It’s Both — Living in the Messy Middle

Nikki P
  • 5.0 (33)
  • Mental Health
  • Updated Weekly

It's Both is a podcast for the messy middle — the space between who you were and who you're becoming, full of life transitions, anxiety, and uncertainty. Maybe nothing major happened, but you don't recognize yourself anymore. Or maybe you're navigating divorce, a diagnosis, faith change, grief, a parenting season that's changed everything, or an identity shift you didn't choose. Every hard human experience asks you to let go of who you were before you know who you're becoming — and that gap is where transition anxiety shows up, where you feel lost during a transition you can't fully name. Both are normal. And you don't have to go through it alone. I'm Nikki P., a therapist turned storyteller. I built this show because I needed it myself — and realized other people did too. Every week, I have honest conversations with people living in the messy middle — holding joy and grief, gratitude and struggle, certainty and uncertainty — all at the same time, without pretending any of it isn't real. No toxic positivity. No fix-it mentalities. Just real language for the feelings you couldn't name, and permission to be exactly where you are. If you've been craving emotional support during transitions, or just a podcast that makes you feel a little less alone — this is for you. Life isn't either/or. It's both. And you're allowed to hold all of it. New episodes weekly. Find me @itsbothpodcast.

  1. The Identity Shift Nobody Talks About in Codependency

    Jun 24

    The Identity Shift Nobody Talks About in Codependency

    The messy middle of relationships isn't always dramatic. Sometimes it's the slow, quiet erosion of yourself — giving and giving and giving until you don't know where you end and everyone else begins. And not having a name for it until someone finally says it out loud. Vanessa Bennett is a licensed depth psychotherapist and author of The Motherhood Myth. She spent over a decade in corporate New York feeling disconnected underneath a life that looked felt great on the outside. She left, rebuilt, moved to LA, spent years creating exactly the community she wanted — and then lost her home in the LA fires in January 2025. Now she and her family are in Costa Rica, still following the breadcrumbs. In this episode, Vanessa and I talk about the identity shift of recognizing your own codependency — and why almost all of us are codependent whether we want to admit it or not. We talk about the difference between caregiving and caretaking, why resentment is actually one of the most useful tools you have, and what depth psychology actually means in practice for someone who lives entirely in their head. We also talk about grief, starting over, and the transition anxiety that comes with following breadcrumbs through the messy middle of a life that keeps changing before you're ready. This is also a really honest conversation about The Motherhood Myth — the lie we've all been fed that partnership and parenthood should feel natural and easy, and what it actually costs us when we believe it. For anyone who gives more than they take, for anyone who calls themselves a recovering codependent, and for anyone who says they're definitely not codependent — this one is for you. Get Connected & Support the Show: - Grab your free resource and be the first to know when the workbook is live. - Order Vanessa Bennett's book HERE - Follow Vanessa Bennett on Instagram or visit her website  - Listen to the companion podcast: It's Both- Guided Meditations for Anxiety, Emotional Regulation, & Real Life Transitions - Subscribe, rate, & review It's Both on Apple Podcasts

    50 min
  2. Starting Over With Desire After Losing Yourself

    Jun 17

    Starting Over With Desire After Losing Yourself

    The messy middle isn't always about a crisis you can name. Sometimes it's quietly losing your sense of self inside a relationship that looks fine from the outside — and not having language for what's actually happening until years later. Dr. Jordin Wiggins is a naturopathic doctor, pleasure and intimacy coach, and founder of the Pleasure Collective. She built a thriving health clinic, checked every box success was supposed to look like, and was still disconnected, exhausted, and quietly unraveling underneath it — both in her business and in a relationship she didn't yet have language to call abusive. In this episode, Jordin and I talk about starting over with your own desire after burnout, after betrayal blindness, and after losing your sense of agency inside your own home. We talk about why sexual dysfunction often isn't a personal failing at all — it's a power imbalance, an invisible labor problem, or a nervous system too dysregulated to access pleasure. We talk about responsive versus spontaneous desire, the orgasm gap, and why women's pleasure centers shut down in survival mode. And we get into what it actually felt like for her — a successful clinic owner who solved other people's problems all day — to rebuild her own identity, and her own desire, from nothing. This is also deeply personal for me. We talk about my own relationship in my teens and twenties, and the both/and of loving someone while slowly disappearing inside that love. This is a conversation about grief, identity shift, transition anxiety, and the messy middle of rebuilding your relationship to your own body, your own pleasure, and your own worth after everything falls apart. For anyone who has ever felt successful on paper and empty underneath — this one is for you. Get Connected & Support the Show: - Grab your free resource and be the first to know when the workbook is live. - Order Dr. Jordin Wiggins book HERE - Follow Dr. Jordin Wiggins on Instagram or visit her website  - Listen to the companion podcast: It's Both- Guided Meditations for Anxiety, Emotional Regulation, & Real Life Transitions - Subscribe, rate, & review It's Both on Apple Podcasts

