Notes from the Edge

Gamut Podcast Network
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Notes From the Edge is where polished stories end and the truth begins. Hosted by writer, trauma educator, executive advisor, and author Lisa Lacy, this globally ranked podcast explores survival, identity, trauma, addiction, recovery, leadership, relationships, and reinvention through raw, deeply human conversations. No scripts. No small talk. Just the stories we were taught to hide, the roles we performed to survive, and the truths that set us free. What did you perform in order to survive? Welcome to the edge. www.lisalacy.com

  1. 20 hr ago

    Sexual Addiction & Betrayal Trauma: Boundaries, Grief and Healing with Roxanna Johnson

    What happens to the spouse when the person with the addiction gets all the attention? In this deeply personal conversation, Lisa Lacy sits down with author, speaker and advocate Roxanna Johnson to talk about the side of sexual addiction that is too often forgotten: betrayal trauma and what it does to the partner left trying to make sense of a life that suddenly feels unrecognizable. After nearly 24 years of marriage, Roxanna discovered that her husband had been living with a hidden pattern of sexual addiction. She calls the disclosure “the bomb” because it didn’t simply reveal a secret. It blew apart her understanding of her marriage, her safety and, for a time, herself. Lisa and Roxanna dig into what betrayal trauma can actually look like: hypervigilance, panic, anger, grief, shame, questioning your own reality and becoming so focused on another person’s behavior that you lose touch with your own wants, needs and identity. They also explore one of the most important distinctions in recovery: boundaries are not control. Roxanna shares how she learned to stop twisting herself into what she calls “a pretzel” to keep the peace and instead use boundaries to create emotional safety for herself, regardless of whether her partner chose recovery. The conversation goes into codependency and counterdependence, lovingly detaching, rebuilding self-trust, finding competent betrayal-trauma support, creating a recovery community, spiritual reawakening and grieving the marriage, family or future you thought you had. And perhaps most importantly, they talk about the spouse’s right to heal independently of the outcome of the relationship. Roxanna’s work and book, Forgotten in the Battle with Sexual Addiction: The Journey of a Spouse, give language and support to partners and families who have too often been treated as collateral damage in someone else’s recovery. Connect with Roxanna Johnson: https://ForgottenSpouse.com Connect with Lisa Lacy and Notes From the Edge: https://www.lisalacy.com/podcast 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.

    Sexual Addiction & Betrayal Trauma: Boundaries, Grief and Healing with Roxanna Johnson

  2. 2 days ago

    The Longest Distance: Men’s Mental Health, Male Loneliness & Emotional Healing with Daniel Sterling

    What happens when achievement becomes a substitute for being seen? Writer, memoirist, and speaker Daniel Sterling joins Lisa Lacy for a candid conversation about men’s mental health, male loneliness, emotional vulnerability, masculinity, identity, and what it takes to raise emotionally whole boys. Daniel traces his own journey from an eight-year-old alpine ski racer who discovered the powerful rush of recognition to becoming one of the top ski racers in the country, then pursuing success through television, broadcasting, screenwriting, and filmmaking. But underneath the ambition was something much more human: the need to be seen, valued, and loved. After emotionally cratering in midlife, Daniel began questioning the identity he had built around achievement. A mentor introduced him to self-study, accountability, and a different way of living, beginning what he describes as the much longer journey from his head to his heart. Lisa and Daniel dig into why so many men learn to armor up instead of open up, how childhood messages like “toughen up” and “man up” can follow boys into adulthood, and why our current crisis of male isolation may have roots much earlier than we think. They also explore what parents can do differently: knowing the child in front of them, celebrating effort instead of achievement, allowing boys to fail and recover, giving them a voice, and creating enough emotional safety for vulnerability without removing the structure they need to grow. And perhaps most importantly, they talk about personal accountability: learning to recognize what belongs to you, apologize without defending yourself, change the behavior that caused harm, and discover who you are when you no longer need the performance. Daniel is currently seeking representation for his completed memoir, Hungry, and shares excerpts from his writing through his Substack. Connect with Daniel Sterling: https://daniel-sterling.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.

