Advertise on podcast: Notes from the Edge

We are told to look for the good, raise our vibration, practice gratitude, forgive, move on, and trust that everything happens for a reason. But what happens when positivity becomes another way to avoid reality? In this Edge Note, Lisa Lacy explores spiritual bypassing, false positivity, trauma, emotional avoidance, and the difference between acceptance and resignation. Facing what is painful does not make you negative. Sometimes it simply means you are willing to tell yourself the truth. Two people can experience what looks like the same event and carry completely different emotional consequences from it. Trauma is not determined only by what happened. Context, meaning, safety, loss, and what happened afterward all matter. Healing does not require pretending everything is beautiful. It requires being willing to see your life as it exists today so you can decide what you want to create tomorrow. In this episode: Why false positivity can keep us from making meaningful changeWhat spiritual bypassing looks like when spiritual ideas are used to avoid painful emotionsWhy two people can experience the same event and be affected completely differentlyThe difference between acknowledging victimization and remaining trapped in a victim identityWhy accepting reality may be one of the most powerful ways to reclaim agency over what happens nextGo deeper Inside the Edge  https://www.lisalacy.com/inside-the-edge What did you perform in order to survive? Welcome to the Edge. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What if the answers you’ve spent your whole life searching for aren’t somewhere out there, but waiting for you to finally turn inward? In this Edge Note of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy sits down with psychotherapist, spiritual teacher, mentor, and author Rosanne Annoni for a deeply human conversation about spiritual awakening, grief, forgiveness, self-inquiry, and what happens when we stop looking outside ourselves for permission, validation, and truth. After decades as a psychotherapist and years of her own searching, Rosanne shares how therapy, meditation, loss, motherhood, relationships, and the Diamond Approach gradually brought her back to herself. Together, Lisa and Rosanne explore the difference between understanding our patterns and learning not to be ruled by them. In this conversation: Why healing often begins when we stop focusing on everyone else and turn inwardHow victimhood, blame, and self-blame can keep us trapped in old patternsWhat forgiveness can look like without excusing what happenedWhy people-pleasing and doing everything alone can disconnect us from ourselvesHow curiosity, presence, self-inquiry, and accepting support can change the way we move through life Rosanne’s debut memoir, Unfolding the Heart: One Woman’s Quest for True Nature, explores a lifetime of searching, loss, healing, spirituality, and the courage to keep standing back up. Connect with Rosanne Annoni https://rosanneannoni.com Connect with Lisa Lacy https://www.lisalacy.com What did you perform in order to survive? Welcome to the Edge. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What stories disappear when the people we love are no longer here to tell them? In this episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy sits down with entrepreneur, business coach, former United States Marine, and founder of The Story Project, Brad Koch, for a deeply human conversation about family stories, grief, memory, legacy, and the things we often wait too long to ask. Brad shares how the loss of his father-in-law, and the realization that his wife wished she had more recordings of his voice, face, mannerisms, and stories, helped inspire The Story Project. Lisa and Brad explore why knowing someone’s story can completely change the way we understand our family, our childhood, our trauma, and even ourselves. This is a conversation about remembering where we came from while the people who came before us are still here to tell us. In this episode: • Why preserving someone’s voice, mannerisms, memories, and stories can become an irreplaceable part of their legacy • How learning our family’s stories can deepen connection and change the way we understand our own past • Why waiting until time feels limited can leave us scrambling to ask questions we could be asking now • How The Story Project helps families capture and preserve stories across generations • Brad’s experience entering the Marine Corps at seventeen, the role he performed to survive, and why asking for help is not weakness Connect with Brad: https://storyproject.app Connect with Lisa: https://www.lisalacy.com What did you perform in order to survive? Welcome to the Edge. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Why a special edition? Because every once in a while, a conversation happens at the Edge that feels too important to wait its turn on the calendar. This is one of those conversations. At 18 years old, Liam Beville pushed a friend out of the path of a stolen car and took the impact himself. Both of his legs were shattered, his right knee was severely damaged, and he was told he might never walk again. He did more than walk again. Liam became an elite powerlifter, Guinness World Record holder, disability advocate, speaker and author. But underneath the records, the weights and four decades of competition was another story. For years, Liam practiced the way he walked so people would not see his limp. Strength became more than something he demonstrated. It became something he performed. In this special edition of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy and Liam talk about what happens when survival becomes identity, when resilience starts looking like a mask, and what it means to finally acknowledge the parts of ourselves we worked so hard to hide. In this conversation: • Why Liam focused on rebuilding his mind before rebuilding his body after catastrophic injury • The depression, PTSD and loss of dignity that accompanied his recovery • How rehabilitation eventually led him into 40 years of competitive powerlifting • Why Liam spent years hiding his disability, including practicing how he walked so others would not see his limp • What changed when he stopped seeing disability as something that diminished his strength and began allowing it to become part of his story Liam is a Guinness World Record holder, internationally ranked powerlifter, disability advocate and brand ambassador for Active Disability Ireland. His upcoming memoir, Unbroken: The Liam Beville Story, tells the larger story of survival, performance, identity and resilience. Connect with Liam Beville: https://www.liambeville.com Connect with Lisa Lacy: https://www.lisalacy.com Listener’s Note: Resilience is not the absence of pain, disability, fear or limitation. Sometimes the strongest thing we can do is stop performing strength long enough to acknowledge what happened to us. Liam’s story is a reminder that adapting is not surrender, asking for help is not weakness, and accepting the parts of yourself that changed does not erase who you were before. Survival may require a performance for a season. Healing often begins when you realize you no longer have to keep performing it. What did you perform in order to survive? Welcome to the Edge. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What happens when the workplace you once worked so hard to succeed in becomes the place you no longer recognize yourself? In this episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy sits down with employment attorney, workplace strategist, author, and former corporate people and culture executive Natalie Holder for a powerful conversation about workplace trauma, exclusion, toxic work culture, self-advocacy, and career reinvention. Natalie explains why workplace trauma does not always look dramatic. Sometimes it is being left out of the room, overlooked for opportunities, quietly bullied, or repeatedly questioning whether what you are experiencing is “bad enough” to speak up about. They explore why high performers may be among the last people to leave unhealthy environments, why having language for what is happening matters, and how unresolved workplace experiences can follow us into the next job if we never stop to understand them. Natalie also challenges the idea that the answer is always to quit immediately. Sometimes the most powerful move is understanding what happened, getting support, planning your exit intentionally, and asking better questions about what you actually want next. In this episode: • How exclusion and workplace trauma can hide in plain sight • Why high performers may stay in unhealthy workplaces longer • Finding the language to advocate for yourself • Knowing when it is time to stay, leave, or strategically pivot • Building a career that supports who you are becoming Connect with Natalie Holder: https://natalieholderspeaks.com Connect with Lisa Lacy: https://www.lisalacy.com What did you perform in order to survive? Welcome to the Edge. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What happens when the roles you learned to play in relationships start costing you yourself? In this episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy sits down with relationship and intimacy coaches Natalie Vartanian and Glenn Nielsen for an honest conversation about marriage, somatic healing, nervous system regulation, inherited relationship roles, and what happens when couples stop blaming each other long enough to look beneath the conflict. Natalie and Glenn share how even after years of personal growth and entering their marriage intentionally, old conditioning began showing up. Natalie found herself becoming a muted version of herself, while Glenn wrestled with the enormous pressure of being the provider after the collapse of a business he had built over decades. Together, they explore why sometimes the intensity of our reaction has more to do with what is happening inside us than what our partner actually did, and how couples can begin creating a relationship based on conscious choice rather than inherited expectations. In this episode: • How the “good wife” and “good husband” roles can quietly create resentment and pressure • Why your nervous system may be reacting to something deeper than the argument in front of you • Somatic awareness and learning to recognize activation in the body • Taking responsibility for your own patterns without turning relationship work into blame • How couples can intentionally create agreements, connection, intimacy, and a relationship that allows both people to fully exist Connect with Natalie & Glenn: https://wakeuporbreakup.com Connect with Lisa: https://www.lisalacy.com What did you perform in order to survive?  