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The fastest way to turn dinner into a battlefield is to treat food like a test of willpower. Dr. Wendy Shofer joins us to explain why the familiar “eat less, move more” playbook can raise stress, fuel shame, and even plant the seeds of disordered eating, especially for kids and families already carrying a heavy load.

Wendy is a pediatrician, a Navy veteran, and the founder of Family in Focus. We talk about what she kept hearing from parents in the exam room: “I’m failing my child.” From there, we unpack a different model of family nutrition and health, one that’s trauma-informed and relationship-centered. We dig into the emotions that sit underneath eating patterns like boredom, loneliness, disconnection, celebration, and exhaustion, plus why food can become the easiest thing to control when life feels out of control.

We also zoom out to the bigger system: why 15-minute appointments can’t hold these conversations, why insurance often demands a diagnosis instead of supporting prevention, and how social determinants of health shape what’s realistically possible at home. You’ll leave with practical, pressure-free ideas, including Wendy’s focus on tiny “experiments” that help parents regulate themselves and change the entire tone at the table.

Learn more about Dr. Shofer at: https://www.wendyschofermd.com/

If this helped you rethink food rules, share it with a parent who needs less shame and more support, then subscribe and leave a review so more families can find the conversation.

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Help Moral Injury Support Network for Servicewomen, Inc. provide the support it needs to women veterans by donating to our cause at: https://misns.org/donation or send a check or money order to Moral Injury Support Network, 136 Sunset Drive, Robbins, NC 27325. Every amount helps and we are so grateful for your loving support. Thanks!

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Getting told “never run again” can shrink your world fast. We sit down with Heath Jones, an Australian former Army medic, emergency nurse, and exercise scientist, to talk about what happens when a serious back injury derails the military path you built your identity around and how you rebuild from the inside out. Heath entered the Army at 28 through a direct recruiting pipeline aimed at special forces, thrived in the intensity, then faced the emotional gut punch of being medically downgraded and reassigned after a training injury.

From there, the conversation turns practical and honest: remote medic work in oil and gas, making decisions without a full hospital behind you, and why that kind of self-reliance can translate into entrepreneurship. Heath launched Active and Ageless, a fitness business focused on adults over 50, at the exact start of COVID. He breaks down the real lessons of building a gym when the economy is shaky: expect constant surprises, put out fires daily, and lean on the discipline the military teaches while learning the parts it doesn’t, like marketing, staffing, and cash flow.

The heart of this talk is chronic back pain recovery and active aging. Heath shares how years of “play it safe” thinking, multiple back surgeries, and escalating medical interventions didn’t give him his life back, but progressive movement did. We dig into strength training for longevity, mobility for joint health, and the mindset shift that helps older adults stop seeing themselves as fragile and start building capability again. If you care about veteran transition, resilience, fitness over 50, and living with less fear, this one delivers.

Learn more about Heath's program at: https://activeandageless.com.au/

Subscribe for more conversations like this, share it with someone who needs a nudge to move again, and leave a review so more listeners can find the show.

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Help Moral Injury Support Network for Servicewomen, Inc. provide the support it needs to women veterans by donating to our cause at: https://misns.org/donation or send a check or money order to Moral Injury Support Network, 136 Sunset Drive, Robbins, NC 27325. Every amount helps and we are so grateful for your loving support. Thanks!

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Some pain lives in words, and some pain lives in the body. When trauma is fresh or chronic, a person can show up to therapy overwhelmed, shut down, or unable to tell the story at all. That is why we invited Susan Pease Banitt to talk with us. Susan trained in Harvard-affiliated teaching hospitals, spent decades in trauma therapy, and now brings a rare mix of clinical depth and complementary approaches to healing, including holy fire Reiki and past life regression.

We dig into what Reiki is and what it is not, why Susan views it as non-dual and self-directed, and how it can help when someone feels flooded by PTSD symptoms, dissociation, or intense stress. We also explore the idea of “stuck trauma energy” and why some clients keep looping back into the same memories even after years of talk therapy. Susan shares how energy-based and somatic methods can support nervous system regulation so people become more available for deeper trauma work and more present in daily life.

From there, we zoom out into the bigger picture: how imagination fuels creativity, why neurological flexibility matters for recovery, and how practices like improv and laughter can literally train the brain to respond differently. We also connect this to moral injury and the real challenges many veterans face when moving from rigid military structure into a messy civilian world. Finally, Susan walks us through past life regression, how the process works, and why it can reduce fear, unlock courage, and bring relief, whether you see it as literal past lives, ancestral memory, or meaningful material from the unconscious mind.

