The Lisa Show

Our children are suffering body image insecurities at younger and younger ages. Join Lisa and the Council of Moms as they exchange tips, tricks, and personal stories on what it means to be a mom and how to help our children have healthier perspectives on their bodies. #councilofmoms #bodyimage #parenting #parentingteens #ldsparenting #thelisashow #lisavalentineclark

In trying to fix the cholera and dysentery epidemics in Bangladesh in the 1970s, the country dug 10 million wells—only to discover that most of those wells were producing arsenic-laced water. Social problems can be complex, and we don’t want to make them worse. Jill Piacitelli from the Ballard Center tells us that “killing our darlings” is an important step to helping. Brent Crane from the Food and Care Coalition shares a story about the power of collaboration. And Tawna Fowler and Brett Caywood from Rising Star Outreach show us how to put our mission above our egos to do what actually helps.

How do you make a difference in the world when you're low on time and money? Lisa and The Council of Moms (Emilie Campbell, Brandalee Bluth Streeter, and Gina James) discuss how to lift where you stand, what kind of language to use with your kids when explain difficult situations in the world, and what it looks like to have actionable compassion.

75 years ago, parents faced a deadly threat to their children which, today, most people never have to think about. Lisa and Aaron Miller dive behind the scenes of the March of Dimes, an effort fueled by ordinary people who collectively changed the world and saved millions of lives. Bethany Brady Spalding shares the movement in her community that stemmed from a conversation with her kindergartener about candy. Lisa identifies six different types of helpers (because who doesn't love a personality test) and ordinary people making an extraordinary impact in the world around them.

Whether our kids are two or twenty-two, conflict is a normal part of family life. How do we make sure our relationships of love grow through these inevitable clashes, especially for kids? Lisa, Marlie, Kylie, and Brandalee explore the way conflict shows up in different stages of life, and in various scenarios-- in blended families, between spouses when kids are listening in, and with kids in the middle of those developmentally appropriate (but still awkward) transitions into higher autonomy and self-discovery.

Have you ever avoided eye contact with someone holding a cardboard sign? Or felt a twinge as you skipped a YouTube ad asking for charitable donations? Help is needed everywhere, and good people want to help. But those good intentions can quickly turn to paralysis, overwhelm, and a lingering sense of shame for not "doing more." Meanwhile, experts in helping (that's a real thing!) know that making the world a better place isn't compatible with shame. Lisa tours The Other Side Academy to learn how a few individuals regularly beat the odds and make an extraordinary impact in their community. Aaron Miller from the Ballard Center for Social Impact shares how falling in love with a problem holds the key to transforming that old, familiar, paralyzing guilt into hope, and how anyone can empower themselves to make a difference in the world by making a switch: from doomscrolling to doing good better.

Do you ever see your teenager making bad choices, and you have to grit your teeth to keep from saying something? We don’t want to be helicopter moms, but we also don’t want our kids to ruin their lives. As parents, it can be a tricky balance to let our kids fail and learn from their mistakes while keeping them out of serious trouble. Lisa joins Lindsay Clark, Amy Sunderland, and Cassie Barger for a Council of Moms about when to let our children mess up and when to intervene.

Lisa sits down with Scott Martin, who shares his journey redefining himself and finding purpose after a dramatic illness reduced his mobility and upended his life. They discuss the courage to start over, what resilience looks like, and how to learn from various kinds of new beginnings in life.

How do I get my spouse to help out around the house more? How do I manage my kids better? The answer is connection! Join Lisa and guests Heather Frazier, Lavonne Wells, and Melanie Call as they discuss how to better connect with your children and spouse, as well as how to take personal responsibility for that connection.

Join Lisa for a candid conversation about sacrifice, gratitude, and reshaping family visions when life's path takes unexpected turns. Our special guests Sanjay and Rahul from the Area 51 podcast share a laughter-filled perspective on navigating the challenges of immigration.

The eternal, unavoidable struggle of parenting: after planning out a week of meals, making sure they're nutritious, finding foods that the kids will like, grocery shopping, and mustering the energy every day to actually make those meals, the end of the week rolls around and we have to start all over again. How do we keep up? How do we keep pushing the boulder of feeding a family up the hill week after week, especially if we don't particularly love cooking in the first place? In this episode of The Lisa Show's Council of Moms, Lisa is joined by friends and fellow moms Amy Gifford, Clarissa Greenwalt, and Cassie Barger to talk about their advice and experiences.

