In this solo episode, I’m standing up for something I care about: therapy. Not because it’s perfect, and not because it works for everyone, but because I keep hearing it dismissed, oversold, or misunderstood by people who haven’t seen what can happen in the room.

We’ve gotten very comfortable with either/or thinking. Carnivore or plant-based. Liberal or conservative. And now therapy is either life-changing or a complete waste of time. Like most things, the truth is more complicated.

I’ll walk you through:

✅ Why therapy isn’t always good or always bad, and what binary thinking costs us

✅ What to actually expect in the room (hint: your therapist is not a guru)

✅ Why a therapist who talks too much, has all the answers, or agrees with everything you say isn’t helping you

✅ The client who told me three months in that he’d been drinking the whole time, and what it taught me about asking directly

✅ Why honesty, even the ugly kind, is what makes a session work

✅ How to tell if you’re stuck: the same conversation every week, or only talking about your spouse

✅ Why “just do something kind for someone” can’t fix everything, and why we’re not all born with the same nervous system

✅ How I run couples therapy, including why I meet with each partner individually after the first 90 minutes

✅ The questions to ask yourself after every session

✅ Why sacrificial love, accountability, and community matter as much as understanding yourself

This one is short on polish. No guest, no framework, just me saying a few things I’ve been wanting to say for a while.

🔔 Therapy won’t hand you the answers. But it might help you hear yourself say them out loud.

Erin and Dusty Stanczyk are back, and this time we went deep. If you don't know them yet, they're the couple behind Eat Move Rest: certified health and lifestyle coaches, authors, retreat hosts, homeschooling parents of three, and the people who will make you rethink everything you thought you knew about fruit and blood sugar.

We talked about all of it. The move from their dream home to a smaller house in the city. The way isolation was quietly straining their marriage without them even realizing it. What it actually looks like to run a business, homeschool your kids, and stay in love when you're all home, all the time, and someone always needs something.

I'll walk you through:

✅ Why they downsized from their dream home and what the Blue Zones had to do with it

✅ How community (or the lack of it) affects your marriage more than you think

✅ What happens to a couple's intimacy when the kids are young, the business is demanding, and you're running on empty

✅ Why they eat bowls of fruit for breakfast and why a diabetic client lost 15 pounds doing the same

✅ The truth about blood sugar spikes, intuitive eating, and why your microbiome might be the one calling the shots

✅ What HALT means and why it explains most of your arguments

✅ How faith, abstinence, and lifestyle design all tie together into one very holistic, very real way of living

✅ Why Dusty says discipline and self-love are actually the same thing

This one is warm, honest, and practical in the best way. No perfectly edited advice, but just two people figuring it out in real time, with kids climbing on the chairs in the background.

Find Dusty and Erin at

• Website: https://www.eatmoverest.com/
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/EatMoveRest
• Erin’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ErinStanczyk/
• Dusty’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dustystanczyk
• Move With Erin YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@MoveWithErin
• The Happy Healthy Plant-Based Cookbook: https://www.eatmoverest.com/book
• EatMoveRest Club + App: https://www.eatmoverest.com/club
• Thrive Elite Mastermind: https://bit.ly/EMR-Mastermind
• Pumpkin Muffins + Maple Cashew Frosting Recipe: https://bit.ly/4vyk5jA
• Vanilla Bean Muffins Recipe (Document): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Jh_-ikdqVk0THLXCVxNKvsNPrF_4_jRb/
• Previous Episode #48: https://redcircle.com/shows/d547475c-6b2a-4940-b993-9c32b5347dab/episodes/d7857aa5-c551-4bb3-86ca-68fb6ee38b22

I'm back. It's the third week of September and honestly, it took a little longer than I planned to get here—but I'm glad I waited until I had something worth saying.

This episode is a bit of a ramble, a bit of a manifesto, and a lot of honesty. I spent the summer at the cabin, watched my brother get married for the first time in his 60s, took on some unexpected contract work, and quietly wrestled with whether I even wanted to come back to this podcast at all.

What brought me back? The truth. And the growing sense that not enough people are telling it.

