Medium Lady Talks: Burnout Recovery for Millennials and Mothers

Erin Vandeven
  • 5.0 (6)
  • Self-Improvement
  • Updated Weekly

Welcome to Medium Lady Talks, the podcast for burnt-out millennial moms who want to reclaim their time, energy, and joy—without the pressure of perfection. Host Erin, a working mom and mindful living advocate, shares refreshingly honest conversations and practical strategies to help you navigate motherhood, career, and self-care with medium effort. If you’re overwhelmed by unrealistic expectations and craving a more sustainable approach to life, you’re in the right place. Tune in for relatable insights on burnout recovery, self-care that actually fits your life, simplifying daily routines, and embracing imperfection with confidence. Through thought-provoking discussions, expert interviews, and personal reflections, Medium Lady Talks is your go-to resource for mindful, realistic growth—because you deserve a fulfilling life, not just a busy one. Let’s ditch the guilt, redefine success, and find joy in the small moments. Follow Erin on Instagram @medium.lady and start your journey to a more intentional, balanced life today.

  1. Jun 8

    Episode 178 What Would You Do with the Gift of Time? with guest Emily Gibson

    What do you do when life hands you unexpected free time — not a vacation, not a long weekend, but a recurring, reliable gift of unstructured hours every single week? That's exactly the situation Erin's best friend of over 30 years, Emily Gibson, found herself in when a shift in her employment created free Fridays from now through the end of the year. Instead of defaulting to scrolling, guilt, or vague intentions, Emily got intentional. She designed the Found Fridays project — a personal framework and Instagram series where every Friday is planned with purpose, organized into meaningful categories including rest and relaxation, house and home, friends and family, and fun and festive. Each Friday has a specific activity. Each activity is chosen on purpose. In this episode, Erin and Emily explore what it actually takes to move from "I have free time" to "I used that time in a way I'm proud of" — and why most of us fail to bridge that gap, even when the intention is there. What You'll Hear in This Episode How Emily went from a long weekend of wasted potential to designing a full semester of intentional Fridays Why she created categories instead of a to-do list — and how that distinction changes everything The role of accountability, audience, and public sharing in keeping the project alive What the Found Fridays framework looks like in practice: Notion docs, phone calendar scheduling, partner communication The "eat the frog" philosophy and why tackling one meaningful thing on a Friday makes the whole weekend feel lighter Why the project isn't really about Fridays — it's about learning to fall more in love with the life you already have How to scale the Found Fridays concept to fit your life, even if you don't have a full free day to work with The dopamine menu connection: building a list of what actually brings you joy versus what just consumes your time The Found Fridays Framework: Key Takeaways For anyone who finds themselves with unstructured time: Make the list first. Before the time arrives, write down everything you want to do, need to do, and have been avoiding — without filtering. Break it into categories. Not by task type, but by what you need — rest, accomplishment, connection, creativity. Pick from those buckets. Put it in your calendar and tell someone. Scheduling communicates commitment to yourself and to the people in your life. The video is not the goal. The thing is the goal. Accountability tools (like sharing publicly) work when they serve the project — not when they become the project. It's scalable. You don't need a whole free day. Thursday nights from 7 to 9 can hold a Found Thursday. The principle transfers. Guest Capsule: What's Framing Emily's Season Right Now Reading: The Assistant to the Villain series (whimsical fantasy, more approachable world-building than epic fantasy) Watching: Ted Lasso — "the antithesis to everything happening in the world right now" Scent: Citrus everything — Satsuma from The Body Shop, goji berry lemon and orange body lotion Soundtrack: Qveen Herby — "women getting shit done energy," the first thing she listens to every morning Accounts she loves: Christy Newrutzen (@christi.newrutzen) — "how long does it actually take to do the thing?" | Meredith Shaw, Toronto TV personality and plus-size style icon | and, obviously, Medium Lady Connect with Erin + Medium Lady Instagram: @medium.lady Website: www.mediumladycommunity.com Screenshot this episode and tag @medium.lady on Instagram — Erin loves hearing from listeners after episodes About Medium Lady Talks Medium Lady Talks is created and hosted by Erin, a millennial mother building the life that's made for her while fighting burnout, living intentionally, and embracing gratitude — even when she's grumpy. Each episode combines deep conversation, practical tools, and the kind of honesty that helps you maximize self-discovery and minimize self-judgment.