    The Longest Distance: Men’s Mental Health, Male Loneliness & Emotional Healing with Daniel Sterling

  3. 3 days ago

    Coercive Control & Trauma Bonding: Why You Can’t “Just Leave” Solo Episode with Lisa Lacy

    Why does someone stay in a relationship they know is hurting them? And why can leaving feel almost physically unbearable, even when you know you need to go? In this special solo episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy shares her own experience of spending 13 years in a marriage marked by addiction, betrayal, coercive control, gaslighting and trauma bonding. At the time, Lisa was also carrying diagnoses of borderline personality disorder, bipolar disorder, complex PTSD, chronic alcoholism and codependency while managing a congenital blood disease. Over time, the chaos became so disorienting that she stopped trusting her own perception and began gaslighting herself. She left repeatedly. And repeatedly went back. Because every time she tried to leave, it felt like she was dying. It ultimately took three years to complete the divorce and another three years before she was able to fully go no contact. This conversation explores what coercive control actually looks like when it happens slowly, how trauma bonds are reinforced through cycles of fear, pain, relief and reconciliation, why mental-health diagnoses can make someone even more vulnerable to doubting their own reality, and why asking survivors, “Why didn’t you just leave?” profoundly misunderstands what may be happening psychologically and physiologically. Lisa also talks about the long road back to self-trust, the difference between understanding someone and giving them permission to harm you, and the moment when you stop making decisions based on someone’s potential and finally start looking at their patterns. Because sometimes leaving is not one brave decision. Sometimes it is a process of choosing yourself over and over again until your nervous system finally learns that freedom is safe. Learn more about Lisa and Notes From the Edge at 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.

    Coercive Control & Trauma Bonding: Why You Can’t “Just Leave” Solo Episode with Lisa Lacy

  4. 5 days ago

    Integrative Psychiatry: Root-Cause Mental Health, Depression & Whole-Person Care with Dr. Naveen Thomas

    What if psychiatry looked beyond symptoms and asked a different question: What else could be happening here? In this episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy sits down with Dr. Naveen Thomas, board-certified psychiatrist and founder of Clarity Integrative Psychiatry, for a wide-ranging conversation about what mental healthcare can look like when we stop treating the diagnosis as the whole person. Dr. Thomas shares why his approach to psychiatry evolved beyond the familiar cycle of symptoms, diagnosis, medication, adjustment, and another medication. Instead, he explores the biological, psychological, nutritional, physical, and environmental factors that may be contributing to how someone feels. The conversation examines how issues such as thyroid dysfunction, vitamin D deficiency and low B12 can sometimes complicate or resemble symptoms associated with depression, and why curiosity matters before labeling someone or a condition as “treatment resistant.” Lisa and Dr. Thomas also explore: • Integrative psychiatry and whole-person mental healthcare • Root-cause thinking in mental health treatment • Depression and treatment-resistant depression • Vitamin D, B12, thyroid health and brain function • The role of medication within a broader treatment approach • Patient autonomy and self-advocacy • Why the doctor-patient relationship should be a partnership • Trauma, choice and the importance of restoring agency • The limitations created by rushed healthcare systems • What happens when healthcare becomes a commodity rather than a human relationship • Why relieving suffering may only be the beginning of what mental healthcare can accomplish Dr. Thomas challenges the idea that the goal of psychiatry should simply be helping someone function well enough to tolerate life. What if the bar were higher? What if mental healthcare helped people move beyond suffering toward connection, meaning, contribution and a fuller experience of being human? Learn more about Dr. Naveen Thomas and Clarity Integrative Psychiatry: www.claritypsychiatry.com Learn more about Lisa Lacy and Notes From the Edge: 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.

    Integrative Psychiatry: Root-Cause Mental Health, Depression & Whole-Person Care with Dr. Naveen Thomas

  5. 14 Aug

    Designing a Life After Divorce: People-Pleasing, Reinvention & Creating a Home That Feels Like You with Jodi Koch

