl: taking what she cannot control, and making something true out of it.Jordan is the author of the eco-thriller Fallout, a novel that crackles with urgency, danger, and the kind of moral complexity that only comes from a writer paying close attention to the real world. The story follows a journalist — a new mother — who gets pulled into a collective of eco-anarchist women on a mission to take down a dirty energy company that has poisoned both people and the earth. But beneath the thriller framework, Fallout is really a book about grief: what we do when the world as we knew it starts to fall away, whether we close ourselves off or rise up and fight for what's right. Jordan wrote it in the years she was first becoming a mother, watching parched California hills in January and feeling something she could only call grief. By the time she finished, a second character had emerged — a woman in her fifties navigating perimenopause — and Jordan recognized herself in her too. That's how she writes: gathering the mosaic, piece by piece, until the picture becomes clear. Jordan has also written seven books on the craft of writing — including her newest, The Sound of Story, a deep dive into developing voice and tone — and she brings that same care and precision to everything she makes.This episode is for the writer who has a story inside them and doesn't know where to begin. It's for the reader who wants a thriller that leaves them thinking long after the last page. And it's for anyone who has ever sat with something heavy — grief, rage, helplessness — and wondered what to do with it. Jordan's answer, the one she's lived since childhood, is this: write it down. Turn it into art. There is always someone out there who needs to hear exactly what you have to say.

Nobody ever taught us when it's okay to quit. We got the poster on the classroom wall, the T-shirt slogan, the well-meaning advice drilled in from childhood: quitters never win, winners never quit. And so we stay. We stay in the job that's making us miserable. We stay in the relationship that stopped working. We stay in the fertility treatments, the career path, the life we chose at 22, long past the point where staying serves us — because we were never given a script for what comes next. Jessica Strawser, author of eight novels, noticed this gap everywhere she looked. And she wrote a book about it.The Quitters Club is Jessica's newest novel — an ensemble cast story about four lifelong best friends who, the year they all turn 40, plan a reunion getaway and make a pact: they will each go home and quit the thing that's been quietly breaking them. For one woman, it's a career. For another, it's a marriage that has drifted into something unrecognizable. For another, it's the fertility journey she's been on for years. The novel follows all four of them as they reckon with what it means to walk away — not in defeat, but in the direction of something truer. Jessica built the book around a central question she kept hearing in her own life, in conversations with friends, in the rooms where women talk honestly: when does quitting become not giving up, but saying yes to something better? She's had her own pivots — a magazine industry that collapsed almost the moment she entered it, a career that required its own reinventions — and that lived experience gives the novel a weight and warmth that goes far beyond entertainment.This episode is for every woman who has felt the specific exhaustion of holding something together that stopped working a long time ago and needed permission — from someone, from anywhere — to finally let it go. It's for the book club looking for their next conversation starter, the woman approaching 40 wondering what her second act looks like, and anyone who has ever whispered to themselves that something has got to give. The Quitters Club is proof that quitting, done right, is one of the bravest things you can do — and that you don't have to do it alone.

Before she wrote the novel, before the residency, before the ninety thousand words that became her debut — Shasta Grant was a little girl in New Hampshire being raised by her grandparents, carrying questions about her mother that she didn't yet have language for. She didn't know then that those questions would one day find their form on the page. She didn't know she'd spend years writing shorter and shorter stories until fiction had compressed itself into flash, then sit down in a house in Orlando that once belonged to Jack Kerouac and finally let something large and long and true come through. She didn't know she was writing toward herself. But she was.Shasta is the author of When We Were Feral, a debut literary novel set in 1990s New Hampshire about three girls — Maggie and her friends — searching for answers about their missing mothers. It is a novel about friendship in its most primal form, about the particular cruelty and fierce loyalty that live side by side in female adolescence, and about what it means to grow up in the absence of a mother's presence. The book was born from a short story, expanded through a three-month writing residency where Shasta wrote a thousand words a day and didn't plan anything — just followed the girls where they led. The adult timeline she originally wrote got cut in revision, because, as she puts it, everything she loved about the book was in that child timeline. The longing. The wildness. The unresolved ache at the center of it all. Shasta grew up in the world she built in this novel, and she set it in 1990s New Hampshire because she still holds a longing for that place and that time — a longing the book finally gave her permission to explore. Writing it, she discovered something she hadn't expected: how many unresolved feelings she still held about her own mother and the particular wound of maternal abandonment.This episode is for anyone who has ever circled around a childhood wound in their adult life without fully looking at it — and for every reader who grew up in the 1990s and felt the complicated, electric tension of female friendship before they had words for it. It is for the writer who thinks they only know how to write short things, who needs to hear that the long story is in there waiting. And it is for anyone who has ever needed a novel that doesn't look away from what girlhood actually felt like — not the polished version, but the feral one.

Perforated is Chloe Yelena Miller's second full-length collection of poetry, and it holds a particular and beautiful question at its center: who owns a loss? The book is structured around what she calls the New York City poems — prose poems born from a lyric essay about returning to Lower Manhattan on the anniversary of September 11th, a day she experienced as a child in New Jersey who did not personally lose someone, but who nonetheless lost something.The collection asks us to sit with the strange complexity of grief — public and private, collective and intimate, named and nameless — and to consider the possibility that all of it is real, and all of it counts. Chloe's poems don't resolve that question so much as they hold it tenderly open, the way grief actually lives inside us.This episode is for the person who has ever felt uncertain about whether their grief was theirs to claim — whether their loss was significant enough, public enough, close enough to warrant the weight it carries.

Nobody tells you that the moment you've been waiting for your whole life might arrive and feel nothing like you expected. You've watched the movies. You've seen the Instagram posts. You know exactly how it's supposed to go — the birth, the first look, the wave of love so overwhelming it changes everything. And then you're in that hospital room, and the feeling you were promised doesn't come, and you are left holding a baby and a secret you're too ashamed to say out loud. Fiction writer Danit Brown knows that feeling intimately. It was the seed from which her debut novel grew.Danit is the author of Television for Women, a sharply observed, deeply human novel about Estie — a 32-year-old who decides, largely because she feels she's supposed to, that it's time to have a baby. Before the birth, her husband loses his job under circumstances that raise uncomfortable questions about who she actually married. After the birth, Estie begins to realize that motherhood looks nothing like what she grew up watching on screen.

For years, Jamilah Lemieux carried a secret fear alongside her story: that if she wrote a book about being a single mother, she would be one forever. That putting it on the page would somehow seal the fate she was quietly desperate to escape — the judgment, the shame, the longing for a different kind of life. It took her literary agent, years of urgency, and finally her own readiness to reckon with that fear and write the book anyway. What she discovered on the other side of that writing was something she hadn't expected: not resignation, but deep, abiding contentment.Jamilah is the author of Black Single Mother: Real Life Tales of Longing and Belonging — a memoir and cultural reckoning that weaves her own story with the stories of 21 other Black single mothers, tracing the full emotional landscape of an experience that is too often defined by statistics and stereotypes rather than truth and humanity.This episode is for the Black single mother who has felt unseen and quietly exhausted by the weight of other people's judgment. It is for the co-parent trying to understand the experience on the other side of the arrangement, for anyone who loves a Black woman and wants to understand her life more fully, and for every reader who has ever been afraid that telling the truth about their story would somehow trap them in it. Jamilah's book is proof that the opposite is true — that writing the life you actually have, with honesty and love, is how you finally make peace with it.