I'll walk you through:

✅ Why I almost didn't come back—and what changed my mind✅ Why "my truth" and "your truth" isn't a thing—and why one objective truth matters more than ever

✅ What's been deeply disturbing me about how younger couples are approaching children, family, and suffering

✅ Why suffering isn't something to be avoided, medicated away, or ended—and what it actually produces in us

✅ The MAID situation that genuinely shook me (a 17-year-old ski accident victim, offered assisted suicide without her parents knowing)

✅ Why children cancelling their parents is becoming a pattern I'm seeing more and more in my therapy room

✅ What I realized about productivity, purpose, and what it means to finally get paid by the hour

✅ What you can expect from the podcast this fall—more guests, more real conversations, more truth

This isn't a polished episode. There's no structure, no guest, and no water on the desk again. It's just me, getting back on here because some things need to be said out loud—and because Alison and Nancy told me they missed me.

🔔 Remember: We don't get to choose life or death—that's not in our job description as human beings. But we do get to choose how we move through suffering. And that choice changes everything.

#TheLuellaJonkShow #ImBack #FallSeason #TruthMatters #ObjectiveTruth #SufferingAndLove #CatholicFaith #MAIDControversy #RealConversations #MarriageAndTruth #FaithAndSuffering #WomensWellness #RelationshipTherapy #ParentingTruth #ProductivityAndPurpose

In this solo episode, I'm doing something a little different—and a little vulnerable. I'm pausing the podcast for the summer. And I wanted to come on here, just the two of us, and tell you why.

It wasn't an easy decision. Since 2021, I've shown up weekly without fail—guests, solo episodes, newsletters, content. And I don't regret a single one. But summer in Manitoba is short, sacred, and relentless in the best possible way. The cabin, the lake, the loons, the kayak, the long days—and suddenly a six-day work week becomes four. Something had to give.

I'll walk you through:

✅ Why I'm pausing—and why I think rest is part of the work

✅ What I'm doing this summer instead (including some unexpected AI writing work I'm genuinely loving)

✅ Why I'd rather show up occasionally with something worth opening than weekly with something you skip

✅ The reminder I keep coming back to: we make plans, and God laughs

✅ Why change—in seasons, in routines, in how we show up—is often exactly what we need

This one is short, honest, and from the heart. No framework, no guest, no structure. Just me, a tickle in my throat, no water on the desk, and a few things I wanted to say before I go quiet for a while.

🔔 I'll be back in the fall. And if you miss me before then—my website, Instagram, and Substack are always there. Reach out. I love hearing from you.

In this conversation with Stephanie Moore—clinical nutritionist, health coach, and author with over 35 years of integrative practice—we're going deep into the gut microbiome, and why what's happening in your digestive system is quietly running the show in your brain, your mood, your resilience, and your ability to handle stress.

Stephanie doesn't do simple. After careers in performing arts, remedial massage therapy, psychotherapy, and nutritional medicine, she's spent decades watching the dots connect—and the gut microbiome is where they all meet.

I'll walk you through:

✅ What postbiotics are and why butyric acid may be one of the most important compounds you've never heard of

✅ How your gut microbes are literally producing the substances that keep your brain plastic, protected, and able to learn

✅ Why BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor) matters more than most people realize—and how to increase it with food

✅ The three Fs of gut health: Fiber, Ferments, and Fasting—and why all three matter

✅ Why heating your kefir isn't a total loss (zombie microbes are real)

✅ The truth about protein for postmenopausal women—and why 25-30 grams at breakfast changes everything for the rest of your day

✅ Why over-exercising drives cortisol, carb cravings, and the donut you feel you deserve

✅ The difference between fueling your body and nourishing it—and why that distinction changes everything

✅ How fasting restores your body's natural hunger signals and why that's more powerful than any diet

Whether you're navigating perimenopause, struggling with brain fog, confused by conflicting nutrition advice, or just tired of treating your body like a chemistry experiment—Stephanie offers 35 years of integrative wisdom distilled into something genuinely practical and deeply refreshing.

🔔 Remember: Your gut microbiome is not just about digestion. It's influencing how you experience the world, how resilient you are, and how your brain repairs itself. And you have the power to change it, meal by meal.

Connect with Stephanie Moore:

🌐 https://health-in-hand.co.uk

📱 Instagram: @healthinhanduk

👔 LinkedIn: stephaniejmooreuk

📘 Facebook: Health-in-Hand

In this conversation with Jillian Mariani—founder of Niyama Wellness and 20+ year veteran of Canada's vitamin and supplement industry—we're talking about something most women don't connect until it's already cost them: the relationship between burnout, perimenopause, and the supplements we actually need versus the chemistry experiment most of us are doing in our kitchens every morning.