    56 min
  3. When You Can't Control What's Next - A Meditation for the Waiting

    Jun 9

    When You Can't Control What's Next - A Meditation for the Waiting

    The messy middle isn't always something you can talk your way through. Sometimes you just need a place to breathe. This is a meditation for the waiting. For the unknown. For the transition anxiety that sits in your body when you've made a decision but can't get to the other side of it yet — the knot in your stomach, the tightness in your chest that won't turn off no matter how many times you check your phone. We're not fixing anything here. We're not trying to be positive or push through. We're just finding a little awareness, a little steadiness, and a little permission to be exactly where you are. Both things can be true — you can be scared and still be okay. You can have no control over the outcome and still have control over how you take care of yourself while you wait. This meditation comes from the companion podcast It's Both Guided Meditations — available free wherever you listen. Get Connected & Support the Show: - Grab your free resource,What If You're Not Doing Anything Wrong — It's Just Hard Right Now, and give yourself permission to just be where you are. - Listen to the companion podcast: It's Both- Guided Meditations for Anxiety, Emotional Regulation, & Real Life Transitions - Subscribe, rate, & review It's Both on Apple Podcasts

    22 min
  4. Grieving a Place I Haven't Left Yet

    Jun 2

    Grieving a Place I Haven't Left Yet

    The messy middle isn't always about a big dramatic moment. Sometimes it's the house that won't sell. The city you're grieving before you've even left. The goodbye that keeps getting delayed while life keeps demanding you show up anyway. This week I'm coming to you solo and I'm sharing where I am right now. We put our house on the market three months ago. We were under contract and then we weren't. Now we're leaving with nowhere to land yet, three kids including one starting kindergarten for the very first time, and a life I built here over ten years that I don't quite know how to say goodbye to. In this episode I talk about the anxiety and transition anxiety that comes with major life changes when the timing is completely out of your control, the grief of leaving a place that rebuilt me after everything fell apart, the identity shift of not knowing what comes next professionally or financially, and the emotional complexity of being so ready to go and so heartbroken to leave at the same time. I also talk about something I've been wrestling with — free will, predestination, and what it means when things aren't unfolding the way you thought they would. Is that a sign you're on the wrong path? Or is it just hard? And what do you do when you can't tell the difference? This is a conversation about grief, starting over, mixed emotions, and the very specific kind of suffering that comes from grieving something you're still living inside of every single day. It's also a love letter to a city that saved me. And my last recording in this room — one year in. For anyone in the waiting right now — anyone suspended in that in-between where you've made peace with what's coming but just can't get there yet — this one is for you. You are not alone in this. Get Connected & Support the Show: - Grab your free resource,What If You're Not Doing Anything Wrong — It's Just Hard Right Now, and give yourself permission to just be where you are. - Listen to the companion podcast: It's Both- Guided Meditations for Anxiety, Emotional Regulation, & Real Life Transitions - Subscribe, rate, & review It's Both on Apple Podcasts