Sometimes it takes being broken open to finally go looking for love. For journalist and author Alison Van Diggelen, that breaking came violently and unexpectedly — a terrifying encounter with a dog while hiking in Mexico that shook her to her core and forced her to ask questions she hadn't known she needed to ask. What emerged from that darkness wasn't despair. It was a book.Alison is the author of The Love Project, a luminous collection of 30 real love stories gathered from the community of Carmel-by-the-Sea, California — ordinary people with extraordinary hearts who agreed to sit down, share a glass of wine, and tell the truth about love. And love, in Alison's telling, is far bigger than romance. It's the widow in her 80s who walked up to a man and asked him for one last affair. It's the woman who began writing letters to a man on death row and ended up marrying him. It's the mother who lost a child and somehow found gratitude in the grief. It's platonic love, gay love, trans love, filial love, love for a place — every version of the word that matters. Alison gathered these stories the way a journalist does: with a microphone, a notebook, and a dog named Mookie who made strangers want to stop and talk. But she also gathered them the way a woman healing from something does: with her whole heart open, desperate to remember that connection is still possible, that the world still has more love in it than hate.At its core, The Love Project is the book Alison wrote for her 93-year-old mother — a woman who modeled resilience by finding love after 20 years of widowhood — and in doing so, wrote it for all of us. For anyone who has felt alone in their pain, disillusioned with the world, or quietly wondering if love — in any of its forms — is still out there for them, this book is a shelter. It is proof that we have more in common than what divides us, and that sometimes the bravest thing we can do is go looking for the stories that remind us of that.

There's a particular kind of courage it takes to host a child's birthday party while your mother is lying in a hospital bed — to blow up balloons and slice cake and smile for photos while your heart is quietly breaking somewhere else entirely. Jocelyn Jane Cox knows that courage intimately. She lived it. And then, with the honesty and precision of a lifelong writer, she wrote it all down.Jocelyn is the author of Motion Dazzle: A Memoir of Motherhood, Loss, and Skating on Thin Ice — a book that unfolds over the course of a single day: her son's zebra-themed first birthday party. As guests arrive and candles are lit, the story moves fluidly between present and past, weaving together the tender chaos of new motherhood, the slow and heartbreaking loss of her own mother to dementia, and a lifetime shaped by competitive figure skating. The book's title draws from the science of zebra stripes — "motion dazzle," the survival mechanism that confuses predators through pattern and movement. It's a metaphor Jocelyn wears close: the ways we perform, we distract, we cope, we keep going — not out of denial, but out of love and sheer necessity. Writing the book became its own act of survival. Jocelyn discovered that excavating the past didn't just clarify her story — it gave her permission to release it. To forgive herself for not being a perfect mother, a perfect caregiver, a perfect skater. To see, for the first time, how much strength had always been there.This episode is for anyone who has ever found themselves holding two worlds at once — the one full of new life and the one quietly ending — and wondered if they were doing enough, being enough, grieving enough. Jocelyn's book is a reminder that there are no perfect answers in the sandwich generation squeeze. There is only the best we can do, the grace we can extend ourselves, and the stories we finally allow ourselves to tell.

Nobody tells you that becoming a mother is a neurological event. Nobody hands you a map for the identity that dissolves in the delivery room — or for the one that quietly, haltingly begins to take shape in its place. Nobody tells you that the intrusive thoughts, the rage, the moments of feeling utterly unrecognizable to yourself are not signs that you're broken. They are signs that your brain is doing something extraordinary. That's the story Dr. Nicole Pensak set out to tell — and it's a story that is long, long overdue.In this episode of A Fresh Story: Book Talk, Olivia sits down with clinical psychologist and maternal mental health expert Dr. Nicole Pensak to discuss her book Rattled: How to Calm New Mom Anxiety with the Power of the Postpartum Brain. Dr. Pensak didn't write this book from a distance. She wrote it from inside the experience — a newborn and a toddler at home, furiously typing between nap windows and hair-dryer moments, compelled by the urgency of a story she knew the world needed to hear. Her own postpartum journey brought her to rock bottom. Her clinical training and research helped her climb back out. And when she returned to the academic literature to understand what had happened to her, she found something stunning: an entire science of the postpartum brain that nobody was translating for the people who needed it most. Rattled is that translation.Structured in three parts — proactive mental health, the neurocognitive transformation of matrescence, and the path toward genuine thriving — Rattled is far more than a book about postpartum depression. It is a full-spectrum guidebook to one of the most profound transitions a human being can undergo. Dr. Nicole Pensak illuminates the mom shame, the mom guilt, the mom rage, the creative bursts, the identity shifts, and even the concept of "mom flow" — a way of accessing deep creative states in the small windows of time motherhood actually allows. For anyone navigating early parenthood, a major life transition, or a divorce that overlaps with pregnancy, this book offers something rare and irreplaceable: the experience of being seen, named, and guided — all at once.

There's a moment most ambitious women know well — the moment you realize that doing everything "right" didn't get you where you were promised it would. You leaned in. You asked for more. You claimed space at the table. And somehow, the table shrank. Author and financial journalist Stefanie O'Connell has spent a decade sitting with that moment — tracking the data, interviewing the women, and quietly building the case that this wasn't personal failure. It was by design.In this episode of A Fresh Story: Book Talk, Stefanie joins Olivia to talk about her groundbreaking new book, The Ambition Penalty: How Corporate Culture Tells Women to Step Up and Then Pushes Them Down. Written, as Stefanie shares with remarkable candor, during pregnancy and the early postpartum months — a period that made every page feel searingly personal — the book is a cross-disciplinary reckoning with the broken promises of the girl boss era. Drawing on over 400 citations across economics, public health, social science, and psychology, Stefanie dismantles the myths that have long been used to explain away women's unequal outcomes: that women are less confident, less ambitious, or simply "choose" to step back. The data doesn't lie, she says. And it's time we stopped letting the myths do the talking.What makes this conversation — and this book — so essential for anyone navigating a life transition is Stefanie's radical reframe: the exhaustion you feel isn't the price of your ambition. It's the cost of a system that was never designed to sustain it. From breadwinning women facing increased rates of domestic abuse and emotional manipulation at home, to the way "self-care" culture quietly individualizes what are deeply collective problems, Stefanie offers readers something rare — not just analysis, but relief. The kind that comes from finally having language for something you've always felt but couldn't quite name. If you've ever been told you were "too much," this book is for you. If you've ever quietly wondered whether wanting more was somehow the problem, this book will set you free.

There's a moment most mothers know — the one where you're nodding and smiling and saying yes to everyone in the room, all while something small and essential inside of you is screaming. Libby Ward, the Ontario-based content creator, author, and speaker who built a multi-million-person following by dancing, laughing, and telling the absolute truth about the hardest parts of raising children, knows that moment intimately. She lived inside it for years. And when she finally decided to pull the thread — really pull it — she didn't write a self-help checklist. She wrote Honest Motherhood, a book as raw and redemptive as the conversation that shaped it.Honest Motherhood is not a parenting book in any traditional sense. It doesn't tell you what to do. Instead, Libby unspools her own story — growing up with a single mom navigating untreated mental illness, moving 18 times before the age of 18, becoming parentified far too young, and then arriving at motherhood already exhausted, already trained to put herself last, and utterly unable to hear her own inner voice. Through her signature blend of vulnerability and wit, she traces the invisible threads connecting her childhood trauma to her burnout, her chronic people-pleasing to her resentment, her joy in mothering to the rage she couldn't name until she finally did. This is a book about the unlearning — and why that work is not optional.What makes this conversation — and this book — so essential for anyone navigating a life in transition is Libby's refusal to make it easy, tidy, or resolved. She talks openly about the terror of pulling that first thread in therapy, of how the spool unravels faster than you're ready for, and why the other side is still worth it. For the mom who is fine, fine, fine until she's not — for the woman who wakes up one day filled with a resentment she doesn't have the language for — Honest Motherhood offers something rare: a mirror, not a manual. A story that says, you are not broken. You are just honest, finally.