Entering a marriage with kids on one or both sides can be a scary and difficult thing. How does one go about it anyway? Turns out a little bit of support, communication, and understanding can go a long way. In this episode Brittney Phillips shares her story of how she blended her family following her marriage, and all the pains, complexities, and joys that came with it.

For a mom who decides they are ready to go back to work after being home with the kids for a long time, there can be a lot of complex emotions involved with that transition. They might think, will this hurt my relationship with my kids? Will they think I'm a bad mom? Am I being selfish? In this episode of The Lisa Show's Council of Moms, Lisa sits down with friends and fellow moms Clarissa Greenwall, Lindsay Clark, and Alison Faulkner to discuss what experiences and advice they have for people in this situation.

After a devastating loss, starting over might be the last thing we want to do. What does it even mean to “start over” after the death of a loved one? When Dr. Sonya Coley Pitchford lost her 34-year-old daughter, Tanieka, to a sudden heart attack, her whole life changed. In this episode, Dr. Pitchford shares how she managed to keep going and eventually find hope after a crushing loss.

Moving to a new place presents both new opportunities and new challenges. How can we set our kids up to thrive during this time of transition? In this episode of the Lisa Show’s Council of Moms, Lisa is joined by Cree Taylor, Alison Faulkoner, and Anna Ek for a conversation about helping children through a big move.

In the midst of the 2008 housing crisis, KariAnn Parker and her husband made the hard decision to look their financial situation in the face. This decision kicked off a years-long process of evaluating their priorities and making hard choices as a family. KariAnn Parker joins Lisa for a conversation about sacrifice, gratitude, and redefining your vision for your family when things don’t go according to plan.

When financial struggle comes, there are few conversations more difficult to have than having to tell your kids about how their life is going to have to change in order to make ends meet. As parents we don't want our kids to have to bear the burdens of adult life, but we also don't want them to be surprised or hurt when we aren't able to afford things that we used to. In this episode of the Lisa Show's Council of Moms, Lisa talks with friends and moms Anna Ek, Trina Celeste, and Cree Taylor about what they've been through and how they recommend approaching these tough conversations.

For many women, there is no version of starting over more difficult and overwhelming than unexpected childlessness. Many plan on being parents, and even base their identity around that plan. So when unforeseen circumstances make having children impossible, they have to start over--not just with their life plans, but with how they see themselves. In this episode of the Lisa Show's series on Starting Over, Lisa talks with Sarah Roberts about her journey.

As a parent, it can feel like every waking moment is dedicated to taking care of the people who need our help. There's always another diaper change, or soccer practice, or choir recital, or meal to make, and there doesn't seem to be any time left over for ourselves. So how can we make and keep friendships with anyone other than our partner? In this episode of the Council of Moms, Lisa is joined by friends and fellow moms Liv Mendoza, Whitney Call, and Allison Dayton to talk about their experiences and best advice.

For many full-time parents, starting a family may have cut short plans to finish a degree or pursue the career we'd always thought about. Or maybe, we realize decades later that the career we chose isn't what we want to do anymore. Whatever the reason, going back to school later in life can be intimidating, unknown, and downright expensive. So what does starting over look like as a non-conventional student? In this episode of The Lisa Show' series on Starting Over, Lisa talks with Morag Kawasaki about her story of pursuing her lifelong dream of becoming a teacher.

We're constantly surrounded by horrible, heartbreaking news from around the world. There is so much war and cruelty that it's hard to avoid. But for our kids, their often hearing about these things without being old enough to truly understand what they're hearing about. And not to mention everything else a kid is dealing with while trying to figure out who they are and who they want to be. So as parents, how to we broach these complicated conversations? And how much should we say? In this episode of The Lisa Show's Council of Moms, Lisa is joined by Brittney Phillips, Shari Lyon, and Allison Dayton to talk about their experiences and best advice.

When Ashlynn Mitchell’s husband came to her and said he wanted a divorce, her whole life turned upside down. Suddenly her goals, dreams, and hopes for the future changed, and she didn’t know if she could go on alone. Ashlynn shares how reevaluating her life goals, rebuilding trust in herself, and nourishing self-love helped her along on her long journey of reconnecting with herself after divorce.

As parents it's not uncommon that we spend so much time focusing on taking care of the kids, putting food on the table, and making sure life doesn't fall apart at the seams that we don't find time to work on our own social circles. So what do we do when the kids are becoming independent and we have a little more free time, but it's been years since we tried making a new friend? In this episode of The Lisa Show's Council of Moms, Lisa talks with Heather Frazier, Melanie Call, and Whitney Call about their experiences and advice.