    26 min
  5. REPLAY: The Episode That Started It All — Body Image

    May 26

    REPLAY: The Episode That Started It All — Body Image

    The messy middle looks different for everyone. Sometimes it's a major life transition. Sometimes it's the quiet, daily tension of living in a body you haven't fully made peace with yet. One year ago this week I sat down with one of my best friends — Heather, a therapist, a mom, and one of the most honest people I know — and we recorded the very first episode of It's Both. I'm re-releasing it this week because I'm in the middle of our move, boxes everywhere, chaos everywhere, and somehow it's also the one year anniversary of this show. It felt like the most perfect, messy, both/and thing to do. In this episode, Heather and I talk about the anxiety that comes with living in a body that feels like it doesn't fit the mold, the complicated messages most of us received about our bodies growing up that we are still quietly unlearning, and what body neutrality actually means — and why it might be the most realistic and honest place to start when loving your body feels impossible. We talk about the duality of feeling strong and insecure at the same time. We talk about what happens when you spend a decade giving your body to everyone else and forget to ask what it actually needs. And we talk about the moment — floating in a pool with her kids — when Heather felt genuine gratitude for her body for the very first time. This is a conversation about emotional complexity, identity, and the messy middle of learning to live in your own skin. For anyone who has ever stood in front of a mirror and felt two completely opposite things at the same time — this one is for you. If you're new here, this is the perfect place to start. This is where it all began. Get Connected & Support the Show: - Grab your free resource, What If You're Not Doing Anything Wrong — It's Just Hard Right Now, and give yourself permission to just be where you are. - Listen to the companion podcast: It's Both- Guided Meditations for Anxiety, Emotional Regulation, & Real Life Transitions - Get connected to Heather Lefebvre - Follow Heather on Instagram  - Subscribe, rate, & review It's Both on Apple Podcasts

    1h 6m
  6. She Lost Her Husband and Had to Rebuild Everything

    May 19

    She Lost Her Husband and Had to Rebuild Everything

    The messy middle doesn't always announce itself. Sometimes it arrives at 40 years old with three kids, a career you left behind, and a life you have to rebuild from the ground up — while you're still in the wreckage of the one you lost. Donna Jean Kendrick was 40 when her husband Greg died by suicide. What followed wasn't a clean grief arc. It was the duality of relief and devastation existing at the same time. It was quiet minivans and shower tears. It was oodles and noodles budgets and concussions at baseball games and a zero book of business and a mission she didn't know she was building toward yet. In this episode, Donna and I talk about the anxiety and major life changes that come with losing a spouse suddenly — and what it actually looks like to survive, then slowly, imperfectly start to thrive. We talk about the complicated grief of suicide loss, the identity shift from wife to widow to single mother, the emotional complexity of finding love again and blending a family of six kids, and what it means when the beautiful life you build after only exists because of the one you lost. We also talk about the moment her stepchildren's mother passed in 2024 — and how her own kids, who had been there before, knew exactly what to do. This is a conversation about grief and relief. About the gap between surviving and living. About transition anxiety, identity shift, and holding the love of two people at the same time without looking away from any of it. If this episode brings up anything difficult, please know you can reach the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline anytime by calling or texting 988. You are not alone. Get Connected & Support the Show: - Grab your free resource, What If You're Not Doing Anything Wrong — It's Just Hard Right Now, and give yourself permission to just be where you are. - Listen to the companion podcast: It's Both- Guided Meditations for Anxiety, Emotional Regulation, & Real Life Transitions - Free access Donna's webinar and personal document locator, Don't Leave Your Loved Ones Without Answers  - Order Donna's books HERE - Follow Donna on Instagram or visit her website  - Subscribe, rate, & review It's Both on Apple Podcasts