There are questions most of us carry in silence—questions we've never felt safe enough to ask out loud, things we didn't learn in any classroom, and experiences we've quietly wondered about in the dark. Myisha Battle has spent her career in those silences, helping people finally say the words they've swallowed for years. As a clinical sexologist and dating coach, she's the person her clients call when they won't even Google what they're thinking. Now, with her new book Sexual Pleasure for Dummies (part of the iconic For Dummies series), Myisha has written the guide she always wished existed—a warm, smart, judgment-free companion for anyone who ever felt like they missed the class everyone else seemed to have taken.Sexual Pleasure for Dummies isn't about shock or spectacle. It's about wholeness. Myisha walks readers through the landscape of their own bodies and desires—from pleasure anatomy (a chapter she considers essential and revolutionary) to navigating pain, hormonal shifts, toys, communication, and the orgasm gap that quietly shapes so many women's experiences. The book is especially resonant for anyone in the middle of a life transition: the woman emerging from a long marriage and realizing she never truly explored her own desires; the person reclaiming themselves after a relationship that slowly dimmed their sense of self; or anyone stepping into a new chapter and thinking—maybe for the first time—what do I actually want? Myisha coined it perfectly in conversation: this season of life is not reverse puberty. It's cougar puberty. And it is full of possibility.What makes this episode—and this book—so powerful is the way Myisha dismantles shame by naming it clearly and then setting it aside. She reminds us that most of us are dummies when it comes to sexual pleasure, and that's not a personal failure. It's a systemic one. Sex ed gave us baby-making and fear. It didn't give us ourselves. Sexual Pleasure for Dummies finally does. Whether you're newly single, newly curious, or simply ready to stop putting yourself last, Myisha's voice is the one you've been waiting for—clear-eyed, compassionate, and completely unafraid to go there.

There is a moment—one most parents have had but few will ever admit out loud—where you look at your child and feel something uncomfortably close to dislike. Not a fleeting frustration, but a deep, bewildering wall between you and the small person you love more than life. If you have ever stood there, in that shame-soaked silence, wondering what is wrong with you—or them—then Mary Van Geffen wrote this book for you.Mary is an international parenting coach who works with what she lovingly calls "the spicy ones"—the intense, strong-willed, deep-feeling children who seem engineered to challenge every expectation you had about who you would be as a parent. She knows this child intimately because she was one herself, raised without the tools or understanding she desperately needed. And then, in one of life's most poetic ironies, she gave birth to one. Her journey from bewildered, burned-out mother to coach and author is at the heart of her book, Parenting a Spicy One: A Compassionate Guide for Raising a Deep-Feeling and Wonderfully Strong-Willed Kid—a memoir-meets-manual that weaves her own raw, unguarded story together with the voices of over 1,700 women who have moved through her program and come out the other side transformed.What makes this book unlike any other parenting book on the shelf is its radical insistence that the child is not the problem—and neither, ultimately, are you. Mary guides parents through the work of examining their own unhealed wounds, their need for control, their inherited smallness, and their people-pleasing patterns, because this kid—your spicy one—will not let you bypass any of it. The book moves through the pillars of being calm, kind, and firm, and it ends in the places other books are afraid to go: what to do when your child gets violent, how to navigate co-parenting after divorce, how to survive the judgment of everyone who has an opinion about your family. It is, as Olivia put it in this conversation, a Bible. A lifesaver. And an invitation to finally stop parenting out of fear and start leading from a place of self-knowledge, humor, and radical self-compassion.

Some connections defy explanation. They arrive on a random Tuesday afternoon through a phone scroll, a face you haven't seen in decades, a name that pulls you back to childhood hallways — and suddenly, the universe has done the thing it sometimes does, folding time neatly in half. That is exactly how host Olivia Howell found herself reconnecting with Zahra Tangorra, an old schoolmate from the North Shore of Long Island who had gone on to become one of New York City's most celebrated culinary voices. But this episode isn't just a reunion story. It's the story of a woman who survived a 40-foot cliff, rebuilt herself from the wreckage, fed a city through a pandemic, and then sat down to write the memoir she was always meant to write.Zahra's debut culinary memoir, Extra Sauce: The Good, The Bad, and The Onions, is the kind of book that reads like a conversation with someone who has seen the full spectrum of life and decided, against all odds, to lean into it. Part love letter to food, part reckoning with family, grief, identity, and starting over, Extra Sauce traces Zahra's unlikely path from a directionless 22-year-old on a cross-country tour bus to a restaurateur, chef, and writer who has spent her career asking one essential question: what happens when we stop accepting less? The memoir is as much about the restaurant she opened with her accident settlement money as it is about the father she lost, the long-lost brother she discovered, and the community she spent a lifetime trying to create — because growing up as an only child of divorced parents had left her hungry for something far more nourishing than food alone.What makes this conversation so deeply resonant for anyone navigating a life transition is the philosophy at the heart of Zahra's book: that in a world constantly asking us to shrink — fewer rights, fewer people, less room in our hearts — the most radical act is to ask for more. More joy. More messiness. More extra sauce. Zahra wrote this book for the people who feel the longing for connection, who are carrying grief they don't know how to name, who are rebuilding their lives one small act of courage at a time. Her warmth, wit, and honesty make this episode feel less like an interview and more like the very thing Zahra herself has always been building: a table big enough for everyone.

There is something quietly radical about a journalist who turns her most pressing obsession—the thing that keeps her up at night, filling spreadsheets and firing off emails at 2 a.m.—into a book that asks the rest of us to pay closer attention. Fortesa Latifi is that journalist, and her debut book Like, Follow, Subscribe: Influencer Kids and the Cost of a Childhood Online is one of those rare works that manages to be both impeccably researched and deeply, uncomfortably human. It asks a question most of us have scrolled past without stopping: what does it actually cost a child to grow up as content?Fortesa wrote this book during one of the most disorienting seasons a person can move through—early motherhood. She had survived a brutal pregnancy, marked by hyperemesis gravidarum that left her physically depleted and emotionally unmoored, followed by a traumatic birth and the strange dissociation that can come postpartum, that feeling of existing purely as a body serving another body. And yet, a few weeks after her C-section, laptop balanced on the couch beside her newborn, she started writing again. Not because she was ignoring her recovery, but because work was how she found herself. It was how she remembered she was a person with a mind and a voice and a story worth telling. That kind of radical self-recovery—the kind that looks a little impractical from the outside—is woven into every page of this book.Like, Follow, Subscribe dives deep into the world of mom influencers, family vloggers, and child content creators, interviewing the parents who run these accounts, the experts who study them, and the children who grew up inside them. What Fortesa found—that the content performing best often features kids at their saddest, sickest, or most vulnerable—is the kind of discovery that lands differently once you're a mother yourself. This book is for anyone who has ever paused on a family vlog and felt something they couldn't name—a little uncomfortable, a little complicit, a little curious. It is for the woman who has wondered whether the internet's hunger for authenticity is actually just hunger, full stop. And it is for anyone standing at a crossroads in their own life, looking for proof that the most important work sometimes begins in the middle of the hardest season.