Jillian didn't set out to start a business. She set out to survive a season of life that nearly broke her—working 65-hour weeks, not sleeping, drowning in anxiety she didn't yet recognize as perimenopause, and swallowing handfuls of pills she believed in but couldn't sustain. What came out of that season was Niyama: clean, Canadian-made, Health Canada-approved supplements designed for busy women who actually want to feel the difference.

I'll walk you through:

✅ Why what's NOT in a supplement matters just as much as what is

✅ The difference between stevia, monk fruit, and why super tasters taste everything differently

✅ How perimenopause quietly looks like anxiety, insomnia, and burnout—before you even know what's happening

✅ Why Jillian left a 23-year corporate career and what it took to start over in her late 40s

✅ The four supplements she won't travel without (and why)

✅ The real conversation about creatine for women—cognition, mood, muscle preservation, and sleep deprivation

✅ Why hitting 100 grams of protein daily matters—and how to actually do it without losing your mind

✅ How to simplify your supplement routine so you actually stick to it

🎁 Special Offer for The Luella Jonk Show listeners:

Use code LUELLA15 for 15% off your first order.

(Does not apply to bundles or subscriptions, which are already discounted.)

Whether you're drowning in supplement guilt, navigating perimenopause without a roadmap, or quietly wondering if your exhaustion is more than just a busy life—this conversation is for you. Sometimes the most important thing you can do for your health is simplify, not add more.

🔔 Remember: You cannot out-supplement a bad diet or a bad lifestyle. But the right foundational habits—done consistently and enjoyably—can genuinely change how you feel every single day.

Connect with Jillian Mariani & Niyama Wellness:

🌐 https://niyama-wellness.ca

📱 Instagram: @niyamawellnesscanada

In this conversation with Esther Munt-Brooks—Catholic speaker, sacred scripture scholar, and wife of happiness researcher Arthur Brooks—we're doing something a little different. No formal topic, no structured agenda. Just two women catching up on life, faith, marriage, and what it actually looks like to love well in the later seasons of life.

And somehow, in that relaxed space, we covered everything that matters.

Esther shares what it was like to care for her mother in her final years in Barcelona—and why those weeks of service became some of the most joyful of her life. She talks about finally studying for her master's degree after her children left home, the moment she stopped trying to change her husband and started getting curious about him instead, and why she believes the most dangerous thing we can do is wait too long to think seriously about love, marriage, and family.

I'll walk you through:

✅ Why caring for an aging parent can be one of the greatest gifts—for both of you

✅ The moment Esther stopped trying to change Arthur and started studying him instead

✅ Why you cannot love what you don't know—and what happens when curiosity replaces control

✅ How wounded warriors at Walter Reed brought Esther back to her faith

✅ What she told a school of young women about love, career, and the danger of waiting too long

✅ Why doing something hard together—not traveling or retiring—is what actually unites a couple after the kids leave

✅ The difference between mothering and smothering (and why fathers need space to parent differently)

✅ Why marrying younger makes purification easier—and what that says about growth in marriage

Whether you're in the thick of raising children, navigating the empty nest, caring for aging parents, or wondering what the next season of your marriage is supposed to look like—this conversation will feel like coffee with a wise friend who's already been there.

🔔 Remember: You cannot love what you don't know. And when we stop being curious about our spouse, we stop falling in love. Curiosity is not just a virtue—it's the engine of a lasting marriage.

Connect with Esther Munt-Brooks:

🌐 https://fevaloryalegria.org

📱 Instagram: @faithwithjoytalks

Previous episodes with Esther:

🎙️ Episode #93: Ester Munt-Brooks on Why Loving Well Is the Hardest — and Only — Thing That Brings You Peace

🎙️ Episode #70: Katy Faust, Carrie Gress & Ester Munt-Brooks on Reclaiming Masculine and Feminine Design

🎙️ Episode #49: Ester Munt-Brooks on Finding Truth Through Faith in Everyday Life

In this conversation with Dr. Richard Dixey—Oxford-educated scientist, Buddhist scholar, and founder of a London Stock Exchange-listed biotechnology company—we're diving into something that quietly underlies every conflict, every resentment, and every misunderstanding in marriage: the fact that we are never actually experiencing reality. We're experiencing a map of it. And that map is coloured entirely by us.