In November 2008, Lara Love Hardin was arrested in her suburban home. Her habit of pretending to have a perfect life had led to an opioid addiction, which had imploded her life completely. Now, she’s a bestselling author who has worked with Oprah and the Dalai Lama—and most importantly, she no longer has to pretend. In this episode, Lara shares her story of starting over after drug addiction.

In this week's Council of Moms, Lisa is joined by Lavonne Wells, Shari Lyon, and Brittney Phillips to answer a listener-submitted question: What do you do when your teenager doesn't seem to care about school, and you can tell they're heading down a difficult path?

Whether we like it or not, almost all of us will find ourselves in the position of wanting to start looking for love at some point in our lives. Maybe it's after a summer fling as teenagers, or maybe it's after the end of a decades-long marriage. For Shannon Jenkins, host of the Starting Over podcast, it was after deciding to leave a toxic marriage with her young son. In this first episode of The Lisa Show's new series on Starting Over, Lisa talks to Shannon about how so much of starting over for her was less about finding a new romantic partner, and more about figuring out how she felt about herself.

In this holiday edition of the Council of Moms, Lisa sits down with Kacy Faulconer, Gina James, and Katie Craig about intentionally creating and maintaining holiday traditions. They discuss Christmas music, making memories, and family time.

Whether we hear about it or not, lots of parents are very judgmental of the way other people raise their kids. We're all trying our best, but that looks so different from family to family, and it can be so easy to fall into the trap of thinking everyone else is doing it wrong. So what do we do when someone criticizes the way we're parenting? And how can we be better at not doing that ourselves? Lisa chats with Brooke Hoopes, Emilie Campbell, and Gina James about their experiences and advice.

In the last episode of The Lisa Show’s caregiving series, Lisa explores a topic inseparable from caregiving: spirituality. How does caregiving change relationships with God? How can we reconcile faith in a loving God with the suffering of our loved ones? Lisa talks with Sheila Welch, Kara Ryska, David Schenck, Aisha Adkins, and Jillian Benfield about how caregiving can reveal miracles and change our vision.

Lisa is joined by Jillian Benfield and Usha Tewari in a conversation about how to find community, how to build community, and how to leverage the strength of a community to make life better for all caregivers. Featuring Billie Short, Elizabeth Miller, and Shana Jones.

We’re putting the finishing touches on the last two episodes of our Caregiving series, and we want to make sure we’re telling those stories exactly the way they deserve to be told. So while we’re making our final edits, we wanted to share with you a special caregiving story from our sister podcast, Constant Wonder. Prem Jauhar was a world-class agricultural scientist—an inspiration to his son Sandeep, our guest, who became a cardiologist. When the elderly father Prem started behaving oddly, Sandeep and his two siblings grew frustrated and confused. It’s a classic family story of grown children struggling together to help a parent beset with Alzheimer’s. A beautiful father-son bond, established early on when young Sandeep would help Prem tend his beloved garden, manifests itself at the end of Prem’s life in tender exchanges between a now childlike father and a grieving son. Everyone will have something profound to gain from this episode of Constant Wonder. Guest: Sandeep Jauhar, MD, PhD, Director of the Heart Failure Program at Long Island Jewish Hospital; author of "My Father's Brain: Life in the Shadow of Alzheimer's"; contributing opinion writer for The New York Times

Every year it feels like there's a new kind of phone, a new social media app, or some new tech that our kids want to try. And as parents, it can feel impossible to keep up with. What is safe for them to use, and at what age? Is it even possible to protect them from the harmful influences on the internet? In this episode of The Council of Moms, Lisa talks with Gina James, Emilie Starr, and Julie Taylor about their experiences. If you want the Council of Moms to answer your question, reach out to The Lisa Show on Instagram or Facebook.

Any caregiver will tell you that maybe one of the harshest realities of taking care of another person is just how much time you spend dealing with the "system"--meaning meeting with doctors, making calls to insurance providers, emailing pharmacies, working with government programs, and handling all of the logistical pieces necessary to support someone who needs it. It can become a full-time job in and of itself, and at times that "system" can feel cold and uncaring towards the people it's ostensibly supposed to be helping. So what can we do to better navigate the logistical side of caregiving? Lisa talks with life coach Lauren Lowery, author Jillian Benfield, and director of Development for Remedy Alpine Amy Bushatz--all caregivers themselves--about how we can better advocate for ourselves during difficult conversations.