What if the very word "mother" has been quietly shrinking you your whole life — not because you didn't love being one, but because no one ever told you that you were allowed to be more than one? That's the question at the heart of this week's conversation on A Fresh Story: Book Talk, and it's the kind of question that lingers long after you've set down the book that asked it.Dr. Gertrude Lyons is an author, coach, retreat leader, and TEDx speaker whose talk has now reached nearly 250,000 views — and when you spend even twenty minutes in her presence, it is immediately clear why. She has the rare gift of making a room feel like a circle of trusted women who've finally decided to tell the truth. Her book, Rewrite the Mother Code: From Sacrifice to Stardust, A Cosmic Approach to Motherhood, grew out of a long and deeply personal reckoning. A mother of two grown daughters, Dr. Lyons pursued her doctorate specifically to study the transformational potential buried inside the experience of motherhood — only to look back and realize that even she, a coach surrounded by frameworks for growth, had quietly lost herself along the way. "I lost that thread," she says with the kind of honesty that makes you exhale. "I let it go." That vulnerability is what makes this book so necessary. It is not a manual for doing motherhood better. It is an invitation to ask who you have been while doing it — and who you might still become.Rewrite the Mother Code argues that mothering is not a role confined to those who have given birth. It is an energy — one that flows through aunts, mentors, artists, founders, and coaches; through anyone pouring their nurturing, creative, cyclical power into something they love. And the most overlooked recipient of that energy? You. The book maps the inherited "codes" — the patriarchal myths and silent scripts — that have kept women disconnected from their own desires, intuition, and aliveness. It then charts a path back: through emotional awareness, self-compassion, and what Dr. Lyons calls "cosmic motherhood," the realization that universal wisdom becomes available to us the moment we stop outsourcing our sense of self to the world's expectations. For anyone in the middle of a life transition — redefining themselves after loss, reinvention, or the quiet erosion that comes from years of putting everyone else first — this book is not just a read. It is a reclamation.

Some of us learned very early that love could be unpredictable. That the sound of a car pulling into the driveway meant something different in our house. That being the last kid picked up from school wasn't just inconvenient—it was a whole education in holding your breath. Cassidy Gard, debut memoirist and former television producer, grew up being that kid: hyperaware, fiercely observant, and already whispering to herself, I'm going to write about this one day. From age seven—when she first understood that her father's illness was reshaping everything around her—Cassidy was quietly building an inner world fortified by prayer, imagination, and an unwavering belief that something bigger was watching over her. She didn't have the language for it yet. But she was already living inside what would one day become her book.Cosmic Goodness: Surrendering the Shadows to Live in the Light spans nearly three decades—from that seven-year-old girl navigating a home filled with chaos and secrets, to a mother of two, finally grounded in the life she once only dared to imagine. The memoir explores the long shadow of growing up with an alcoholic, emotionally abusive father and the particular perfectionism and people-pleasing that survival demands. It moves through a young woman's brave solo relocation to New York City at seventeen, a decade-long career in television production, a solo pandemic road trip to Montana, and the discovery of a word—Cosmic Goodness—to name the force that had been quietly guiding her all along. It is a book about learning to stop masking and start trusting. About choosing a sober partner because you finally understand what safety actually feels like. About writing yourself—slowly, deliberately—into the future you deserve.What makes Cosmic Goodness something you'll want to press into the hands of anyone navigating a life transition is this: Cassidy doesn't arrive at healing by accident. She earns it—through Al-Anon, through therapy, through the radical act of telling her story honestly. This conversation is a reminder that you don't have to come from a peaceful home to build one. That the anxious child waiting by the window can grow into a woman who finally, deeply feels at home in herself. That cosmic goodness—whatever you call it in your own life—is not something that happens to you. It is something you learn, slowly and beautifully, to recognize.

There's a particular kind of exhaustion that comes when your life is being dismantled — not by accident, but by necessity. When Heather Quick walks into a courtroom, she carries with her more than case files and legal strategy. She carries two-plus decades of watching women rebuild from the inside out — women who walked in terrified and walked out, eventually, transformed. A 26-year family law attorney whose Florida-based firm represents women exclusively, Heather has sat across the table from thousands of clients mid-crisis. And what she kept witnessing, again and again, was a specific kind of pain that wasn't just emotional — it was the pain of not knowing. Not knowing what came next, not knowing the language, not knowing how to hold their ground. That's why she wrote Unbreakable Divorce: A Winning Guide Every Woman Needs to Reclaim Her Life. Not because divorce is a win, but because you can be.Unbreakable Divorce is many things at once: a legal primer, an emotional road map, and an act of advocacy. In under 200 pages — with full-size type, because Heather's not here for suffering of any kind — she walks readers through the full arc of the divorce process. What is family law? How do you prepare? What questions do you ask an attorney? What happens at mediation, at trial, in front of a judge who is, as Heather says with candid humor, "just another human being with their own preconceptions"? The book is clear that it isn't a substitute for a lawyer — but it is the kind of document that gives women language, strategy, and a framework for reclaiming their footing. Whether a woman is just beginning to ask hard questions or is already in the middle of proceedings, this book meets her where she is and refuses to leave her there.What comes through in this conversation — and in the book — is Heather's deeply competitive, deeply compassionate belief that winning is available to you. Not winning as in beating someone else, but winning as in arriving at peace, freedom, and a future that is yours. "It's a marathon, not a sprint," she tells Olivia, and she means it in every sense: it's long, it's grueling, and it requires training you never asked for. But women, she says without hesitation, are extraordinary at pivoting. At enduring. At finding their footing again. Unbreakable Divorce is the training guide Heather wishes every woman had before she ever needed it — and the lifeline she knows so many need right now.

There are moments that crack something open in you — moments you can't unhear, can't unsee, can't unfeel. For Lori Sugarman Lee, that moment came across a desk from an insurance agent who looked at her years of raising children, moving her family across continents, building communities from scratch, and sustaining a household with fierce devotion — and said, simply, "You're just a housewife. There's no loss." No loss. As if the thousands of hours she had poured into her family, her husband's career, her children's schools, her community organizations, amounted to nothing more than a footnote. That sentence didn't break Lori. It lit her on fire.A former marketing director for Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts who had deliberately stepped away from a high-powered career to invest in her family, Lori had never once doubted the value of that choice — until society handed her its verdict. What followed was a journey of profound reinvention: she found Eve Rodsky's Fair Play system, took a Stanford course on Motherhood and Work, wrote a viral LinkedIn article called "I Don't Get Paid, So What Am I Worth?" — and then asked herself the most important question of all: What can I do that no one else is doing? The answer was a children's book. Not because her sons needed a bedtime story, but because she believed, deeply, that if we want to change how the next generation values care — how our daughters are treated, how our sons show up — we have to start before the patterns calcify. Our Home: The Love, Work and Heart of Family is that book. It's tender and illustrated and deceptively simple, and it is, at its core, a revolution wrapped in a picture book.In this conversation, Lori and Olivia explore what it truly means to value the invisible — the labor that keeps families alive and thriving but so rarely gets named, let alone celebrated. They talk about representation and why seeing your own family reflected in the pages of a book can quietly change a child's entire worldview. They talk about raising boys who understand that care is not a burden to be avoided but a gift to be given. And they talk about the cycle — the one that places the full weight of domestic life on daughters, generation after generation — and why a book, of all things, might be exactly the right tool to break it. If you've ever felt unseen in your own home, if you've ever wondered whether the work you do matters, or if you're raising children you hope will build a more equitable world — this episode is for you.