Dr. Dixey doesn't just theorize about this. He's spent decades studying the science of pre-conscious awareness—the 400 milliseconds between what happens and what we think happened—and what it means for how we relate to ourselves, our spouses, and the world around us.

I'll walk you through:

✅ Why you and your spouse are literally living in different worlds—and why that's not a communication problem, it's a mapmaking problem

✅ The 400-millisecond gap where all your judgments, resentments, and predictions are born—before you even know it

✅ Why controlling your emotions is already too late (emotionality is third in the sequence, not first)

✅ How pre-conscious processing shapes what we see before we're even aware we're seeing it

✅ Why mindfulness is a fruit of something deeper—and what that something is

✅ The candle technique: the simplest first step to reclaiming your attention

✅ Why stress is not a requirement of being human—it's a consequence of unconscious mapmaking

✅ How technology is exploiting our most fundamental vulnerability as a species

✅ Why the nuclear family is psychologically demanding in ways previous generations never experienced

Whether you're a couple caught in the same argument on repeat, someone who can't stop predicting the worst from their spouse, or simply a person who feels chronically stressed and doesn't know why—this conversation offers something rare: a scientific explanation for why we suffer, and a practical path out of it.

🔔 Remember: You are not your narrative. Your narrative is a selection from a totality of events. And when you mistake it for reality, you react to a story instead of a person. Three minutes a day can begin to change that.

Connect with Dr. Richard Dixey: 📧 richard.dixey@gmail.com

📖 Book: Three Minutes a Day: A Fourteen-Week Course to Learn Meditation and Transform Your Life

Get it on Amazon

📱 App: Three Minutes

Download on Google Play

Download on the App Store

In this solo episode, I'm tackling one of the most quietly asked questions I hear in my therapy room—one that couples rarely say out loud, but almost always think: Is this marriage asking me to grow, or are we genuinely incompatible?

It's a question that deserves far more honesty and far less rushing than our culture allows. And before you jump to conclusions about your marriage, I want to slow you down.

I'll walk you through:

✅ Why difficulty in marriage alone doesn't tell you whether to stay or go

✅ The difference between two clashing coping mechanisms and true incompatibility

✅ How identity—the role of "the one who holds everything together"—quietly becomes the real problem

✅ Why disappointment in marriage isn't always a sign something is broken

✅ The grief nobody talks about: mourning the marriage you imagined versus the one you're actually living

✅ How men and women experience overwhelm very differently—and why both matter

✅ What purification in marriage actually looks like (and what it absolutely does not mean)

✅ The questions worth asking before making any major decision about your relationship

Whether you're exhausted and wondering if you married the wrong person, silently keeping score, or just feeling like marriage turned out to be a lot harder than anyone warned you—this episode is for you. Sometimes the marriage isn't broken. Sometimes it's just revealing what was always there.

🔔 Remember: True discernment isn't born from panic or the need for quick answers. It's a process. Slow down, get honest, get curious—and ask what this season of life is actually requiring of you.

Want the visual framework PDF mentioned in this episode? Navigate to the YouTube video link of this episode and leave a comment, or DM me on Instagram and I'll send it your way.

Interested in the Conjugal Love Course? Find it on my website at luellajonk.com

#TheLuellaJonkShow #MarriageAndPurification #IsMyMarriageOver #StayOrGo #MarriageDiscernment #ConjugalLove #MarriageTherapy #RelationshipPatterns #MarriageAndIdentity #DisappointmentInMarriage #MarriageGrief #CompatibilityVsPurification #RelationshipTruth #MarriageCounseling #WomenInMarriage

In this conversation with Fr. Branden Gordon—a newly ordained Salesian priest serving at Saint Benedict Parish in Toronto—we're exploring something I rarely discuss on this show: what daily life looks like for a young priest navigating youth ministry, personal holiness, and the weight of representing Christ to everyone who walks through his door.

Fr. Branden doesn't romanticize the priesthood. After ten years of formation, he's clear-eyed about the struggles—the loneliness, the humility of asking for spending money, the challenge of living charity when it's the virtue he struggles with most. But he's also honest about the gifts: the trust people place in him simply because he wears the collar, the unreal experience of consecrating his first host, and the grace God gives to live out demands he never thought he could meet.