    53 min

  2. Jun 1

    Episode 177: Escaping the Motherhood Matrix with Amber Pecoraro

    What if the guilt, the overwhelm, and the feeling that you're never quite enough aren't personal failings — but a system you were never meant to question? This week, I'm joined by life coach, author, and mom of four Amber Pecoraro, whose story I think so many of you are going to immediately recognize yourselves in. Amber is the founder of B'joyed Coaching and the author of Escape the Motherhood Matrix — a guide for high-achieving women to identify the invisible conditioning keeping them stuck and start dismantling it for good. She's a former civilian leader in the US Air Force Government Acquisition, a certified life and leadership coach, and someone who, on paper, had it all together — and privately, was crumbling. In this episode, we get into the origin of Amber's rock bottom moment (including a 36-week pregnancy, a child with a bone infection, and a delivery room she was left in alone), the physical symptoms that finally forced her to stop pushing through, and the coaching and neuroscience-based practices that changed everything for her. We also dig into the four P's of reprogramming from her book, why guilt isn't a moral failing but a nervous system response, and what it actually looks like to escape a matrix you didn't even know you were in. In This Episode, We Cover What the Motherhood Matrix actually is — and why "on paper, everything looks great" is often the biggest red flag Amber's origin story: a pandemic pregnancy, a child's emergency surgery, an allergic reaction that took over her face for eight months, and the moment her body finally said no more The belief that had been quietly running Amber's life since childhood — and how she finally saw it for what it was Why guilt isn't a character flaw — it's your nervous system trying to keep you safe (and why that makes it so hard to logic your way out of it) The difference between knowing what you need and actually integrating it — and why self-awareness alone isn't enough The four P's of reprogramming from Escape the Motherhood Matrix: Prime, Prune, Pause, Possibility Why fawning — over-caretaking everyone but yourself — is a fight-or-flight response, not a personality trait My own experience with postpartum depression after my third child, and how "create or die" became the beginning of Medium Lady What it means to "come home to yourself" — and why that's not about becoming someone new The Medium Lady Capsule What Amber is reading: You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay — a book she returns to regularly with clients, and one she calls an enduring invitation to possibility. What she's listening to: A podcast on book publishing — specifically resources connected to Chandler Bolt's Self-Publishing School, which she used to bring Escape the Motherhood Matrix into the world. What's embodying this season: Board games with her kids, ages 6 to 13. Less fighting, more laughing. A season of actually being present together — and finding she's starting to enjoy it. Who she's learning from: Tony Robbins — particularly after her husband enrolled in one of his programs. She's a student of many modalities and encourages listeners to find what actually works for them. Resources + Links Amber's website: bjoyed.com Amber on Instagram: @bjoyed.coaching Amber's book: Escape the Motherhood Matrix — available wherever books are sold Amber's quiz: Find out where you are in the Motherhood Matrix — linked at bjoyed.com Free resource for Medium Lady listeners: Direct Message Amber on Instagram @bjoyed.coaching and she will send you two free resources: 1. Quiz: Are you stuck in the Motherhood Matrix?  2. Overstimulated Mom Reset to integrate the 4 P's framework (without adding more to your to-do list) Connect with Erin: Instagram: @medium.lady Patreon: www.patreon.com/mediumlady  Email: mediumladytalks@gmail.com  Explore more book-related content on "Medium Lady Reads." - link to Spotify Instagram: @mediumladyreads