In this episode of A Fresh Story: Simple Tips to Support Yourself, host Olivia Howell sits down with Meredith Beardmore — therapist, author, and YouTuber — whose entire practice is dedicated to helping women navigate the painful and often overlooked experience of loving someone with an addiction. With both professional expertise and personal lived experience, Meredith brings rare authority to a topic that affects millions of people silently. Whether you are currently in a relationship with someone struggling with alcoholism or narcotic addiction, or navigating life after leaving one, this episode delivers the kind of addiction recovery support and emotional resilience tools you need to begin putting yourself first.Meredith's core message is clear: the pain of loving an addict is valid, and self-care is not selfish — it is survival. She walks listeners through her top practical strategies, beginning with the critical importance of establishing personal boundaries and recognizing that your loved one's needs cannot continue to override your own. She strongly recommends Al-Anon and Nar-Anon — free, widely available support groups focused not on the addict, but on the loved ones — as essential tools for emotional resilience and starting over after an addictive relationship. Meredith also addresses the often-neglected foundation of physical wellbeing: sleep hygiene, nutrition, and regular self-care practices that protect your nervous system from the chronic stress that loving an addict produces. For those seeking therapy, she advises specifically asking for a clinician experienced with loved ones of addicts or, where unavailable, a therapist specializing in narcissistic abuse recovery — noting the significant overlap in patterns and tactics.Meredith is also the author of two powerful resources: Hey Addiction, Thanks for Nothing — a brutally honest self-help workbook for those currently loving an addict — and The Plan B Chronicles: Divorce, Defiance, Liberation, a memoir chronicling her own journey through divorce recovery and the path to finding herself on the other side. Her message to anyone listening who feels trapped, ashamed, or alone? Let go of the guilt. You cannot save someone from addiction. You can, however, save yourself — and there is an entire community ready to support you in doing exactly that.

There is a specific kind of ache that comes from looking at your daughter and seeing yourself — not the version of yourself you've carefully curated, but the girl you tried to leave behind. That's where Melissa Fraterrigo's memoir begins: standing in a doorway, watching her twin daughters navigate the turbulent terrain of adolescence, and recognizing in their self-doubt, their body shame, their quiet suffering, the exact contours of her own girlhood in the 80s and 90s. The recognition didn't just move her. It sent her back — back through memory, back through culture, back through every lesson she'd absorbed and every wound she'd never quite named — to write The Perils of Girlhood, a memoir in essays that is at once an excavation of the past and a love letter to the next generation.What makes this book extraordinary is how deliberately Melissa chose the essay form — not to present a tidy narrative arc, but to honor the messy, nonlinear way that girlhood actually lives inside us. She wrote it the way memory works: pulled toward heat, toward the unresolved, toward the scenes that still ask something of us. She started in the middle — an essay about her father's temper and the people-pleasing survival strategy it produced — and spent five years finding where all the pieces truly belonged. Along the way, she wove in pop culture touchstones from Judy Blume to 80s sitcom dads, not as nostalgia but as evidence: this is what the air was made of back then, and we breathed it in, and here is what it cost us. She wrote herself into forgiveness — for her younger self, for the people who didn't always get it right — and found that the longer she sat with each chapter, the softer and more spacious her understanding became.In this warm, wide-ranging conversation with Olivia, Melissa reflects on what it means to trade the safety of fiction for the vulnerability of memoir, why this book belongs to readers of every gender and generation, and why one of her twin daughters has already read it — while the other has politely declined, which Melissa accepts with the grace of a woman who has learned that healing doesn't happen on a schedule. The Perils of Girlhood is ultimately a book about the stories we tell ourselves about who we are, how those stories get written for us long before we're old enough to hold the pen, and what becomes possible when we finally decide to rewrite them. If you're in any season of self-examination — a parent trying to break a cycle, a daughter still untangling her past, or simply a person curious enough to ask how you became who you are — this book is waiting for you.

Some people lose their footing early. For Jacque Gorelick, that unmooring came at eight years old, the morning her mother died. What followed was a childhood she describes as a snow globe someone had shaken and never set down — chaotic, rootless, and full of grief she didn't yet have words for. But grief has a way of waiting for us. And Jacque's memoir, Map of a Heart: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Finding the Way Home (Vine Leaves Press, February 17), is the story of what happens when the past finally catches up — not to destroy us, but to ask us, at long last, to stop running.That reckoning arrived on an ordinary jogging trail. Jacque's husband's heart stopped mid-run while she walked nearby with their nine-week-old baby. In an instant, the fragile, beautiful life she'd worked so hard to build — the partner, the child, the sense of normalcy she'd spent decades chasing — was suspended somewhere between a hospital hallway and a prayer she didn't know she still knew how to say. What emerged in those hours of waiting wasn't just fear; it was a woman who finally let other people hold her. Friends showed up. Community formed. And Jacque — who, like so many children of disruption, had long ago decided that needing no one was the safest way to survive — began to understand that belonging is not something you're born into. It's something you build, one brave, tender act of trust at a time.In this conversation with Olivia, Jacque opens up about writing through trauma in stolen moments while her children were young, the music that carried her back into the hardest chapters, and the unexpected gift of sitting with her memories long enough to realize: they were real. She was there. And somehow, against every odd, she made it through. Map of a Heart is a book for anyone who grew up feeling like they didn't quite belong to a family, a place, or a story — and who's still quietly hoping to find one. It's for the person at the dinner table who doesn't know how to answer "what do you do for Thanksgiving?" without feeling a flash of shame. And it's proof that a life's map doesn't have to begin where your childhood ended.

When Elizabeth Wilson decided to start a family, she knew the road ahead wouldn't be easy—but she never imagined how much it would ask of her heart, her body, and her marriage. As a lesbian woman navigating a system built for heteronormative couples, she encountered outdated forms, unnecessary counseling requirements, and a fertility process that felt more clinical than compassionate. But with grit and grace, Elizabeth pressed forward, carefully selecting a donor to match her wife's features and beginning the emotionally and financially demanding journey toward conception.What followed was a rollercoaster: failed procedures, hormone shots that left her reeling, and a life-altering cross-country move timed with ovulation strips and overnight sperm deliveries. When she finally saw that positive pregnancy test, it felt like a quiet miracle. She gave birth to her daughter at home in a blow-up pool surrounded by midwives—but the birth of her child also marked the slow unraveling of her marriage. As she moved from new motherhood to navigating a divorce, Elizabeth found herself rebuilding once again, this time as a co-parent and part-time writer redefining what a healthy, supported life could look like.In this candid and powerful episode, Elizabeth shares the unfiltered truth about creating a family as a same-sex couple, the complexities of postpartum mental health, the inequities of co-parenting after divorce, and the unexpected beauty of starting over. Her story is one of resilience, reinvention, and radical honesty—reminding us that family is not defined by tradition, but by intention, love, and the courage to keep evolving.Learn more about Elizabeth: https://whisperedwisdompress.com/https://www.threads.com/@ewilsonwrites

There are stories you follow for so long that they weave themselves into your own becoming. This episode is one of them. From the opening minutes, Matt Logelin brings us back to the moment his life split in two—when joy and devastation arrived within hours of each other. He describes, with rare honesty, the day he became both a brand-new father and a widower at thirty, the surreal blur of hospital hallways, and the impossible grief of losing his high school sweetheart just one day after their daughter Maddie was born. His recollection is heartbreaking, vivid, and deeply human, a reminder that life can turn without warning—and that somehow, we still learn to breathe again.As Matt walks us through those early months, we hear the raw truth of parenting through shock, survival, and tenderness. He shares how he learned to raise Maddie alone, how strangers became lifelines, and why writing—despite his insistence that he hates doing it—became the thread that held him upright. His blog unexpectedly reached millions, offering a window into a life rebuilt mile by mile, record shop by record shop, midnight bottle by midnight bottle. What emerges is not a story about tragedy, but about devotion—the devotion of a young dad determined to give his daughter the rich, joy-filled life her mother would have wanted.And then comes the unexpected: new love on a Southwest flight, a blended family built with gentleness and humor, and two more daughters who helped rewrite everything he thought he knew about fatherhood. Matt shares how he navigated the complexity of loving again after loss, how his wife Lizzie embraced not just him but the entire constellation of his life, and why their family's story—immortalized in his bestselling memoir and the Kevin Hart Netflix film Fatherhood—is ultimately about hope. By the end of this episode, you'll feel it too: the truth that grief and joy can coexist, that families can be rebuilt, and that second chapters can be breathtakingly beautiful.