As parents, it seems like every year there's a new trend that becomes the absolute priority for parents. One year, it's cleanliness. The next, is early literacy. The next, it's formula, or not formula, or whatever the current conversations says? Who can keep up? In this episode of The Council of Moms, Jeanette Bennett, Brooke Hoopes, and Amy Hackworth join Lisa to discuss the things that they wish they'd prioritized with their kids--be it empathy, mental health, education, or what have you.

Many caregivers feel the approach of inevitable change to their role, and an "end" to the way life looks and feels right now. Lisa is joined by Emilie Campbell, Richard Lui, Barbara Karnes, Elizabeth Miller, and John Sovec to explore the nuances of transitioning to the "after" stage of caregiving, whether that looks like empty nesting, transitioning to residential care, or becoming a "Godspeed Caregiver" following the death of a loved one receiving hospice care.

A lot of parenting advice out in the world makes one key assumption: that you're an active and involved parent who has a drive to get better. But for many, if not all parents, there comes a time when burnout hits a climax and it can be easy to forget why you're trying so hard in the first place. So what do you do? Host Lisa Valentine Clark chats with fellow parents Suzanne Clark, Colleen Harker, and Carrie Ann Rhodes about their experiences and advice. If you want the Council of Moms to answer your question, reach out to The Lisa Show on Instagram or Facebook.

When you're spending all of your time taking care of another person, it feels like everything else in your life comes second to the needs of that person. Family, friends, jobs, everything can take a backseat when you're in the trenches of being a caregiver. But when caregiving stretches from weeks to months to years, life without those other relationships can become much more difficult and unfulfilling. So how can we, as committed and overwhelmed caregivers, maintain the other relationships in our lives? How do we keep up with old friends, stay up to date with extended family, or even maintain a healthy marriage? In this installment of The Lisa Show's series on Caregiving, Lisa talks with caregivers Carlos Olivas, Kara Ryska, Richard Lui, Jeremy Jorgason, and Rach Wilson about they're experiences and advice that they have for other caregivers.

When kids grow up and leave the house, it can be so hard to know just how involved we should be in their lives. We don't want to be "helicopter parents" to grown adults, but we also don't want to completely give up on trying to protect them from harm and help them make good choices. So how can we as parents support our kids' mental, emotional, and physical health, while also letting them spread their wings and leave the nest? Lisa chats with fellow moms, Carrie Ann Rhodes, Jeanette Bennett, and Amy Hackworth about their experiences. If you want the Council of Moms to answer your question, reach out to The Lisa Show on Instagram or Facebook. Listen to all episodes at https://www.byuradio.org/the-lisa-show The Lisa Show Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thelisashow/ The Lisa Show Listener Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/theli... The Lisa Show is a semi-weekly show that aims to empathize with and empower women and parents who are struggling to navigate the complexities of modern life. Whether it's parenting difficult teenagers, managing mental health, improving intuitive living and wellness, progressing in careers, or figuring out how to do it all at once, Lisa is having conversations that will inspire and encourage those who are feeling left behind. #byuradio #thelisashow #together #podcast #parenting #wellness #mentalhealth #mentalillness #therapy #balance #community #selfcare #selflove #womenempowerment #byuradio #thelisashow #together #podcast

You wake up at 4 a.m. freezing cold, trembling, and with a feeling of despair. What's happening here? Caregiver burnout can look different for everyone, ranging from quiet chronic fatigue, to drastic health declines, as the physical, mental and emotional toll of caregiving reaches critical mass. In this episode, three caregivers (Mishka Sibert, Susanne White, and Rach Wilson) share their unique experiences of burnout while caring for a sibling, parents, or children, as well as how they coped and recovered their wellbeing. Lisa explores their journeys with glass child syndrome, nominal aphasia, nervous system dysregulation, and the intense exhaustion that so often accompanies a the caregiving role. Teepa Snow shares the signs that a caregiver is experiencing burnout, and how to identify these red flags even when burnout can look so different from one person to another.

With a teenager at home, it can always feel like you're doing something wrong as a parent. You're asking too many questions, you're enforcing too many rules, you aren't involved enough or offering the support that they need. It can be a particularly complicated stage of parenting. So how can we know when we should "helicopter" parent our kids and establish more boundaries, and when should we back off and let them make their own choices, mistakes and all? Lisa talks with Jennifer Johnson, Emily Spencer, and Colleen Harker in the episode of The Council of Moms to find out. If you want the Council of Moms to answer your question, reach out to The Lisa Show on Instagram or Facebook.