    1h 2m

  3. May 26

    Episode 176: There's a Reason "Easy" Mental Health Advice is so Hard to Follow

    You've heard the list. Go outside. Move your body. Sleep well. Drink water. Seek connection. Find joy. Get offline. You might have it on a sticky note, a vision board, buried in a notes app. And yet here we are — still knowing, still not quite doing, and carrying a very specific flavour of guilt about the gap.   This episode is not a fix. There are no frameworks, no habit trackers, no systems. What Erin does instead is take four of the eight core mental health domains she's distilled from a decade of reading — identity, movement, connection, and creativity — and gets genuinely honest about what's underneath the struggle to access them. Not in a general way. In a specific, personal, true way.   Including: why resistance training became entangled with grief she wasn't ready to walk through. Why the double bind of "invisible AND excellent" makes creative work feel logically impossible. Why connection has a post-interaction audit problem that robs us of the nourishment we just received. And why delight has been so thoroughly turned into content that the real, private, inconvenient kind feels like we're doing it wrong.   Throughout, Erin invites listeners to locate their own version of each domain — because your reasons for avoiding movement are not the same as hers. The path through is not a better general strategy. It's a more honest personal one.   The argument at the centre of this episode: you are not failing at self-care. You are living inside systems that were not designed for your flourishing. And naming that — really naming it — is the first act of your own reckoning.   What's Covered   — Why "knowing better but not doing better" is rarely a willpower problem — and what it actually is — Identity as the foundation beneath every other domain, and what happens when you've lost reliable access to yourself — The difference between performative delight and the real, private, specific kind that's actually yours — Movement, grief, and why connecting to your "why" can sometimes make things harder, not easier — How post-connection anxiety gets in the way of metabolizing the nourishment we just received — The creativity double bind: invisible AND excellent, private AND public-ready — and why it's a logical impossibility — The difference between creative work that is produced and creative work that is played with — Conditioning, cultural compassion, and what's actually missing from the mental health conversation Mentioned in This Episode   — Cecelia Baum Mandryk — whose work on unpacking resistance through the lens of safety gave Erin a new way into her movement avoidance. Find her at ceceliabaummandryk.com and on Instagram at @cecemandryk — Episode 175 — Four parts of self: the part that wants to be honest, the part that wants to be good, the part that wants to be right, and the part that wants to be liked   Connect with Erin: Instagram: @medium.lady Patreon: www.patreon.com/mediumlady  Email: mediumladytalks@gmail.com  Explore more book-related content on "Medium Lady Reads." - link to Spotify Instagram: @mediumladyreads

    41 min

  4. May 18

    MLT 175 Changing My Mind: What months of AI research actually changed for me

    This is the final episode of the AI for the Rest of Us series — and it didn't go the way Erin planned. Not because the series failed, but because it worked. She went in hoping to create a compassionate, curious space for women to engage with AI. She came out changed, uncertain, and more honest about what that process actually costs. This episode is less a conclusion and more an unpacking: of the mental loop that comes with having a public opinion on something nobody agrees on, of changing your mind in real time, and of what it means to hold an evolving point of view without collapsing into certainty you don't have. It's messy. That's kind of the point. WHAT WE TALK ABOUT Why the series was harder to make than anything Erin has produced in a long time — and why "just push through it" wasn't the right answer for this season of life. The mental loop of researching your way to solid ground, getting challenged again almost immediately, and starting over. What that cycle costs when you care about being right, being good, being honest, and being liked — all at the same time. What Erin actually thinks about the environmental cost of AI (spoiler: it's complicated, nuanced, and the 1-litre-per-query statistic is already outdated). Hank Green explains it better than anyone. A new study on AI literacy and receptivity — and why becoming more informed about AI led Erin to use it less, not more. Why directing AI anger at end users instead of industry leaders, politicians, and the people actually making decisions is misdirected — and why treating people differently based on whether they use AI is something Erin has zero tolerance for. What it looked like to pursue AI literacy publicly while her own opinion was quietly changing. And why that's actually what critical thinking looks like from the inside, even when it doesn't feel like it. "Your AI literacy will require you to hold an evolving opinion — you can't perform certainty and you also can't collapse into 'I don't know anything.' Hold yourself to a standard that is both messy and evolving." ONE THING TO TAKE AWAY You don't have to have a settled position on AI. You just have to stay in the conversation — curious, critical, and willing to let what you learn change how you think. That's harder than it sounds, and it's also the only honest option any of us has right now. LINKS MENTIONED Hank Green — How AI uses water (and what that actually means) The clearest, most honest explainer on AI's environmental footprint Erin has found. Covers water consumption, the corn comparison, and why the conversation is more complicated than the headlines suggest.   Lower AI literacy predicts greater AI receptivity — Journal of Marketing (2025) The study Erin references on the relationship between AI literacy and AI use. The more you know, the more critical you become. Worth reading — or at least the abstract.   WHAT'S COMING NEXT Erin is returning to the conversations and topics that feel most like her — mental health, burnout, rest, and the real lives of women navigating all of it. More interviews. More check-ins with real people. Less performing certainty she doesn't have. If this series resonated with you — even the messy parts, especially the messy parts — she'd love to hear from you. FIND ERIN Instagram: @medium.lady Email: mediumladytalks@gmail.com  Explore more book-related content on "Medium Lady Reads."  Instagram: @mediumladyreads