What struck me most about our conversation wasn't just his love for fitness or his ability to write a homily in three hours. It was his deep awareness of God's mercy—and his conviction that this is the message every struggling person needs to hear.

I'll walk you through:

✅ How Fr. Branden went from substitute teacher to ten years of formation for the priesthood

✅ What it's like to grow up culturally Catholic but not practicing—and how grade 8 confirmation planted a seed

✅ The false versions of masculinity young men are being sold online—and what Jesus offers instead

✅ Why he struggles most with charity (the most important virtue) and how the Holy Spirit helps

✅ The image of the Sacred Heart that changed everything: our sins are droplets of water thrown into a burning furnace of God's love

✅ What surprised him most about priesthood: the level of trust people place in him before they even know him well

✅ How he uses AI as a research assistant but never a ghostwriter for homilies

✅ Why he makes physical fitness non-negotiable—and how running up hills grounds him in reality

Whether you're a young person wondering what a priest's life actually looks like, a parent hoping your child stays connected to the faith, or someone wrestling with guilt and wondering if God's mercy is really big enough for you—Fr. Branden offers the kind of honest, human, hope-filled perspective that's rare to hear today.

🔔 Remember: God's mercy is greater than your sins. When we confess with repentance, it's like throwing tiny drops of water into a burning furnace of charity—they're completely evaporated and annihilated from existence. That's what God's mercy is like.

Connect with Fr. Branden Gordon:

🌐 Salesians of Don Bosco: https://salesians.org

📷 Instagram: @brandengordonsdb

In this conversation with Joseph Pearce—internationally acclaimed author, Shakespeare scholar, and visiting professor of literature—we're exploring something I don't often discuss on the show: the depth of wisdom found in literature, philosophy, and the contemplative life, and what it teaches us about marriage, suffering, and formation.

Joseph doesn't just write about great converts like Chesterton, Tolkien, and C.S. Lewis—he lives the truths they wrote about. After his own conversion from radical politics to Catholicism, he's spent decades unpacking how love, sacrifice, and beauty shape not just stories, but souls.

And while his world of poetry and literary references may feel foreign at first, what emerged in our conversation is deeply practical: how we are formed—slowly, drip by drip—by what we choose, what we tolerate, and who we marry.

I'll walk you through:

✅ Why marriage is not about two individuals finding happiness—it's about three getting married (husband, wife, and Christ)

✅ The difference between caring about someone and feeling responsible for them (and why we confuse the two)

✅ How pride and feminism have made marriage competitive instead of complementary

✅ Why the acceptance of sorrow—not sorrow itself—is the secret of life

✅ What Joseph learned when his son was born with Down syndrome and a hole in his heart

✅ The healthy trinity Joseph lives by: intellectual, spiritual, and physical exercise daily

✅ Why disconnecting from devices so we can reconnect with reality is one of the most urgent needs of our time

✅ How every dollar we spend is a vote for a better or worse world—and why we choose convenience over conscience

Whether you're a spouse struggling to accept your partner's quirks, a parent wondering how to form your children for marriage, or someone hungering for beauty and truth in a world of artificial everything—Joseph offers a perspective grounded in 2,000 years of Catholic wisdom that feels both ancient and urgently needed today.

🔔 Remember: Formation happens whether we're paying attention or not. The question is—are you being formed by the spirit of the age, or the Holy Spirit?

Connect with Joseph Pearce:

🌐 Website: http://www.jpearce.co

📰 St. Austin Review (Editor): https://staustinreview.org

📚 Ignatius Critical Editions (Series Editor): www.ignatiuscriticaleditions.com

🎓 Homeschool Connections (Senior Instructor): www.homeschoolconnectionsonline.com

Resources Mentioned:

📖 Poem: The Lime-tree Bower my Prison by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

🙏 Surrender Novena

🙏 Litany of Trust

In this solo episode, I'm challenging the way we've been taught to approach life—and it all started when I saw someone ask for the macros on a recipe online. Not how it tasted. Not if it was satisfying. Just the numbers.

And it hit me: this is how we're being pushed to view everything now. Life has become about measuring, optimizing, tracking, and controlling. We analyze everything down to the smallest detail, believing that if we just manage it all precisely enough, we'll finally feel well.