Welcome to the Edge. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What happens when accepting a diagnosis stops feeling like surrender and becomes the beginning of recovery? In this episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy sits down with author and podcast host Reza Ghaemi for an honest, funny, and deeply human conversation about living with Bipolar I Disorder, surviving mania and hospitalization, resisting treatment, and eventually learning to work with his diagnosis instead of fighting against it. Reza, author of Bipolar Is My Superpower: How Acceptance Changed My Life and host of The Rez Podcast, shares why acceptance became a turning point in his recovery and why calling bipolar his “superpower” is not about romanticizing mania or psychosis. It is about the self-awareness, resilience, recovery skills, and responsibility he built afterward. Lisa and Reza also dig into stigma, medication, faith, family support, disclosure, relationships, and what changes when you stop hiding your story and start owning it. In this episode: • Bipolar I Disorder, mania, psychosis, and hospitalization • Moving from denial and stigma toward acceptance • Medication, treatment, sleep, and building recovery skills • Mental health disclosure in work, dating, and relationships • Replacing shame and fear with self-awareness and ownership Connect with Reza Ghaemi: The Rez Podcast: https://www.rezpodcast.com Connect with Lisa Lacy: https://www.lisalacy.com What did you perform in order to survive? Welcome to the Edge. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What happens inside your body in the seconds between a trigger, a craving, and a choice? Dr. Deborah Rozman is a behavioral psychologist and President/Co-CEO of HeartMath. In this episode of Notes From the Edge, she joins Lisa Lacy to explore what happens physiologically when stress activates old patterns, why the familiar can feel safer even when it is destructive, and whether we can train the nervous system to create more space between an urge and our response. They unpack heart-brain communication, heart rate variability, coherence, and real-time biofeedback, while Lisa shares how biofeedback became part of her own recovery experience. Dr. Rozman also walks through a simple heart-focused breathing practice that can be used when stress, overwhelm, or cravings begin to rise. In this episode: Addiction recovery, cravings, triggers, and relapse preventionWhy the brain can reach for familiar patterns during stress and overwhelmHeart-brain coherence, HRV, and nervous system regulationUsing real-time biofeedback to recognize and shift physiological stress patternsHeart-focused breathing and creating space between an urge and a reaction Connect with Dr. Deborah Rozman: HeartMath.com Connect with Lisa Lacy: www.LisaLacy.com What did you perform in order to survive? Welcome to the Edge. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What happens when telling the truth about your mental health could cost you your credibility, your career, or the way people see you forever? In this solo episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy talks openly about living with Bipolar I, psychosis, borderline personality disorder, addiction, hospitalization, and recovery while simultaneously building businesses, leading teams, earning six figures, and appearing highly functional to the outside world. This is a conversation about what happens when a psychiatric diagnosis becomes a verdict instead of information. Lisa explores the pressure to hide serious mental illness in professional spaces, the difference between mental health awareness and actual psychological safety, and why people should not have to prove recovery by pretending they were never sick. In this episode: • Bipolar I, psychosis and borderline personality disorder stigma • Mental illness, employment and the fear of professional disclosure • High-functioning mental illness, leadership and hidden struggles • Psychiatric hospitalization, addiction, recovery and rebuilding a life • Why workplaces need real systemic change beyond mental health awareness Connect with Lisa: https://lisalacy.com What did you perform in order to survive? Welcome to the Edge. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Licensed marriage and family therapist and educator Renée Calhoun joins Lisa Lacy to unpack a deceptively simple question: when does “being strong” stop being resilience and start becoming survival mode? In this conversation, Renée and Lisa explore why highly capable people can look successful on the outside while their nervous systems remain stuck on high alert. They talk about guilt-free rest, people pleasing, overfunctioning, emotional safety, family systems, toxic relationship patterns, and the ways trauma adaptations can become so familiar that we mistake them for personality. Renée also explains why intelligence alone can’t logic us out of relationships or behaviors our nervous systems still associate with connection and safety. In this episode: Trauma and nervous system survival responsesThe difference between resilience and survival modeWhy high-functioning people can still be sufferingPeople pleasing, overfunctioning and emotional laborWhy rest can feel unsafe or uncomfortableWhen trauma adaptations get mistaken for personality traitsInternal Family Systems and parts workEmotional safety versus emotional discomfortToxic relationships and repeated relationship patternsHow family systems shape our earliest ideas about love and belongingBoundaries, self-worth and learning to say noMoving from autopilot into curiosity and conscious choiceWhy healing isn’t becoming someone new, but discovering who you are when you no longer have to survive Connect with Renée Calhoun: https://reneecalhounlmft.com Connect with Lisa Lacy: https://lisalacy.com What did you perform in order to survive?  Welcome to the Edge. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What happens when being capable becomes the very thing that keeps people from seeing you’re struggling? In this episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy sits down with Nigerian-American physician, novelist, and storyteller Dr. Nneka Oluoha for a conversation about high-functioning depression, cultural expectations, motherhood, immigrant identity, and the roles we perform to survive. Dr. Nneka explores why the person who appears strongest may be carrying the most, why “I’m fine” can become a practiced performance, and how competence, strength, and responsibility can eventually become a prison when we never allow ourselves to put them down. She also shares her experience moving from Nigeria to the United States, navigating multiple identities as a physician, mother, wife, immigrant, and writer, and finally reclaiming the part of herself that had always wanted to write. Her novel, Live For Me Nkem, uses fiction to take readers inside depression not only through the person experiencing it, but through the family living beside her. In this episode: • High-functioning depression and performing “fine” • Competence and strength as survival roles • Immigrant identity and navigating two cultures • Motherhood, responsibility, and mom guilt • Why successful people struggle to ask for help • Depression’s impact on the entire family • Listening instead of trying to fix someone • Reclaiming parts of yourself buried beneath responsibility • The power of storytelling to create empathy around mental health Sometimes support is not having the perfect advice. Sometimes it is simply being willing to sit beside someone in the dark. Connect with Dr. Nneka Oluoha: LinkedIn-Nneka Oluoha Connect with Lisa Lacy: https://www.lisalacy.com What did you perform in order to survive? Welcome to the Edge. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What happens when something that happened to you starts defining who you are? In this episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy sits down with author and survivor advocate Amy McKiernan for a raw conversation about sexual assault, trauma, identity, addiction, boundaries, consent, and rebuilding a life beyond survival. Amy shares how being raped at fifteen shaped her identity, relationships, coping mechanisms, and sense of self-worth. She and Lisa explore numbing through drugs and alcohol, toxic relationships, motherhood, mental health labels, and the long process of reclaiming agency after choice has been taken away. They also talk about why healing is not linear, how small choices can become acts of recovery, and why trauma can remain part of your story without remaining in control of your life. In this episode: • Sexual assault and trauma identity • Addiction and emotional numbing • Boundaries, self-worth, and toxic relationships • Healing that is messy and nonlinear • Mental health labels and identity • Consent, intoxication, and accountability • Reclaiming agency and choosing yourself Connect with Amy McKiernan: https://amymckiernan.com Connect with Lisa Lacy: https://www.lisalacy.com What did you perform in order to survive? Welcome to the Edge. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What if the person you became to survive is no longer the person you want to be? In this episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy sits down with speaker and leadership consultant Jon Symes to explore the unconscious stories we build around identity, masculinity, success, leadership, and survival. Jon calls this work Narrative Liberation: recognizing the roles and beliefs we adopted to navigate life, then deciding which ones still belong to us. They talk about the cost of being “the strong one,” the provider, the good guy, the high performer, or the person who always has it together. Jon also shares how early survival adaptations can begin, including changing the way he walked as a boy to avoid social judgment and carrying that performance for nearly twenty years. Together, Lisa and Jon explore midlife reinvention, masculinity, people-pleasing, leadership, family roles, authenticity, and what happens when the identity that once protected you starts costing you pieces of yourself. In this episode: • Survival performance and identity • Narrative Liberation • Masculinity and provider pressure • Midlife reinvention • The “good guy” mask • People-pleasing and self-abandonment • Leadership and authenticity • Family roles and inherited stories • Reclaiming the parts of yourself you learned to hide Connect with Jon Symes: https://www.wholeandfree.me Connect with Lisa Lacy: https://www.lisalacy.com What did you perform in order to survive? Welcome to the Edge. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What happens when a pastor trades the pulpit for a 24-year career inside the FBI? Eric Robinson spent 12 years in Christian ministry before becoming an FBI Special Agent, eventually serving 15 years as a SWAT operator and working investigations involving counterterrorism, crimes against children, gangs, drugs, financial crime, civil rights violations, political corruption, and national security. But this conversation isn’t really about badges, guns, or cases. It’s about what happens to your understanding of human beings when you’ve spent decades sitting across from victims, informants, criminals, survivors, and people living through some of the darkest circumstances imaginable. In this episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy and Eric Robinson talk about: • Going from the pulpit to the FBI • 24 years inside federal law enforcement • What ministry taught Eric about interviewing, trust, and human behavior • Witnessing trauma without losing your humanity • Why context matters when we judge another person’s choices • The relationship between trauma, circumstance, crime, and survival • Why mentorship and nonjudgmental support matter • The psychological weight of believing you have to be perfect • Dropping the mask Eric wore as a pastor • Fear, competence, repetition, and learning to trust yourself • Why making the “wrong” decision doesn’t have to destroy your life • Humanizing people without excusing harmful behavior • Choosing curiosity over judgment • Why Eric believes we need more kindness in difficult conversations • His upcoming book chronicling the unlikely journey from preacher to FBI Special Agent Eric’s story is a reminder that people are almost always more complicated than the headline, the crime, the job title, the mistake, or the label we’ve been given. Sometimes understanding another human being starts with getting curious enough to ask what happened before we decide who they are. Connect with Eric Robinson: https://preachertobreacher.com Connect with Lisa Lacy: https://www.lisalacy.com What did you perform in order to survive? Welcome to the Edge. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What if the behavior we’re trying to stop is actually trying to tell us something? Bryan Post is a child behavior expert and creator of the Fear to Love Method whose work challenges parents to see difficult behavior not as defiance, but as communication from a nervous system experiencing stress, fear or unmet needs.  In this conversation, Bryan and Lisa explore what changes when adults stop trying to control behavior and start looking underneath it. They unpack why a stressed parent cannot regulate a stressed child, how consistency creates safety, and why the feelings we learned to suppress in childhood can continue driving our reactions decades later. Bryan also shares his “Reflect, Relate and Regulate” approach and a powerful story illustrating what can happen when a parent gets curious about the fear beneath a child’s behavior instead of immediately trying to correct it.  In this episode: Childhood trauma and nervous system regulationTrauma-informed parenting and difficult behaviorAdoption, attachment and emotional safetyWhy punishment and control can intensify stressParent self-regulation and co-regulationHow childhood survival patterns follow us into adulthoodGrief, emotional healing and unresolved traumaReflect, Relate and RegulateMoving from fear-based reactions toward connectionWhy behavior can be an opportunity rather than a problem  Connect with Bryan: www.feartolove.com Connect with Lisa: www.lisalacy.com What did you perform in order to survive? Welcome to the Edge. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.