It's a phrase that is all too familiar to every caregiver. Some well-meaning person, in an attempt to show their support, will say, "Let me know what I can for you!" While on the surface it may seem like a helpful thing to say, for the caregiver, this phrase is often just a superficial act that only serves to increase the amount of stress on their already-full plate. So what SHOULD someone do when they want to support the overwhelmed caregiver in their life? In this episode of The Lisa Show's episode on caregiving, Lisa talks with caregivers in several walks of life, as well as experts David Schenk and Suzanne Degges-White, to figure out the best ways to offer relief.

When you're taking care of kids, it can feel impossible to do everything that you want to do in a day. There's taking the kids to school, exercise, making meals, working, cleaning, shopping, picking up the kids, taking them to practice, helping them with homework, keeping up with friends, running a side-hustle, and THEN you're also supposed to somehow have your own hobbies and take time for self-care. There's just no way! In this episode of The Council of Moms, Lisa talks with Liz Palmer, Jennifer Johnson, and Suzanne Clark about how they keep all the right plates spinning at once. If you want the Council of Moms to answer your question, reach out to The Lisa Show on Instagram or Facebook.

Have you ever been surrounded by people, and still felt profoundly alone? Lisa talks with Dr. Julianne Jolt-Lunstad and Dr. Suzanne Degges-White about the impact of loneliness on caregivers with experts, and the root causes of this intense experience. Emilie Campbell shares her experience as a special mom to 16-year old Connor, and how she copes with the long-term emotional marathon of aloneness in caregiving.

It can be hard to tell the difference between just "having a hard time" and a diagnosable mental illness. Research shows that the mental health of kids and teenagers is at an all-time low, and the mental health of parents isn't faring much better. So how can we tell if it's time to take our kids, our ourselves, to see a mental health professional? Lisa talks with the Council, this week consisting of Kimberly Simmons, Emily Spencer, and Marilyn Valentine, about each of their experiences helping their kids improve their mental health, while also learning to navigate their own struggles. If you want to hear The Council of Moms answer your question, reach out to The Lisa Show on Facebook or Instagram, or email us at [email protected]

When it comes to caregiving, why do we think we have to do everything and do it all perfectly? How can we have more compassion for ourselves? Lisa talks to caregivers and caregiving experts about perfectionism, self-talk, and the importance of loving ourselves even--and especially--when we feel like our best isn’t good enough.

How do you know that you're doing a good enough job as a parent? And on the other hand, how do you avoid beating yourself up when it feels like you're not doing well enough? Host Lisa Valentine Clark talks with the Council of Moms--this week consisting of Marilyn Valentine, Elizabeth Palmer, and Kimberly Simmons--about mom guilt, comparison, self-love, finding a support system, and other listener-submitted topics.

Nearly all of us will eventually become a caregiver or a recipient of care—so how can we prepare now? Lisa Valentine Clark kicks off this season by exploring the need for more conversation about caregiving. Dr. Lance Erickson explains how social expectations, age, and gender influence who ends up in caregiving roles. Dr. Natali Edmonds of Dementia Careblazers shares how talking about caregiving beforehand helped her prepare for her own caregiving experience, and Jeremy Jorgason discusses lesser known ways that caregiving can become more intense than anyone expects. Caregiving is overwhelming, wonderful, painful, beautiful, and poignant—and it’s better when we face it together.

In the last episode of the Creativity series, Lisa explores how creativity changes us from the inside out. With the help of researchers Joshua Katz, Jack Goncalo, and Lynne Vincent, Lisa looks at how creativity can change our perception of real life—and why that can be a good thing. She examines the relationship between selflessness and creativity, the way being creative can help us process and heal in profound ways, and the unparalleled power of creativity to restore human agency.

Lisa joins TV host, artist, and arts advocate Emilie Starr to explore how creativity has brought them closer to their communities, their families, and a higher power. They discuss how motherhood is a creative endeavor and how the arts have helped them make intergenerational connections. Featuring a very special guest, baby Evelyn!

Most of us can’t quit our day jobs to be creative full-time, but that doesn’t mean we can’t live creative lives. In fact, in the words of professional artist Andrea Hardeman, any time you’re showing up as your authentic self, you’re being creative. In this episode of The Lisa Show, Lisa joins forces with Andrea, creativity researcher Jack Goncalo and the Council of Moms (Lauren Johnston and Kimberly Beatty) to explore the relationship between authenticity and creativity, the importance of dissent and self-expression, and how to find your creative identity.