But I don't think human beings were ever meant to work like that. And it's leaving us deeply disconnected from what actually forms us.

In this episode, I unpack:

✅ Why we are what we repeatedly do—and how formation happens slowly, drip by drip

✅ The difference between caring about someone and feeling responsible for them (and why we confuse the two)

✅ How trying to regulate your inner world by controlling outer circumstances keeps you exhausted

✅ Why marriages aren't destroyed in one dramatic event—they're formed (or broken) quietly over years

✅ The kitchen example: why you can't help but "manage" your husband's cooking (and what that's really about)

✅ How bad relational habits become so automatic and unconscious that reversing them feels impossible

✅ Why experiencing life—not just measuring or managing it—is what actually brings peace

Whether you're a newlywed who needs to hear this before bad patterns set in, a mother watching your child enter a serious relationship, or someone who's been managing your marriage for years and wondering why you feel so empty—this episode is for you.

Sometimes the most important question isn't "How do I get them to change?" It's "What am I repeatedly doing that's forming us into this?"

🔔 Remember: Formation happens whether we're paying attention or not. The question is—are you being formed into the relationship you want, or the one you're afraid of?

In this solo episode, I’m following up on last week’s conversation because many women reached out with the same exhausted question:

Why is it always me who has to change?

Why am I the one being asked to slow down, soften my tone, regulate my emotions, or communicate better when I already feel like I’m carrying everything?

This week, I want to bring much more clarity to what I meant — because this is not about tolerating disrespect, staying silent, or excusing poor behavior.

It’s about something far more uncomfortable: learning to notice what is happening inside of you before you react to what is happening around you.

So many women are living in a constant state of prediction, problem-solving, mental management, and emotional bracing. You are not simply responding to life anymore — you are trying to stay one step ahead of it at all times.

And while that may feel productive... it is quietly stealing your peace, your clarity, and your relationships.

In this episode, I unpack:

✅ Why constantly focusing on who is right and who is wrong keeps you stuck

✅ The hidden identity many women build around “doing everything”

✅ Why overfunctioning can start to feel safer than slowing down

✅ How anxiety grows when you live mentally in the future

✅ The difference between accepting reality and approving of poor treatment

✅ One grounding question that can completely change how you respond in conflict

✅ Why peace often begins when you stop trying to control everything

This conversation is about much more than marriage.

It’s about the way many of us have been trained to believe that doing more, carrying more, anticipating more, and controlling more will eventually make us feel safe.

But for many women, it’s doing the exact opposite.

If you feel depleted, reactive, mentally crowded, and like life is moving by faster than you can catch it — this episode is for you.

Sometimes strength is not found in holding everything together.

Sometimes strength is found in finally asking:

What is actually required of me right now?

In this solo episode, I'm walking you through something I see every single week in my therapy room — and something I've lived myself: the moment a small, ordinary trigger sends your entire nervous system into protection mode, and why the real problem is almost never what you think it is.

I'll walk you through:

✅ The four-step pattern playing out in your marriage on repeat — trigger, prediction, body response, behaviour — and why most couples only ever see the surface of it

✅ Why the problem isn't your husband sitting down, opening the mail, or not noticing you need help

✅ How the role of "the one who holds it all together" slowly becomes an identity you don't even realise you've built

✅ Why your feelings are not always a reliable indicator of what's actually true

✅ The difference between reacting from a threatened identity and responding from a grounded one

✅ What it actually sounds like to ask for what you need — without the tension, the tone, or the expectation baked in

Whether you're exhausted from carrying everything, stuck in the same argument with different words, or wondering why your husband feels more like a roommate than a partner — this episode will help you see what's actually happening beneath the surface.

🔔 Remember: Your patterns are not your identity. And the path to a better marriage isn't more effort or more control — it's more clarity about the story you've been telling yourself all along.

In this solo episode, I'm being honest about something I don't think we talk about enough: what happens after the spiritual highs. It's the Friday after Easter, and instead of feeling joyful and victorious, I've been waking up with this low-level heaviness—not depression, not anything my family would notice, but something quietly off.