If this conversation helps you think about healing in a new way, subscribe, share it with someone who feels stuck, and leave a review. What part of trauma recovery do you wish more people understood?

Learn more about Susan's work at: https://www.suepb.com/

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Help Moral Injury Support Network for Servicewomen, Inc. provide the support it needs to women veterans by donating to our cause at: https://misns.org/donation or send a check or money order to Moral Injury Support Network, 136 Sunset Drive, Robbins, NC 27325. Every amount helps and we are so grateful for your loving support. Thanks!

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Some rejections don’t just sting, they rewrite your sense of meaning. Dr. Juliana Lesher shares what happened when she was told, again and again, that women had no place in the ministry life she felt called to. That message didn’t land as a career obstacle. It landed as hopelessness, and it spiraled into severe anorexia, suicide attempts, and a fight to choose life one day at a time.

From there, her story takes an unexpected turn into clinical pastoral education, decades of healthcare chaplaincy, and senior leadership at the US Department of Veterans Affairs, including serving as the national director of Chaplain Service during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. We talk about spiritual resilience and veteran mental health in plain language: how suicidal thinking narrows time into a single dark moment, how purpose can return before circumstances change, and why identity cannot be reduced to a diagnosis, a disability, or a failure.

We also tackle hard questions with compassion: women in ministry and the structural barriers that shape chaplaincy careers, moral injury and the wounds of betrayal, and the problem of pain that shows up in every honest faith journey. Juliana offers a grounded approach for helping someone rebuild: listen for their story, name loss, make room for grief, and use practices like lament from the Psalms and Job to tell the truth without shame.

If this conversation helps you, share it with someone who needs hope, subscribe so you don’t miss what’s next, and leave a review to help more veterans and families find the show. What part of Juliana’s story connected with you most?

Find Dr. Lesher's book at: www.a-heart-for-jesus.net.

Support the show

Help Moral Injury Support Network for Servicewomen, Inc. provide the support it needs to women veterans by donating to our cause at: https://misns.org/donation or send a check or money order to Moral Injury Support Network, 136 Sunset Drive, Robbins, NC 27325. Every amount helps and we are so grateful for your loving support. Thanks!

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You can do everything “right” and still feel stuck, wired, and exhausted, especially when the parts of you that need attention have been buried under performance, positivity, and coping. I sit down with Kenny Whitelaw-Jones, a deep process psychotherapist and author of The Shadow at Work, to talk about what happens when repressed thoughts and emotions don’t disappear, they reappear as conflict, control, burnout, and those confusing moments when your body feels on full alert for no obvious reason.

We dig into Jungian shadow work in plain language: the shadow is often just what we’ve learned to deny. Kenny explains why emotions are not enemies but information, grief for loss, anger for boundaries and injustice, fear for danger. We also explore how deep process therapy works with “parts” of the psyche, why long sessions can help people safely embody what they normally avoid, and why insight alone doesn’t always unlock change without new choices in the moment.

We go beyond therapy talk into real life: midlife awakening versus midlife crisis, the way “should” thinking builds a rigid persona, and how triggers can become a surprisingly reliable map to what we’re not allowing in ourselves. If you care about leadership development, workplace culture, trauma recovery, veteran mental health, or simply having a calmer mind and better relationships, this conversation offers a grounded path toward more freedom.

Subscribe for more conversations like this, share the episode with someone who’s carrying too much alone, and leave a review with the one trigger or pattern you’re ready to understand next.

Reach out to Kenny at https://www.theshadowatwork.com/.

Support the show

Help Moral Injury Support Network for Servicewomen, Inc. provide the support it needs to women veterans by donating to our cause at: https://misns.org/donation or send a check or money order to Moral Injury Support Network, 136 Sunset Drive, Robbins, NC 27325. Every amount helps and we are so grateful for your loving support. Thanks!

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Suicide prevention is everywhere in the military, but “everywhere” does not always mean effective. Dr. Daniel Roberts sits down with mental health advocate and suicide attempt survivor David Woods Bartley to argue for a more workable, more human frame: life preservation. A life preserver keeps someone’s head above water until help arrives, and that simple metaphor changes how we talk to soldiers, veterans, chaplains, and families who are exhausted by scripts that do not fit real life.

We go deep on what actually drives the urge to die: hopelessness and the beliefs built by trauma. David shares his own history of loss, abuse, and silence, then connects it to a surprising truth about recovery: belief is not the same as truth, which means belief can change. Together we explore moral injury and institutional betrayal, including what women veterans often carry when systems fail to protect them, support them, or hold offenders accountable. We also talk leadership in plain language, including specific tactics for NCOs and officers to build trust without turning “connection” into something soft or awkward.