In this episode of Wake Up Fresh, Olivia Howell reframes emotional safety as a meaningful and worthy goal. Rather than equating growth with constant discomfort, this daily morning reflection encourages listeners to honor their need for steadiness, calm, and nervous system support.As part of a daily ritual focused on emotional wellness and self-trust, this episode supports anyone feeling pressure to push beyond their capacity. Olivia invites listeners to see safety as the foundation for sustainable growth, creativity, and clarity — not something to apologize for.Wake Up Fresh with Olivia & Jenny is a daily motivational podcast designed to help listeners begin their mornings with compassion, calm, and emotional grounding. New episodes release daily throughout January, alternating between Olivia Howell and Jenny Dreizen.

In this episode of Wake Up Fresh, Jenny explores the idea that boundaries don't always arrive loudly or dramatically. As part of a daily morning ritual, this reflection encourages listeners to trust subtle signals of hesitation and honor quiet no's before they turn into burnout or resentment.Designed for anyone learning to trust themselves more deeply, this episode supports emotional awareness, intuitive decision-making, and sustainable boundaries. Jenny reframes internal resistance as useful information rather than something to override.Wake Up Fresh with Olivia & Jenny is a daily motivational podcast focused on emotional wellness, boundaries, and beginning each morning with clarity and self-trust. New episodes release daily throughout January, alternating between Olivia Howell and Jenny Dreizen.

In this episode of Wake Up Fresh, Olivia Howell offers reassurance for anyone who feels pressure to move faster or accomplish more. This daily morning reflection reframes slowness as a valid and often necessary form of progress, supporting a more sustainable approach to personal growth.As part of a daily ritual focused on emotional wellness and self-trust, this episode encourages listeners to release urgency and choose a pace that supports their nervous system and overall well-being. Olivia reminds listeners that moving slowly does not mean standing still — it means moving forward with intention.Wake Up Fresh with Olivia & Jenny is a daily motivational podcast designed to help listeners begin their mornings with calm, clarity, and compassion. New episodes release daily throughout January, alternating between Olivia Howell and Jenny Dreizen.

In this episode of Wake Up Fresh, Jenny explores the emotional reality of change within relationships. As part of a daily morning ritual, this reflection reassures listeners that growth can require adjustment — both internally and externally.Designed for anyone navigating new boundaries or personal growth, this episode supports emotional steadiness by reminding listeners that others may need time to adapt. Jenny reframes discomfort as part of recalibration rather than a sign that change is wrong.Wake Up Fresh with Olivia & Jenny is a daily motivational podcast focused on emotional wellness, boundaries, and beginning each morning with clarity and self-trust. New episodes release daily throughout January, alternating between Olivia Howell and Jenny Dreizen.

In this episode of Wake Up Fresh, Jenny explores the habit of emotional over-functioning and the pressure to hold everything together. As part of a daily morning ritual, this reflection encourages listeners to release responsibility that doesn't belong solely to them.Designed for anyone who feels like the organizer, fixer, or emotional anchor in their relationships, this episode supports healthier boundaries and shared responsibility. Jenny offers reassurance that letting go can create space for balance, rest, and more authentic connection.Wake Up Fresh with Olivia & Jenny is a daily motivational podcast focused on emotional wellness, boundaries, and beginning each morning with clarity and self-trust. New episodes release daily throughout January, alternating between Olivia Howell and Jenny Dreizen.

In this episode of Wake Up Fresh, Olivia Howell reframes the nervous system as a source of support rather than something to control or fix. As part of a daily morning ritual, this reflection encourages listeners to approach their bodies with curiosity and compassion, especially during moments of stress, anxiety, or emotional fatigue.This episode supports emotional wellness, nervous system awareness, and self-trust by helping listeners understand that physical responses are signals — not failures. Olivia invites listeners to listen to their bodies, prioritize safety, and build regulation through gentleness rather than force.Wake Up Fresh with Olivia & Jenny is a daily motivational podcast designed to help listeners start their mornings with calm, clarity, and emotional steadiness. New episodes release daily throughout January, alternating between Olivia Howell and Jenny Dreizen.

In this Simple Tips to Support Yourself episode of A Fresh Story, host Olivia Howell is joined by therapist and author Oona Metz to offer clear, practical guidance on one of the most difficult parts of divorce: talking to your kids when your co-parent refuses, avoids the conversation, or isn't emotionally available. With nearly 30 years of clinical experience and more than 15 years leading divorce support groups for women, Oona brings calm, child-centered expertise to a moment that often feels overwhelming for parents.Oona breaks down actionable co-parenting strategies for navigating this conversation solo, including how to explain divorce in age-appropriate language, how much information is enough, and how to answer hard questions without blaming or oversharing. She explains why children don't need perfect wording—they need emotional consistency, honesty, and reassurance—and how one regulated parent can create stability even in high-conflict or uncooperative co-parenting situations. These divorce recovery tips are especially helpful for single parents carrying the emotional labor of the transition.The episode also draws from Oona's book, Unhitched: The Essential Divorce Guide for Women, which focuses on the emotional realities of divorce rather than legal logistics. Listeners will leave with increased emotional resilience, practical scripts, and a key mindset shift: you don't need agreement from your ex to protect your children's emotional wellbeing. Presence, clarity, and care are enough.

Some Fridays feel like a finish line. And some Fridays feel like the moment you realize you've been running the whole time—quietly, bravely, on fumes and faith—while the world keeps asking you to prove it counts. In this cozy, funny, unexpectedly tender weekly wrap-up, sisters Olivia Howell and Jenny Dreizen start with the kind of behind-the-scenes chaos that is modern life and somehow end up in the deep end of what it really means to rebuild yourself.Because the conversation turns, as it always does, toward the stories we've been told—and the ones people use to control us. Olivia opens up about the unnerving experience of “dream logic” being used as manipulation: how someone can cloak pressure in spirituality, how narrative-weaving becomes a weapon, and how hard it is to name what happened when it didn't look like the usual kind of harm. Jenny calls it what it is: a form of spiritual abuse. And in that naming, there's a small, steady permission slip: if your inner world was used against you, you're not “dramatic.” You're awake.From there, it's the grounding stuff—the holy stuff, honestly: making an office feel like yours again, building tiny miniatures because your nervous system needs something gentle to hold onto, swimming because you remember your body is allowed to belong to you. Olivia shares a moment that will hit every working mom (and every entrepreneur) right in the chest: her kids asking when she'll get a “real job,” as if building a company, holding dozens of divorce support consults, and keeping an entire community of people afloat is somehow… imaginary. The takeaway lands like a hand on your back: rebuilding isn't always loud. Sometimes it's wallpaper and a calendar and a deep breath between calls—proof that your life is still yours, and you're still becoming.