    What happens when you realize the life you worked so hard to hold together no longer feels like your own? In this episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy sits down with Jodi Koch, CEO of Elizabeth Erin Designs and host of Designing in 5D, for a conversation that begins with interior design and quickly becomes something much bigger: divorce recovery, people-pleasing, perfectionism, childhood conditioning, hypervigilance, intuition, reinvention, and learning to trust yourself again. Jodi shares how growing up as the child who took care of everyone shaped her into an adult who carried everything for everybody. She talks candidly about the exhaustion of a long marriage in which she often felt emotionally alone, the difficult decision to finally leave, and the realization that she had spent years listening to everyone except herself. We explore the connection between childhood survival patterns and adult relationships, why people-pleasing can become a form of self-abandonment, and what happens when you finally stop pouring your energy into keeping everything and everyone else afloat. Jodi also takes us inside the experiences that helped change her direction, including creating her own personal retreat, exploring plant medicine and spirituality, traveling alone, navigating divorce, rebuilding her business after a devastating disruption, and asking herself a deceptively simple question: What does Jodi actually want now? That question became her North Star. And it turns out that the philosophy behind great interior design isn’t so different from creating a meaningful life. Before choosing what looks beautiful, you have to understand who is actually going to live there. You need clarity. Intention. Function. A direction that belongs to you. Jodi shares her Designing in 5D philosophy, her intuitive approach to interior design, the importance of creating homes around the actual human beings living inside them, and how she’s using AI as a tool without removing the creativity, expertise, storytelling, and human connection that make design personal. We also talk about decision fatigue, rebuilding after divorce, releasing perfectionism, trusting your intuition, creating safe spaces, finding your true North, and the extraordinary freedom that can come from finally saying: This is what I want. Connect with Jodi Koch & Elizabeth Erin Designs Website:https://elizabetherindesigns.com Designing in 5D on Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/6SH9NbnLfhCmEyZsJ0r0f8 Designing in 5D on Apple Podcasts:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/designing-in-5d/id1778045559 Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/elizabetherindesigns/ Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/ElizabethErinDesigns/ TikTok:https://www.tiktok.com/@elizabetherindesigns YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/@ElizabethErinDesigns5D Pinterest:https://www.pinterest.com/elizabetherindesigns/ LinkedIn | Jodi Koch:https://www.linkedin.com/in/jodipeterman LinkedIn | Elizabeth Erin Designs:https://www.linkedin.com/company/elizabeth-erin-designs Linktree:https://linktr.ee/elizabetherindesigns Connect with Lisa Lacy https://lisalacy.com What did you perform in order to survive?Welcome to the Edge. Notes from the Edge with Lisa Lacy Human conversations about trauma, identity, recovery, reinvention, relationships, leadership, and the lives we build after survival.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

    Designing a Life After Divorce: People-Pleasing, Reinvention & Creating a Home That Feels Like You with Jodi Koch

  6. 12 Aug

    Beyond the Mind: Consciousness, Trauma, Identity & the Search for Meaning with Dean Graves

    What if stress isn’t simply something to eliminate, but something trying to show us where healing needs to happen? In this episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy sits down with mental health counselor, meditation teacher, spiritual guide, author, and podcast host Dean Graves for a wide-ranging conversation about consciousness, trauma healing, identity, mindfulness, addiction recovery, spiritual awakening, emotional healing, and the search for meaning. Dean explores the idea that much of what we call our “identity” is something we construct over a lifetime, shaped by experiences, thoughts, expectations, and our attempts to get more of what feels good while avoiding what hurts. But what happens when the identity that once helped us function begins to exhaust us? Together, Lisa and Dean explore the difference between outward success and inner fulfillment, why awakening often begins when the old way of living stops working, and what can happen when we turn our attention inward instead of constantly measuring ourselves through the reactions of others. They also dig into stress as a teacher, conscious choice, meditation, self-awareness, trauma recovery, the 12-step process, addiction and dual diagnosis, personal responsibility, happiness as a measure of healing, and the gradual process of letting go of the masks and performances that separate us from a more authentic sense of self. At the center of the conversation is one deceptively simple question: Who are you when you stop trying to convince the world who you are? Learn more about Dean Graves, his books, podcasts, and work at:https://ddeangraves.org Explore Lisa Lacy, Notes From the Edge, her writing, books, and work at:https://lisalacy.com What did you perform in order to survive?  Welcome to the Edge. Notes from the Edge with Lisa Lacy Human conversations about trauma, identity, recovery, reinvention, relationships, leadership, and the lives we build after survival.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

    Beyond the Mind: Consciousness, Trauma, Identity & the Search for Meaning with Dean Graves

  7. 9 Aug

    Women Have It Harder: The Pay Gap, Sexual Violence, Self-Sacrifice, Menopause & the Cost of Being Female

