Unfixed Podcast

Kimberly Warner
  • 4.9 (53)
  • PHILOSOPHY
  • UPDATED WEEKLY

Unfixed: The Podcast What if the very thing that unmoored you became the thread that held you together? Unfixed is a podcast about living—and learning to love—the question. In each season, we explore the unpredictable terrain of adversity, creativity, and transformation through intimate, unguarded conversations with people who are reshaping their lives in the wake of what they didn't choose. Season One pairs individuals living with chronic illness or disability with artists, clinicians, and thinkers who bring their own experience of challenge to the table. These duets are invitations to listen with curiosity and compassion, revealing how presence—not perfection—makes a life powerful. Season Two ventures into the literary world of Substack, where Kimberly Warner speaks with writers whose fiction, memoir, and essays illuminate the "unfixed" condition in its many forms—grief, gender, aging, family rupture, economic uncertainty, and environmental collapse. Together, they unearth the wisdom hidden inside complexity and remind us that the mess is often the message. Season Three introduces Unfixed: Uncut—shorter, spontaneous conversations recorded live. In just 30 minutes, guests respond to one central inquiry: What's something in your life that's come undone—and how might it be exactly what you needed? Whether chronic illness or heartbreak, identity or ecological grief, each episode is a practice in staying open, in finding meaning without resolution. Because sometimes, the very thing we fear is the thing that saves us. unfixed.substack.com

  1. Who By Fire: LIVE launch party

    1D AGO

    Who By Fire: LIVE launch party

    Get full access to Unfixed at unfixed.substack.com/subscribe

    45 min
  2. LIVE! Unfixed: Uncut with Leah Johansen

    FEB 18

    LIVE! Unfixed: Uncut with Leah Johansen

    In this conversation, Leah Johansen, M.D. centers her work on the power of asking the right question. Rather than chasing solutions, she invites us to identify the core question—or limiting belief—quietly shaping our lives beneath the surface. From this root inquiry, she explains, patterns of thought, behavior, health, and relationship naturally unfold. By bringing conscious attention to that central question, we create the conditions for clarity, regulation, and genuine change. The conversation frames healing not as fixing what’s broken, but as uncovering and gently rewriting the story from which everything else extends—allowing transformation to ripple outward, personally and collectively. Thank you Adam Jennings, Ann Collins, shannon kennedy, Karen C-Collector of Books 📖, Monica Ticknor, and many others for tuning into my live video with Leah Johansen, M.D.! Join me for my next live video in the app. Get full access to Unfixed at unfixed.substack.com/subscribe

    1h 4m
  3. LIVE! Unfixed: Uncut with Elizabeth Jameson

    FEB 4

    LIVE! Unfixed: Uncut with Elizabeth Jameson

    In this joyful, intimate conversation, Kimberly Warner reunites with artist and writer Elizabeth Jameson—whose work many listeners may remember from the original Unfixed docu-series and their later collaboration, MS Confidential. Together, they explore what it means to live inside an “imperfect body” without reducing that life to tragedy or inspiration. Elizabeth shares how she once refused to look at her MRIs—“horrifying” proof of a progressive disease—until she made a radical pivot: transforming those clinical images into art, reclaiming her medical data and finding unexpected beauty in brain folds that resemble calligraphy. As MS progressed and she became quadriplegic, she adapted again, turning toward writing, speaking, and the ongoing practice of “making friends” with her body. The conversation moves through reinvention, intimacy, and agency: how to articulate what you need when your body changes; how caregiving reshapes relationships; how swearing can be its own kind of medicine; and how aging, in a strange way, can become a homecoming—“I love getting older because I’m now normal.” What emerges is not a neat lesson, but a lived philosophy: let it suck when it sucks, stay curious, keep redefining intimacy, and notice the people around you who make your life possible. A gathering full of grit, tenderness, laughter—and the kind of gratitude that feels like oxygen. Thank you Nan Tepper, Francesca Bossert, Maura, Jay, Kathleen Kiddo, Monica Ticknor and many others for tuning into my live video with Elizabeth! More about Elizabeth: Elizabeth is a vibrant illustration of grace and grit, real chutzpah, turning lump of coal into diamonds and MRI’s into works of art. In other words, she is an artist and writer exploring what it means to live in an imperfect body as part of the shared human experience. Elizabeth Jameson’s journey with multiple sclerosis has spanned over three decades, but before being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, she worked as a public interest lawyer, representing incarcerated children and later advocating for kids with chronic illnesses and disabilities to receive the medical care they needed. As her own disease progressed, she began transforming her MRIs into art — reclaiming her medical data and turning those clinical images into invitations for deeper, more human conversations about illness and disability. Her work now lives in permanent collections across the U.S. and internationally, including the National Institutes of Health, major universities, and medical schools. Due to the progression of MS, she is now quadriplegic and can no longer create visual art without assistance. She writes and speaks widely about living with illness and disability. Her essays have appeared in The New York Times, The British Medical Journal, WIRED, and MIT’s Leonardo Journal. Her piece “Losing Touch, Finding Intimacy” was also included in the New York Times anthology About Us. She gives talks around the country — including a TEDx talk called “Learning to Celebrate and Embrace Our Imperfect Bodies” — and her new book, An Intimate Journey, comes out later this spring that chronicles the various art methods the artist has used to understand her relationship with a disease that continues to advance: textile paintings, solar plate etchings, embroideries, and digital renderings created from the clinical data that she initially refused to face. Jameson has often referred to her MRIs as containing a secret language she yearns to comprehend. You can view her expansive, extensive art and writing collections here. Get full access to Unfixed at unfixed.substack.com/subscribe