You will leave with practical tools you can use today: learn and use names, ask “what inspired you?” instead of “why,” remember important dates, and create steady touchpoints like a short daily text. David also shares how people can reach him directly, plus his experience with ECT and TMS for depression treatment. If this conversation helps, subscribe, share it with someone who leads others, and leave a review so more people find a life-preserving way forward.

Reach out to David at: https://www.davidwoodsbartley.com/

Support the show

Help Moral Injury Support Network for Servicewomen, Inc. provide the support it needs to women veterans by donating to our cause at: https://misns.org/donation or send a check or money order to Moral Injury Support Network, 136 Sunset Drive, Robbins, NC 27325. Every amount helps and we are so grateful for your loving support. Thanks!

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Quitting the substance is only the first wave. The true reckoning begins when the silence sets in, forcing you to face the quiet lie you’ve carried for years—that you don't matter, that you're impossible to love, and that staying numb is the only way to survive.

In this deeply vulnerable episode, we sit down with Paul Drayton, author of Ride or Die Trying: A Life Before, During, and After the Laughter. Paul opens up about the crushing weight of living as "the invisible one" in rooms dripping with fame and attention, the desperate attempts to drown out undiagnosed ADHD with alcohol, and the profound, agonizing loss of self that happens when you disappear into someone else’s shadow. He walks us through the painful shift from carrying decades of toxic shame to finally finding grace through a late-in-life diagnosis.

We bridge Paul’s journey with the unspoken grief so many women veterans carry: the quiet agony of losing your identity, being rendered invisible, and suffering in silence because asking for help feels like an invitation to break.

This isn't just a story about hitting rock bottom; it’s about the terrifying, beautiful work of pulling yourself out. It’s an honest, raw look at public judgment, the quiet daily effort of sobriety, and the gentle resilience it takes to rebuild a life from the ashes.

If you have ever felt completely unseen, if you are exhausted from just trying to survive, or if you're terrified that it’s too late to start over—this episode was made for you.

Listen through to the end. Subscribe, send this to a friend who is fighting a quiet battle, and leave a review sharing the moment that cracked your heart open.

You can find Paul's book on Amazon at: https://www.amazon.com/Ride-Die-Trying-Before-Laughter/dp/B0HDR233Q9/

Support the show

Help Moral Injury Support Network for Servicewomen, Inc. provide the support it needs to women veterans by donating to our cause at: https://misns.org/donation or send a check or money order to Moral Injury Support Network, 136 Sunset Drive, Robbins, NC 27325. Every amount helps and we are so grateful for your loving support. Thanks!

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Betrayal doesn’t just break your heart, it can rewrite your entire history. One day you’re looking at vacation photos with warmth, and the next you’re scanning every memory for lies, gaps, and red flags you “should’ve” seen. That whiplash is a hallmark of betrayal trauma, and it’s exactly what we dig into with our guest, Mr. J, a certified betrayal trauma practitioner.

We start with the surprising way trauma can stay dormant for years, then explode after a catalyst like a death, surgery, or major life stress. Mr. J connects panic attacks, grief, and childhood wounds to a “loaded gun” nervous system, and we unpack why telling someone to simply “move on” misses what the brain and body are actually doing. From there, we get clear on what makes betrayal trauma different from other trauma: the personalization (“Was I not enough?”), the secrecy and shame that isolate people, and the painful reality that betrayal can poison the past, not just the present.

Then we get practical. Mr. J shares the “three gardens” framework for recovery: caring for yourself, caring for the relationship, and intentionally rebuilding trust after infidelity or broken trust. We also talk about common patterns that can lead to cheating, including thrill seeking, avoidant coping, validation hunger, hero complex dynamics, and “a thousand micro-justifications.” Most importantly, we come back to what makes healing possible: boundaries you enforce, honest self-connection, and two people willing to pick up an oar and row in the same direction.

If this conversation helps you name what you’re living through, subscribe, share it with someone who needs it, and leave a review so more people can find real support.

Learn more about Mr. Jay at mrjayrelationshipcoach.com.

Support the show

Help Moral Injury Support Network for Servicewomen, Inc. provide the support it needs to women veterans by donating to our cause at: https://misns.org/donation or send a check or money order to Moral Injury Support Network, 136 Sunset Drive, Robbins, NC 27325. Every amount helps and we are so grateful for your loving support. Thanks!

Follow us on your favorite social channels: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/moral-injury-support-network-for-servicewomen/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dr.danielroberts

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/misnsconsult/