I'll walk you through:

✅ Why intensity—whether it's Easter, a long-awaited vacation, or a career milestone—often leaves us feeling drained afterward

✅ The intersection of joy and suffering that the cross reveals (and why we can't escape it)

✅ How women especially get stuck in constant mental movement—planning, anticipating, evaluating—even when sitting still

✅ Why the instinct to "fix" ourselves when we feel off is often the wrong move

✅ The difference between circumstantial problems and deeper misalignment

✅ Why I choose work that doesn't make money (my podcast, my writing) and what that says about fulfillment vs. productivity

Whether you're coming down from a spiritual season feeling flat, caught in the mental gymnastics of trying to do enough and be enough, or wondering why rest never feels like rest—this episode offers permission to stop overanalyzing and start realigning.

🔔 Remember: Not everything that feels off needs to be fixed. Sometimes you're just human. And sometimes the answer isn't more productivity or better circumstances—it's coming back into proper alignment with what actually matters.

#TheLuellaJonkShow #AfterTheHigh #EasterReflection #SpiritualIntensity #JoyAndSuffering #WomenAndExhaustion #MentalLoad #SoulFulfillment #Misalignment #ProductivityVsPurpose #ChristianLiving #LentAndEaster #BeingHuman #InnerPeace #GroundedInGod

In this second conversation with Norwegian psychiatrist Hannah Spier, we're diving into territory that most clinicians won't touch: the rise of personality disorders among women, the feminization of therapy that's made gatekeeping impossible, and why credentials alone won't fix what's broken in mental health care.

Hannah doesn't hold back. After years treating patients in outpatient psychiatry, she's watched the diagnostic manual get diluted, differential diagnosis disappear, and an entire generation of women get labeled with disorders they wear like badges of honor.

I'll walk you through:

✅ Why Cluster B personality disorders (borderline, narcissism, histrionic, antisocial) are rising—and what's fueling them

✅ How low agreeableness and high neuroticism create the "weaponized emotionality" we see everywhere now

✅ Why the self-esteem movement of the 90s and participation trophies set us up for narcissistic traits

✅ The feminization of therapy—why 85% female therapists means no incentive to gatekeep diagnoses

✅ How secondary gains (attention, accommodation, identity, redemption arcs) keep people sick

✅ Why feminism has trained women to overemphasize their own suffering and contributions in marriage

✅ The difference between relational aggression (women) and outward aggression (men)—and why both are equally destructive

Whether you're a woman who's been called "too much," a therapist struggling with what you're being taught to validate, or someone watching workplace bullying and campus protests wondering what's happening to our culture—Hannah offers the kind of clinically-grounded, fearless perspective that's nearly extinct today.

🔔 Remember: Not every struggle is a diagnosis. And a diagnosis you've incorporated into your identity can never be treated. Real compassion doesn't remove truth—it holds both.

Connect with Hannah Spier:

📰 Substack: https://substack.com/@psychobabblewithspier

📷 Instagram: @psychobabblewithspier

Recommended Videos from Hannah:

▶️ How Dark Traits Express Themselves in Women — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YOmG62tyl0

▶️ Why Women Get Away With Narcissism (3 Patterns You'll Recognize) — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXCRI6u1bl8

▶️ Still Selling Feminism: Our Response to Diary of a CEO — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIys5zTk-xs

In this episode, I share my reflections after listening to a recent Chatelaine podcast on weight, identity, and responsibility.

This is an important and, at times, uncomfortable conversation.

As a therapist, I work with women every day who feel exhausted, disconnected from their bodies, and unsure of what is actually within their control. While modern culture often emphasizes external factors such as media influence, hormones, and environment, we risk removing something essential in the process, personal responsibility.

At the same time, I want to be clear that this conversation does not apply to individuals facing legitimate medical or hormonal conditions that significantly affect weight regulation. Those situations are real and deserve proper care and attention.

What I explore in this episode is something different: the everyday patterns I see in my practice, where chronic stress, lifestyle habits, and disconnection from the body quietly shape a woman’s health.

True compassion does not remove truth. It holds both.

This episode is an invitation to reflect, not react, and to consider where responsibility can become a source of empowerment rather than shame.

🎧 Listen to the Chatelaine podcast episode discussed here:

Chatelaine's Group Chat Podcast: Listen here

In this episode, I'm sitting down with Kate Christie—Australia's top time management expert and the woman who bought a palazzo in Sicily as her midlife manifesto. After losing her ex-husband to pancreatic cancer while raising three teenagers solo, Kate discovered that waiting for "someday" is the biggest trap we fall into. She created what she calls a Life List—not a bucket list for when you're old, but a guide for living audaciously right now.