In this episode of Wake Up Fresh, Olivia Howell explores the idea that protecting your energy is a necessary and compassionate practice — not a selfish one. As part of a daily morning ritual, this reflection invites listeners to reconsider boundaries, rest, and capacity through a lens of self-respect rather than guilt.This episode supports emotional wellness, burnout prevention, and healthier boundaries by encouraging listeners to honor their limits without over-explaining or apologizing. Olivia reframes energy management as an act of honesty and sustainability, helping listeners start the day feeling more grounded and supported.Wake Up Fresh with Olivia & Jenny is a daily motivational podcast designed to help listeners begin each morning with clarity, self-trust, and compassion. New episodes release daily throughout January, alternating between Olivia Howell and Jenny Dreizen.

In this Simple Tips to Support Yourself episode of A Fresh Story, host Olivia Howell is joined by therapist and Fresh Starts Expert Oona Metz to break down one of the most universal—and misunderstood—experiences of divorce and major life transitions: healing a broken heart. With nearly 30 years of clinical experience and more than 15 years leading divorce support groups for women, Oona brings clear, grounded, therapist-backed insight into what heartbreak actually does to the nervous system, emotions, and sense of identity.Oona shares practical, accessible strategies for divorce recovery and emotional resilience, including why heartbreak often comes in waves, how grief and relief can coexist, and what helps people move forward without rushing the healing process. Listeners will learn simple but powerful tools for emotional regulation, boundary-setting, self-compassion, and rebuilding trust in themselves—especially relevant for those navigating co-parenting, single parenting, or starting over after divorce. These tips are designed to be realistic, repeatable, and supportive during moments when emotions feel overwhelming.The episode also highlights Oona's forthcoming book, Unhitched: The Essential Divorce Guide for Women, which focuses entirely on the emotional journey of divorce—from heartbreak and identity loss to healing and renewal. Whether you're in the early stages of separation or years into post-divorce recovery, this episode offers clear guidance and reassurance: a broken heart doesn't mean you're broken—and with the right support, healing is possible.

In this episode of Wake Up Fresh, Jenny explores the permission to change your mind without guilt or over-explaining. As part of a daily morning ritual, this reflection supports listeners in honoring evolving needs and trusting themselves as circumstances change.Designed for anyone navigating boundaries, decision fatigue, or people-pleasing, this episode reframes changing your mind as a sign of self-awareness rather than inconsistency. Jenny encourages calm, respectful adjustments that build self-trust and emotional steadiness.Wake Up Fresh with Olivia & Jenny is a daily motivational podcast focused on emotional wellness, boundaries, and beginning each morning with clarity and confidence. New episodes release daily throughout January, alternating between Olivia Howell and Jenny Dreizen.

In this episode of Wake Up Fresh, Olivia Howell offers a compassionate reminder that personal worth is not defined by productivity. As part of a daily morning ritual, this reflection encourages listeners to release hustle culture expectations and reconnect with their inherent value — even on days when energy is low or rest is needed.This episode supports emotional wellness, burnout recovery, and a healthier relationship with productivity. Olivia reframes rest, healing, and quiet internal work as meaningful and valid, reminding listeners that they do not need to earn their worth through output.Wake Up Fresh with Olivia & Jenny is a daily motivational podcast designed to help listeners start their mornings with clarity, self-trust, and compassion. New episodes release daily throughout January, alternating between Olivia Howell and Jenny Dreizen.

There's a moment in the middle of the night, when the house is quiet and the questions feel loud, that this conversation begins. In this A Fresh Story: Book Talk episode, Olivia Howell sits down with therapist and Fresh Starts Expert Oona Metz, whose new book Unhitched: The Essential Divorce Guide for Women was written for exactly that moment—when you need proof that someone else has been here, survived it, and is willing to sit beside you while you figure out what comes next. Oona doesn't speak from theory alone. She speaks as a woman who has lived through divorce herself—twice—and spent decades walking alongside hundreds of women as they untangled their lives, identities, and hearts.Unhitched is not a how-to manual or a checklist. It's a companion. The book gently guides readers from the earliest whispers of “Should I stay?” through the practical and emotional realities of telling people, supporting children, navigating grief, setting boundaries, and rebuilding a sense of self. Oona weaves clinical insight with deeply human language, making space for the messiness—the simultaneous relief and devastation, the shame that lingers quietly, the identity shift that no one prepares you for. In this conversation, she shares how years of running divorce support groups planted the seeds for the book, and why she felt compelled to write something that centered the emotional journey of divorce—something that didn't exist when she needed it most.What makes this episode especially powerful is Oona's vulnerability. Writing Unhitched required her to confront the shame she still carried as a therapist who had been divorced twice—and to model the very honesty she invites readers into. Together, Olivia and Oona talk about divorce as a life transition we don't culturally prepare for, the quiet courage it takes to reach for help, and the healing power of knowing you're not alone. This episode—and this book—are for anyone standing at the edge of a life change, wondering if it's okay to open the door. You don't have to walk through it yet. You just have to know there's someone waiting on the other side.GRAB UNHITCHED HERE: https://amzn.to/4pBQvG9

In this episode of Wake Up Fresh, Jenny explores the difference between being nice and being clear. As part of a daily morning ritual, this reflection encourages listeners to practice honest communication without guilt or over-softening.Designed for anyone navigating boundaries, people-pleasing, or difficult conversations, this episode reframes clarity as a form of kindness. Jenny supports listeners in building trust, reducing misunderstandings, and starting the day with grounded, respectful self-expression.Wake Up Fresh with Olivia & Jenny is a daily motivational podcast focused on emotional wellness, boundaries, and beginning each morning with clarity and confidence. New episodes release daily throughout January, alternating between Olivia Howell and Jenny Dreizen.

In this episode of Wake Up Fresh, Olivia Howell reframes uncertainty as a meaningful and necessary part of personal growth. Rather than treating not knowing as failure, this daily morning reflection invites listeners to see uncertainty as a sign of listening, recalibration, and self-trust.Designed as part of a short daily ritual, this episode supports emotional wellness, intuitive decision-making, and patience during periods of transition. Olivia offers reassurance for anyone feeling unsure about next steps, reminding listeners that clarity often arrives after — not before — a pause.Wake Up Fresh with Olivia & Jenny is a daily motivational podcast focused on helping listeners start their mornings with compassion, clarity, and emotional steadiness. New episodes release daily throughout January, alternating between Olivia Howell and Jenny Dreizen.

In this episode of Wake Up Fresh, Jenny explores emotional responsibility and the difference between kindness and over-functioning for others' feelings. As part of a daily morning ritual, this reflection supports listeners in setting boundaries without guilt or self-blame.Designed for anyone who struggles with people-pleasing or emotional over-responsibility, this episode helps listeners practice respectful communication while releasing the pressure to manage others' reactions. Jenny offers reassurance that honesty and compassion can coexist.Wake Up Fresh with Olivia & Jenny is a daily motivational podcast focused on emotional wellness, boundaries, and beginning each day with clarity and self-trust. New episodes release daily throughout January, alternating between Olivia Howell and Jenny Dreizen.

