Six years of training together and I finally got my personal trainer, Will Barker, on the pod... and yes, he can confirm that I still complain about going to the gym.

We talked about the messy intersection of fitness and mental health: what “giving yourself a fighting chance” actually looks like when depression, anxiety, ADHD, chronic pain, or life in general makes showing up hard. Will breaks down why motivation isn’t something we can rely on, why discipline is a limited resource, and why sometimes the win really is just walking through the damn door.

From hot takes and limiting beliefs to “drag ass” workouts and learning to work with where you are instead of waiting to become some magically motivated version of yourself, this one is about getting stronger without pretending the process is always fun.

As Will puts it: it’s okay to suck, it’s not okay to skip. Just try.

Joe Buck is back! And apparently staying busy was not enough, so he decided to casually add creating a whole comedy festival to the list.

We catch up on the last year of Joe’s life, from leaving a stable career and diving deeper into nonprofit work to comedy, fitness, rejection, relationships, grief, and what it actually means to keep choosing growth when growth is wildly uncomfortable. We also get into using comedy to process the hard shit without turning the stage into a therapy session, learning to be okay with failure, and why success doesn’t have to look the same for everyone.

Plus, Joe is bringing nearly 50 comedians to Colorado for the Trailhead Comedy Festival, October 8–10 in Summit County near Breckenridge. Follow the festival on Instagram @trailheadf for more.

Jake didn’t realize just how heavy “Reasons to Stay” was when he wrote it, until his own mom told him the song helped her through a dark moment. That realization changed the way he looked at the music subtitles. was making: it wasn’t just music anymore.

Fresh off their tour with Free the Witness and the release of their debut album, "subtitles On.": we get into how a vocalist in the U.S. and a drummer in France somehow built a band across an ocean, what their first real tour taught them, and the mildly depressing adjustment of going from playing shows every night back to regular life.

Jake also opens up about the very real stories behind his lyrics: writing through depression, ADHD, addiction, and suicidal thoughts. We talk about choosing authenticity over algorithms, & making music that actually means something. Catch them on IG as @subtitles_official to stay up to date with music releases and tour announcements.

Buckle up, because this one went a little left in the most HME way possible. This week, I was able to dive in with Jana Stern, host of The Just Jana Show. What starts with her incredible mental health journey somehow takes us through BPD, astrology, spirituality, crystals, Gemini men, and a few much needed detours along the way.

Jana opens up about growing up with a father with schizophrenia, developing a severe eating disorder, surviving an overdose, receiving a Borderline diagnosis, and the years of treatment and self-discovery that followed.

We talk about the complexity of what happens when a diagnosis becomes part of your identity, learning to trust yourself again through recovery, and giving yourself grace without using your mental health as an excuse. Then we headed STRAIGHT into the woo-woo with astrology, intuition, spirituality, nervous system regulation, and the different ways we find meaning in what we’ve been through.

Mental health, healing, astrology, trauma, crystals, and two women with absolutely no interest in staying on one conversational path. You know, a normal episode of Hot Mess Espresso.

This week, I was able to sit down with Dr. Erin Ventoso, a RocDoc provider and host of the Hardcore Healing Pod. We just DOVE into a conversation about mental health, music, and what taking care of yourself actually looks like... especially when your job happens to involve living on the road.

Erin opens up about navigating OCD, anxiety, and a later ADHD diagnosis, how music became a lifeline for her, and the not-so-glamorous reality of keeping touring musicians and crews healthy behind the scenes. We get into nervous system overload, sustainable self-care, why healthcare on tour needs to be more accessible, and how Erin found a way to give back to the music community that helped her through some of her hardest moments.

Plus naturally, some ADHD tangents, feline interruptions, millennial coping mechanisms, and a little House of the Dragon obsession made their way in. Because this is still Hot Mess Espresso, and even with heavy topics there's always some chaos.

After having the pleasure of meeting up with the guys from Lives Lost when their tour came through, this week I’m joined by Tanis, Shawn, and Dan to talk about the reality of building a band, surviving tour, and making music out of some of the hardest parts of life. We get into how the band has evolved with a new lineup, writing through grief and trauma, and what it’s like putting deeply personal songs into the world knowing someone else might hear their own story in them.

Of course, we couldn’t keep things serious for too long. We also get into their most unserious coping mechanisms, the songs we put on when we need to be dramatic, everyone's guilty pleasure music, questionable tour purchases, and why holding your dog up like Simba might actually be a valid mental health strategy. Check out the end of the episode for info on where you can find Lives Lost on tour very soon.

This episode hits a little differently for me. JT isn’t just a guest: he’s my friend, and I still remember getting the text after he got out of the hospital telling me how close he had come to ending his life. I’d talked to him just days before and had absolutely no idea what he was carrying.

One year and one day after his attempt, JT joined me to talk openly about what led him there, his experience in the mental health system, and what the last 366 days of choosing to stay have actually looked like. We talk therapy, medication, finding pieces of yourself again, saying yes to the things you’ve always wanted to do, and building a life that finally feels like your own.

It’s a heavy conversation, but it’s also about what can happen after your darkest moment; and getting to hear my friend talk about the future he’s building is something I’m incredibly grateful for.

IG: @heavymetalcowboy

This week, I’m joined by marriage and family therapist Candice Coughenour for a very real conversation about relationships, communication, and all the complicated stuff that happens when two people bring their own histories, triggers, and nervous systems into the mix. We talk about why premarital counseling deserves way more attention, how neurodivergence can impact communication between partners, and what it actually means to take accountability for the role we play in our relationship patterns.

We also get into boundaries versus requests, people pleasing and overfunctioning, learning to sit with discomfort, and why “protecting your peace” doesn’t necessarily mean avoiding anything that makes you uncomfortable. Candice breaks down why more than one thing can be true at the same time, how our family dynamics follow us into adulthood, and why sometimes the healthiest thing you can do during an argument is go to bed angry and come back to it when everyone’s nervous system has calmed the hell down.