I'll walk you through:

✅ Why tragedy taught Kate that "later might be too late" and how it transformed her entire approach to time

✅ The "24 out the door" parenting philosophy that empowers adult children to thrive independently

✅ How to break down audacious goals into 90-second moments of action

✅ Why empty nesting should be celebrated, not mourned—and what that says about healthy relationships

✅ The three types of Life List goals: Go Big (palazzo dreams), Go Small (daily joy), and Go Now (spontaneity)

Whether you're stuck in survival mode, convinced you need to wait until retirement to live your dreams, or struggling to prioritize yourself after years of giving to everyone else, this conversation offers the framework and permission you need to start living now. Sometimes the path to fulfillment isn't through more planning—it's through taking that first brave step.

🔔 Remember: This isn't about abandoning responsibility or being selfish—it's about recognizing that you've earned your turn. Life is precious, and the relationships we build with our children, partners, and ourselves are strongest when we model what it means to live intentionally.

Connect with Kate Christie:

Website: www.katechristie.com.au

Instagram: @katechristieloves

Facebook: Kate Christie

LinkedIn: Kate Christie

Email: kc@katechristie.com.au

Kate's Book: The Life List: Master Every Moment and Live an Audacious Life

There's a version of conviction that looks a lot like control. And most of us have been living there without realizing it.

This week I'm coming to you solo — and honestly, a little vulnerably — because something came up in my own Faith Formation group that I wasn't expecting. I got defensive. I got reactive. And somewhere in the middle of trying to defend the faith I love, I stopped actually living it.

So let's talk about that.

I'll walk you through:

✅ Why defensiveness is one of the most honest signals you'll ever get — if you know how to read it

✅ The difference between standing in truth and standing in your wound

✅ What St. Joseph shows us about how to hold your convictions without becoming loud, harsh, or reactive

✅ Why correcting the people you love the most is probably making things worse — not better

✅ The moment a client told me she just wanted her husband to understand her — and what she actually meant

✅ Why truth never panics — and what it means for the way you show up in conflict

✅ What living your faith quietly actually looks like — because it's not silence and it's not a doormat

Whether it's your marriage, your kids, your politics, or your faith — most of us are trying to force what only presence and consistency can build. We explain more. We get louder. We leave the book on the bedside table and wonder why nothing changes.

St. Joseph never argued. He never convinced anyone of anything. He just lived it — steadily, faithfully, quietly. And it was enough.

It can be enough for us too.

🔔 Remember: Truth doesn't panic. It doesn't need to win. It was here before the argument started — and it'll be here long after it ends.

Connect with Luella: 🙏 Faith Formation Group — reach out to join! Message me through @luellajonk on IG. 💑 Ongoing Conjugal Love Course — now with monthly additions!

In this episode, Catholic educator Ester Munt-Brooks returns for a deeply honest conversation about what it really means to love — not as a feeling, but as a decision. From her years as a free-spirited musician in Spain who wanted nothing to do with commitment, to becoming a daily communicant, devoted wife, and mother of three, Ester unpacks what shifted — and why it took so long to look in the right place.

We'll walk you through:

✅ Why the women you're comparing yourself to might actually be leading you away from peace

✅ What St. Thomas Aquinas can teach us about emotions, free will, and why love is never "just a feeling"

✅ How staying home with her children felt both wrong to her intellect and completely right in her heart — at the same time

✅ Why putting your children first might quietly be destroying your marriage

✅ The small, unsexy acts of love that bring warm feelings back when they've gone cold

✅ Why original sin was — at its root — a trust problem. And why yours probably is too

✅ What it means to be both a strong woman and a receptive one — and why you don't have to choose

Whether you're a high-achieving woman who's starting to feel the weight of all that striving, a wife who has slowly drifted from her husband somewhere between school drop-offs and career deadlines, or someone who has always kept faith at arm's length — Ester speaks your language. Because she used to speak it too.

🔔 Remember: Peace is not the absence of chaos. It's the sign that you're finally loving in the right direction.

Connect with Ester Munt-Brooks:

🌐 Website: https://fevaloryalegria.org

📱 Instagram: @faithwithjoytalks