In this episode of Wake Up Fresh, Olivia Howell explores the idea of relief as a powerful and often overlooked source of self-trust. Rather than chasing constant motivation or intensity, this daily morning reflection invites listeners to pay attention to moments of ease and calm as meaningful signals from the body.As part of a short daily ritual, this episode supports emotional wellness, intuitive decision-making, and a more compassionate approach to personal growth. Olivia reframes relief as information — not weakness — encouraging listeners to trust what helps them feel grounded, safe, and supported.Wake Up Fresh with Olivia & Jenny is a daily motivational podcast designed to help listeners begin each morning with clarity, emotional steadiness, and self-connection. New episodes release daily throughout January, alternating between Olivia Howell and Jenny Dreizen.

Some mornings you sit down to be productive—and instead you end up at the top of the stairs, Notes app open, heart racing, because someone on the internet just called divorce a “chaotic lifestyle” like it's a punchline. That's where this Friday wrap-up begins: with chocolate, a million deadlines, and Olivia Howell getting hijacked by the familiar feeling of having to say the truth out loud—not polished, not perfect, just honest.Olivia is joined by her sister/co-founder and co-host Genevieve “Jenny” Dreizen, whose love language is systems, forms, and quietly saving the business from administrative doom while Olivia lives in audio scripts and emotional urgency. Together, they zoom out and realize the same thing they keep realizing: divorce is not niche. It's not messy entertainment. It's a life transition that deserves dignity—and it's exactly why they built what they built. They celebrate the unexpected magic of Divorce 101, Olivia's Sesame Street-meets-Schoolhouse-Rock series that breaks divorce terms down like you're five… and they share the origin story of Divorce Guide Magazine, Jenny's “I'll just play with this layout for a second” project that became a full-blown national publication because, somehow, no one else had made space for this conversation.Then the episode shifts—deeper, quieter, truer. They talk about the undercurrent so many people can't name until it finally escalates: emotional abuse, contempt dressed up as jokes, the shame gap between “you're not leaving for that” and “why didn't you leave,” and the way our nervous systems keep receipts long after we've tried to logic our way out. It's a conversation about reclaiming your own reality, remembering you're allowed to go, and finding your way back to safety—plus a few bright, human details that make life feel possible again: a heavy $1.25 mug, a handmade duvet, and the reminder that you don't have to do any of this alone.

In this episode of Wake Up Fresh, Jenny offers a calming reframe for everyday discomfort. As part of a daily morning ritual, this reflection encourages listeners to differentiate between genuine danger and normal emotional unease — especially in moments of boundary-setting or growth.This episode supports emotional regulation, self-trust, and healthier communication by reminding listeners that discomfort does not require immediate resolution. Jenny helps listeners build confidence in their ability to sit with uncertainty without rushing to self-abandonment.Wake Up Fresh with Olivia & Jenny is a daily motivational podcast focused on emotional wellness, boundaries, and starting each morning with clarity and calm. New episodes release daily throughout January, alternating between Olivia Howell and Jenny Dreizen.

In this episode of Wake Up Fresh, Olivia Howell invites listeners to begin the day with self-compassion by arriving in their lives without judgment. Rather than turning every feeling or moment into something to analyze or fix, this reflection encourages simple awareness and emotional gentleness.As part of a daily morning ritual, this episode supports mindfulness, emotional wellness, and a more compassionate inner dialogue. Olivia explores the difference between awareness and self-criticism, offering listeners permission to show up exactly as they are — without evaluation or pressure to perform.Wake Up Fresh with Olivia & Jenny is a daily motivational podcast designed to help listeners start their mornings with clarity, calm, and self-trust. New episodes release daily throughout January, alternating between Olivia Howell and Jenny Dreizen.

In this episode of Wake Up Fresh, Jenny explores the difference between being easy and being kind. As part of a daily morning ritual, this reflection encourages listeners to examine where people-pleasing may be costing them clarity, energy, or self-respect.This episode is designed for anyone who has learned to prioritize harmony over honesty. Jenny reframes kindness as something that includes the self — not something that requires self-erasure — and supports listeners in building healthier boundaries through clarity and compassion.Wake Up Fresh with Olivia & Jenny is a daily motivational podcast focused on emotional wellness, boundaries, and starting each morning with intention and self-trust. New episodes release daily throughout January, alternating between Olivia Howell and Jenny Dreizen.

In this episode of Wake Up Fresh, Olivia Howell offers compassionate reassurance for anyone who feels behind in life, especially at the start of a new year. Rather than pushing productivity or comparison, this short daily reflection invites listeners to release unrealistic timelines and honor the pace their real lives require.As part of a daily morning ritual, this episode supports emotional wellness, self-trust, and a more grounded approach to personal growth. Olivia reframes progress as something that includes rest, pauses, and unseen internal work — reminding listeners that moving slowly or differently does not mean failing.Wake Up Fresh with Olivia & Jenny is a daily motivational podcast focused on starting the day with clarity, compassion, and emotional steadiness. New episodes release daily throughout January, alternating between Olivia Howell and Jenny Dreizen.

In this episode of Wake Up Fresh, Jenny explores the idea that boundaries don't require justification. As part of a daily morning ritual, this reflection encourages listeners to practice saying no without over-explaining or feeling guilty for protecting their time and energy.Designed for anyone who struggles with people-pleasing or boundary-setting, this episode offers a compassionate reframe: a clear no can be both kind and respectful. Jenny supports listeners in building self-trust and emotional steadiness through simple, honest communication.Wake Up Fresh with Olivia & Jenny is a daily motivational podcast focused on emotional wellness, boundaries, and starting each morning with clarity and confidence. New episodes release daily throughout January, alternating between Olivia Howell and Jenny Dreizen.

In this episode of Wake Up Fresh, Olivia Howell offers a compassionate reminder that the start of a new year doesn't have to be rushed or overengineered. Instead of pushing for immediate productivity or clarity, this episode invites listeners to approach January as a softer landing — a time for rest, reflection, and honest self-check-ins.Designed as part of a daily morning ritual, this short episode supports anyone feeling overwhelmed by new-year expectations, emotional fatigue, or the pressure to “try harder” before they're ready. Olivia encourages listeners to release urgency, listen inward, and allow presence — not performance — to guide the beginning of the year.Wake Up Fresh with Olivia & Jenny is a daily motivational podcast focused on emotional wellness, self-trust, and beginning each morning with compassion and clarity. New episodes release daily throughout January, alternating between Olivia Howell and Jenny Dreizen.

In this episode of Wake Up Fresh, Jenny Dreizen explores what it means to take up space without guilt. With warmth and clarity, she reframes confidence, boundaries, and self-respect in a way that feels accessible and empowering.A short, aspirational morning reflection for anyone wanting to move through the day with more presence and ease.

Welcome to January! In this episode of Wake Up Fresh, Olivia Howell offers a compassionate reminder that the start of a new year doesn't have to be rushed or over-engineered. Instead of pushing for immediate productivity or clarity, this episode invites listeners to approach January as a softer landing — a time for rest, reflection, and honest self-check-ins.Designed as part of a daily morning ritual, this short episode supports anyone feeling overwhelmed by new-year expectations, emotional fatigue, or the pressure to “try harder” before they're ready. Olivia encourages listeners to release urgency, listen inward, and allow presence — not performance — to guide the beginning of the year.Wake Up Fresh with Olivia & Jenny is a daily motivational podcast focused on emotional wellness, self-trust, and beginning each morning with compassion and clarity. New episodes release daily throughout January, alternating between Olivia Howell and Jenny Dreizen.