    37 min

  5. May 4

    Episode 174: My 70/30 Rule: How I Decide When AI Is Worth It

    It started with a book club I never made. Last summer I designed it in excruciating detail — the reading schedule, the prompts, the whole vibe. I felt amazing doing it. And then I never launched it. In this episode I'm using that story as the entry point into something I've been quietly figuring out for a couple of years: my personal bar for when using generative AI is actually worth it. This isn't a pro-AI episode or an anti-AI episode. It's an honest account of how I went from delighted early adopter, to someone who noticed she was outsourcing her own discernment, to someone who has built what I'm calling a sovereignty muscle — a choosy threshold for when I open the tab and when I don't. I talk about the dopamine feedback loop that keeps us coming back to these tools even when the follow-through isn't there, the ethics reckoning I had as a reader and lover of human-made art, the environmental cost I started taking seriously, and why I eventually moved from ChatGPT to Claude. And then I get practical. The 70/30 rule — the tool brings the structure, you bring the discernment — and what that actually looks like whether you're a healthcare leader, a creative, or someone who just really wants to read more but can never seem to make it happen. No matter where you find yourself — quietly guilty about using AI, scared to start, or just exhausted by the noise — this episode is for you. You don't need the right opinion about AI. You need your own. Topics covered: generative AI, discernment, the outsourcing trap, the cheating feeling, environmental cost of AI queries, the Anthropic values pivot, the 70/30 rule, and the sovereignty muscle.   Connect with Erin: Instagram: @medium.lady Patreon: www.patreon.com/mediumlady  Email: mediumladytalks@gmail.com  Explore more book-related content on "Medium Lady Reads." - link to Spotify Instagram: @mediumladyreads

    47 min

  6. Apr 27

    Episode 173 Is Guilt Driving the AI Gender Gap?

    Medium Lady Talks — Episode 173 Is Guilt Driving the AI Gender Gap? Hi, I'm Erin and this is Medium Lady Talks — the podcast for millennial women who want to live more intentionally, read more books, and stop burning out in the middle of a life they actually love. What this episode is about If you've ever used an AI tool (or thought about using one) and felt weird about it afterward — not quite wrong, but not quite right — this episode is for you. We spend the whole episode trying to figure out what that feeling actually is. Because I don't think it's guilt. I think it's something more useful. And the difference matters. We look at what the research says about women and AI adoption, why the gender gap exists (the answer is not what most people assume), and then walk carefully through the emotions that get bundled together under "guilt" — and why naming them separately changes what you do with them. What you'll hear The gender gap in AI use is real and documented across 18 international studies — but it isn't being driven by ethics, technophobia, or lack of access. The biggest driver is self-reported knowledge. Women say they don't know enough, and that uncertainty holds them back. There's also a specific research finding that stopped me: women are significantly more likely than men to describe their own AI use as "cheating." We sit with that one for a while. There are six feelings that tend to get bundled into AI guilt, and they each have a different signal and a different right response: trepidation, cognitive dissonance, identity threat, environmental concern, social anxiety, and actual guilt. Most of them aren't guilt. And the one that might be deserves careful examination — not a spiral. On the environment: the concern is valid at the systemic level, and the accountability belongs with the companies building and scaling these systems — not with individual users. The pattern of loading collective moral responsibility onto individual women while the systems that created the problem go unexamined? We've seen that one before. And the concept I'm now completely obsessed with: fierce ambivalence — from researcher Mara Bolis. The ability to hold two truths at once: I can use these tools to empower myself AND demand better from the people building them. That's not confusion. That might be the most coherent position available right now. Resources mentioned Global Evidence on Gender Gaps and Generative AI — Otis, Delecourt, Cranney & Koning, Harvard Business School Working Paper No. 25-023 The AI Gender Gap Paradox — Mara Bolis, Stanford Social Innovation Review. Where "fierce ambivalence" comes from. A five-minute read I highly recommend. We Did the Math on AI's Energy Footprint — MIT Technology Review. Individual queries vs. industry-level impact, clearly explained, this read is a little bit longer! Environmental Impacts of Artificial Intelligence — Wikipedia. Genuinely excellent. A good two-minute orientation to the full picture and lots of links to take you down a rabbit hole. In Episode 174 we'll get into the "Be Your Own Wife" concept — what a values-based relationship with AI actually looks like in practice.  DM me on Instagram at @medium.lady your reactions and opinions will always be used in consideration of each following episde. Medium Lady Talks is created, hosted and produced by Erin Vandeven. New episodes drop weekly.