    50 min
  7. I Look Like a Man They Told Me to Hate

    May 12

    I Look Like a Man They Told Me to Hate

    The messy middle doesn't always look like one hard thing. Sometimes it looks like being biracial, bisexual, a therapist, a storyteller, a single dad, and a first-time memoirist — all at the same time, all in the same body, all navigating the anxiety of major life changes while asking the same question: who am I when I can't fit into one box? Johnzelle Anderson has been living in the duality his entire life. Growing up mixed race in Southwest Virginia in the 90s, raised in whiteness while being told he looked like a man he was never allowed to know, navigating a marriage, a separation, a bisexual identity shift, and a trip to Sierra Leone with his six-year-old daughter — all while starting over and helping other people heal from the exact kinds of wounds he was still uncovering in himself. In this episode, Johnzelle and I talk about what it feels like to grow up being asked "what are you?" — and what it takes to finally answer that question for yourself. We talk about the transition anxiety that comes with losing who you were before you know who you're becoming. We talk about writing a memoir structured not in chapters but in tracks, because that's how memory actually moves. We talk about holding mixed emotions — grief and gratitude, identity and belonging, connection and isolation — all at the same time. And we talk about what it means to be worthy of connection — not entitled to it, worthy of it — and the difference between the two. This is a conversation about identity, emotional complexity, and the messy middle of becoming more fully yourself. For anyone who has ever felt like too many things at once and wondered if that meant something was wrong with them — it doesn't. That's just what it feels like to be human. Get Connected & Support the Show: - Grab your free resource, What If You're Not Doing Anything Wrong — It's Just Hard Right Now, and give yourself permission to just be where you are. - Listen to the companion podcast: It's Both- Guided Meditations for Anxiety, Emotional Regulation, & Real Life Transitions - Order Johnzelle's book HERE - Follow Johnzelle on Instagram or visit his website  - Subscribe, rate, & review It's Both on Apple Podcasts

    49 min
  8. What If You Never Get Married? — And That's Okay

    May 5

    What If You Never Get Married? — And That's Okay

    The messy middle isn't always about a crisis you can name. Sometimes it's the slow realization that the timeline you had in your head — married by 30, partnered by 35 — just isn't happening. And instead of asking what's wrong with you, what if you asked something different? Shani Silver has been single for over 13 years. She's 43, she deleted her dating apps in 2019, and she wrote the book — literally — on reframing singlehood. Her newest book, What If We Never Get Married? A Happily Ever Answer, sits with the question most of us are too scared to ask — and finds out the answer is so much better than what we've been taught to fear. In this episode, Shani and I talk about the anxiety and life transitions that come with aging into singlehood, the grief of a timeline that didn't happen, and what it actually looks like to be happy while single — without swearing off love or pretending you don't still want it. We talk about how the dating industry destroyed dating culture for profit, why light bulb moments are for movies and not real human lives, and what partnered people don't realize they're doing to their single friends. This is a conversation about permanence, grief, desire, and radical permission. You can want love and be happy alone. You can be in the messy middle of a life that doesn't look like what you planned — and still be living a full one. For anyone navigating major life changes in how they see themselves, their relationships, or their future — this one is for you. Get Connected & Support the Show: - Listen to the companion podcast: It's Both- Guided Meditations for Anxiety, Emotional Regulation, & Real Life Transitions - Order Shani's book HERE - Follow Shani on Instagram,  on TikTok, or visit her website  - Subscribe, rate, & review It's Both on Apple Podcasts

    53 min
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5
out of 5
33 Ratings

About

It's Both is a podcast for the messy middle — the space between who you were and who you're becoming, full of life transitions, anxiety, and uncertainty. Maybe nothing major happened, but you don't recognize yourself anymore. Or maybe you're navigating divorce, a diagnosis, faith change, grief, a parenting season that's changed everything, or an identity shift you didn't choose. Every hard human experience asks you to let go of who you were before you know who you're becoming — and that gap is where transition anxiety shows up, where you feel lost during a transition you can't fully name. Both are normal. And you don't have to go through it alone. I'm Nikki P., a therapist turned storyteller. I built this show because I needed it myself — and realized other people did too. Every week, I have honest conversations with people living in the messy middle — holding joy and grief, gratitude and struggle, certainty and uncertainty — all at the same time, without pretending any of it isn't real. No toxic positivity. No fix-it mentalities. Just real language for the feelings you couldn't name, and permission to be exactly where you are. If you've been craving emotional support during transitions, or just a podcast that makes you feel a little less alone — this is for you. Life isn't either/or. It's both. And you're allowed to hold all of it. New episodes weekly. Find me @itsbothpodcast.

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