    Women have it harder. There, I said it. And no, this is not a man-hating manifesto. I love men. In fact, parts of my romantic history would suggest I may have loved them a little too enthusiastically. This conversation is not about blaming men. It is about refusing to lie about what women experience in order to make anyone more comfortable. In this solo episode of Notes From the Edge, Lisa Lacy explores the cumulative cost of moving through the world as a woman: the expectation of self-sacrifice in motherhood and family life, the invisible labor women carry, the gender pay gap, sexual violence, impossible beauty and behavior standards, and the conditioning that teaches women to prioritize everyone else’s needs before their own. Lisa also digs into the medical dismissal women experience, particularly during perimenopause and menopause, when profound physical, emotional and cognitive changes are still too often minimized, misunderstood or written off as anxiety. This is also a conversation about the ways women participate in their own conditioning. The pressure to be the good mother, the easy wife, the competent employee, the caretaker, the attractive woman, the strong woman and the woman who somehow needs absolutely nothing. Because sometimes the performance that earns women the most praise is the very performance that causes them to disappear. Men suffer too. Men carry their own painful expectations around strength, provision, emotion and masculinity. We do not have to deny that truth in order to acknowledge another one: Good men don’t need women to lie about women’s experiences in order to protect men’s feelings. And good women don’t need to demonize men in order to tell the truth about being female. Maybe the goal isn’t for women to become even stronger. Maybe it is finally asking why strength, sacrifice and resilience have been demanded of us for so long. lisalacy.com What did you perform in order to survive? Welcome to the Edge.               Notes from the Edge with Lisa Lacy Human conversations about trauma, identity, recovery, reinvention, relationships, leadership, and the lives we build after survival.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

    Women Have It Harder: The Pay Gap, Sexual Violence, Self-Sacrifice, Menopause & the Cost of Being Female

  8. 8 Aug

    Teen Drug Use, Kratom & Addiction Prevention: What Parents Need to Know with Dave Kopeny

    The drug landscape facing teenagers is changing faster than many parents realize. In this second conversation with author, educator, private investigator, and ASAP Community founder Dave Kopeny, we go straight into what parents need to know about adolescent substance use, prevention, and the increasingly easy access young people have to potentially addictive substances. Dave discusses Kratom, products being sold in convenience stores and gas stations, changing marijuana potency, social media exposure, peer influence, family patterns, and why waiting until a child is already struggling with addiction may be waiting too long. But this conversation is not about frightening parents. It is about giving them something far more useful: agency. Dave believes parents remain one of the strongest protective influences in a child’s life. We talk about educating kids before experimentation begins, creating guardrails, monitoring without shame, having difficult conversations early, recognizing behavioral changes, and understanding the “why” underneath substance use rather than focusing only on stopping the behavior. We also explore something families often miss in recovery: you cannot send one person away to heal and return them to the exact same environment expecting everything to be different. Addiction affects the entire family system. Sustainable recovery may require parents, siblings, and caregivers to examine their own patterns, seek support, and heal alongside the person struggling. Dave also shares practical strategies from his book, Tip of the Spear: How to Educate, Supervise and Monitor Your Child in a World of Increasing Drug Abuse and Addiction, including how parents can recognize risk, communicate with schools, understand treatment options, establish boundaries, and become proactive before a crisis happens. Your child may tell you they do not want the guardrails. They still need to know someone has their back. Connect with Dave Kopeny and ASAP Community:https://asapcommunity.org Connect with Lisa Lacy and Notes From the Edge:https://www.lisalacy.com What did you perform in order to survive?  Welcome to the edge. Notes from the Edge with Lisa Lacy Human conversations about trauma, identity, recovery, reinvention, relationships, leadership, and the lives we build after survival.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

    Teen Drug Use, Kratom & Addiction Prevention: What Parents Need to Know with Dave Kopeny
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About

Notes From the Edge is where polished stories end and the truth begins. Hosted by writer, trauma educator, executive advisor, and author Lisa Lacy, this globally ranked podcast explores survival, identity, trauma, addiction, recovery, leadership, relationships, and reinvention through raw, deeply human conversations. No scripts. No small talk. Just the stories we were taught to hide, the roles we performed to survive, and the truths that set us free. What did you perform in order to survive? Welcome to the edge. www.lisalacy.com

Information

  • Creator
    Gamut Podcast Network
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    82
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Lisa Lacy
  • Show Website
    Notes from the Edge