    1h 1m
  4. LIVE! Unfixed: Uncut with David Roberts

    JAN 6

    LIVE! Unfixed: Uncut with David Roberts

    This conversation with the brilliant David Roberts kept circling back to insecurity, not the dramatic kind, and not financial, but the quieter feeling of being a little outside things. Of not quite knowing how to perform confidence, how to bluff, how to talk the talk. David reflects on how that lack of ease stayed with him even as his career advanced, and how, in hindsight, it may have saved him. Rather than hardening into certainty or ego, that self-doubt tempered him. It kept him oriented toward home, toward family, toward listening and learning. He has a philosopher’s mind, always turning ideas over, always curious, more interested in learning than arriving. What emerges is a portrait of a different kind of hero: someone shaped by vulnerability, softened at the edges, and oriented toward connection rather than conquest. In a world that rewards certainty and performance, this felt like exactly the kind of voice we need. Get full access to Unfixed at unfixed.substack.com/subscribe

    41 min
  5. LIVE! Unfixed : Uncut with Eileen Dougharty

    12/09/2025

    LIVE! Unfixed : Uncut with Eileen Dougharty

    Living with early-onset Parkinson’s, writer Eileen Dougharty has turned what she can’t fix into a full-on creative rebellion. In this salty, tender conversation, we talk about death & bucket lists, deep brain stimulation & love thugs, and why most things are actually small things when it comes down to it. Eileen reminds us that saying I love you might be the fiercest act of defiance. Thank you Nan Tepper, Holly Starley, Francesca Bossert, Lor, and many others for tuning into my live video with Eileen Dougharty! Join me for my next live video in the app. Get full access to Unfixed at unfixed.substack.com/subscribe

    37 min

  6. 11/25/2025

    LIVE! Unfixed : Uncut with Nan Tepper

    A juicy teaser: Kimberly: Some people might see like this story of yours is actually a true redemption arc, you know, like, Oh, she solved this resolved this. So I’m curious, how does the broken part, how do the broken parts still live in you? And how do you hold them differently? Like, do you relate? Like, do you still visit self-doubt and depression? Absolutely. And all that stuff. And so what’s transformed with how you relate to those parts of yourself? Nan: I’m not afraid of it anymore. I’m not afraid of it anymore. If I feel myself getting sad, which is different than depression... I ask the sadness what it wants me to know. If I start to feel depressed, I say, what’s the message? What do you want me to know? If I get angry, there’s always that curiosity that will kick in. And for those who don’t yet have a copy in their hands, my book Nan mentioned is available for purchase! Get full access to Unfixed at unfixed.substack.com/subscribe

    42 min
  7. LIVE! Unfixed : Uncut with JT Trepanier

    11/12/2025

    LIVE! Unfixed : Uncut with JT Trepanier

    Get full access to Unfixed at unfixed.substack.com/subscribe

    29 min

  8. 10/15/2025

    Unfixed launch party: Pop open the champagne and celebrate with me!

    What a tender, joyous celebration. The festivities were abundant with laughter and tears, and overflowing admiration for my publisher Empress Edition’s & Alisa Kennedy Jones game-changing vision and artistry. ❤️❤️❤️ I never imagined a simple reading from my Unfixed launch party would ripple like this, but here we are. This book was born on Substack, chapter by chapter, held and then lifted by a community of readers who walked with me long before a publisher ever came calling. And then Empress Editions appeared, a publishing revolution created by midlife women for midlife women, born from a single question in a book club: What if we all hired each other? What if we finally centered the stories traditional publishing sidelines? Empress is flipping the entire model so midlife authors keep the lion’s share of their work, yes—but more than that, they’re building a movement to amplify the voices of women whose lives are anything but finished. I’m honored that Unfixed found its home with them, and that this Substack community has been the current carrying us forward. If you feel called to read the memoir or support the work of Empress, links are below. Get full access to Unfixed at unfixed.substack.com/subscribe

    20 min
See All (41)

4.9
out of 5
53 Ratings

About

Unfixed: The Podcast What if the very thing that unmoored you became the thread that held you together? Unfixed is a podcast about living—and learning to love—the question. In each season, we explore the unpredictable terrain of adversity, creativity, and transformation through intimate, unguarded conversations with people who are reshaping their lives in the wake of what they didn't choose. Season One pairs individuals living with chronic illness or disability with artists, clinicians, and thinkers who bring their own experience of challenge to the table. These duets are invitations to listen with curiosity and compassion, revealing how presence—not perfection—makes a life powerful. Season Two ventures into the literary world of Substack, where Kimberly Warner speaks with writers whose fiction, memoir, and essays illuminate the "unfixed" condition in its many forms—grief, gender, aging, family rupture, economic uncertainty, and environmental collapse. Together, they unearth the wisdom hidden inside complexity and remind us that the mess is often the message. Season Three introduces Unfixed: Uncut—shorter, spontaneous conversations recorded live. In just 30 minutes, guests respond to one central inquiry: What's something in your life that's come undone—and how might it be exactly what you needed? Whether chronic illness or heartbreak, identity or ecological grief, each episode is a practice in staying open, in finding meaning without resolution. Because sometimes, the very thing we fear is the thing that saves us. unfixed.substack.com

Information

  • Creator
    Kimberly Warner
  • Years Active
    2019 - 2026
  • Episodes
    41
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Kimberly Warner
  • Show Website
    Unfixed Podcast

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