    56 min

  7. Apr 20

    Episode 172: Scared and Curious: What Even Is AI and Why I Can't Look Away

    This is the one Erin has been building toward for a while. Episode 172 kicks off a new series "AI for the Rest of Us" and it starts in the tension between fear and curiosity, between wanting to look away and knowing we can't. This is a messy, honest, first-person episode about what AI actually is, why the gender gap in AI adoption matters, and how a concept called the "pessimism aversion trap" might be the thing quietly keeping us stuck. No tech background required. No conclusions forced. Just a real conversation (always out loud and in process) from someone figuring it out alongside you. In This Episode Why Erin has been sitting on this episode for months and what finally pushed her to hit record The Reese Witherspoon moment: what her book club poll revealed about women and AI adoption (and why the backlash was valid but also beside the point) The gender gap in AI use: women are using AI at a rate approximately 25% lower than men, and the jobs most likely to be automated are disproportionately held by women Karen Hao's "What is AI?" flowchart — a tool for making AI legible before you decide how you feel about it. Spoiler: it is not just ChatGPT. Mustafa Suleyman's "pessimism aversion trap" from The Coming Wave, the idea that our fear of dark futures can cause us to look the other way, and why that avoidance might be more dangerous than the thing itself How the trap works in both directions: tech optimists use it to wave away risk; everyday people (and moms especially) use it as a protection mechanism to just... keep moving Why sovereignty is Erin's word for 2026, and what that has to do with AI A trust framework from creator Upasna Gautam: trust = transparency / self-interest — and why Erin is committed to transparency about how she uses AI as a podcaster, leader and mom. What Erin is actually using AI for when producing this podcast. Referenced in This Episode Reese Witherspoon — viral Instagram Reel (April 2026) on women and AI adoption Karen Hao — investigative journalist, author of Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI (Penguin Press, 2025); creator of the 2018 "What is AI?" flowchart visualization Mustafa Suleyman — co-founder of DeepMind, CEO of Microsoft AI, author of The Coming Wave: AI, Power, and Our Future (2023) Upasna Gautam — technology and critical thinking creator on Instagram (@uposnagautam); shared Mark Cuban's trust definition: transparency divided by self-interest Episode 171 — Erin's vulnerable personal disclosure episode that set the tone for this one   Connect with Erin: Instagram: @medium.lady Patreon: www.patreon.com/mediumlady  Email: mediumladytalks@gmail.com  Explore more book-related content on "Medium Lady Reads." - link to Spotify Instagram: @mediumladyreads

    48 min

  8. Apr 13

    Episode 171: I Have No Idea What I'm Doing But I'm Here Anyway

    After three weeks away, Erin is back....but not because she has it figured out, but because showing up anyway is the whole point. This episode is an honest check-in: on an OCD flare that was the most significant in years, on the creative paralysis that followed, and on what finally helped her find her way back. She traces the silence back to the AI series she announced in episode 169, which quickly began to feel like spacewalking without a tether, and the stakes felt high, the subject felt vast, and her nervous system did what nervous systems do.   What pulled her through? The Artemis II moon mission and what its crew taught her about suiting up into genuine uncertainty. The musician Raye, whose new album she has had on repeat and whose literary, unafraid lyrics have been helping her see herself clearly at a low moment. And eventually, the decision to just start.   She also makes good on her commitment to the AI series — confirming it is still coming, reframing what it actually is, and naming exactly what she is promising you.   In this episode: An honest update on an OCD flare and what creative paralysis actually feels like What the Artemis II crew taught her about showing up without knowing what's on the other side Raye's new album as music-as-self-care — and why your obsessions are data A real commitment to the AI for the Rest of Us series this spring   Episode Takeaway What have you been returning to this week — a song, a show, a person, an idea — that you keep coming back to without fully understanding why? Sit with that for a minute. What does it tell you about what you actually need right now?   Connect with Erin Instagram: @medium.lady Website: www.mediumladycommunity.com Email: mediumladytalks@gmail.com  Explore more book-related content on "Medium Lady Reads."  Instagram: @mediumladyreads

    32 min
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About

Welcome to Medium Lady Talks, the podcast for burnt-out millennial moms who want to reclaim their time, energy, and joy—without the pressure of perfection. Host Erin, a working mom and mindful living advocate, shares refreshingly honest conversations and practical strategies to help you navigate motherhood, career, and self-care with medium effort. If you’re overwhelmed by unrealistic expectations and craving a more sustainable approach to life, you’re in the right place. Tune in for relatable insights on burnout recovery, self-care that actually fits your life, simplifying daily routines, and embracing imperfection with confidence. Through thought-provoking discussions, expert interviews, and personal reflections, Medium Lady Talks is your go-to resource for mindful, realistic growth—because you deserve a fulfilling life, not just a busy one. Let’s ditch the guilt, redefine success, and find joy in the small moments. Follow Erin on Instagram @medium.lady and start your journey to a more intentional, balanced life today.

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