It’s Both Podcast

It’s Both Podcast A podcast about learning to hold multiple truths at once. Real stories. Real contradictions. Real healing.

10/02/2026

I couldn’t tell you the last time I laughed so hard I almost peed my pants.

So for the next year, I’m on a mission to find my fun again. Day one: me on a trail, dancing like a crazy person.

Here’s the bothness of it — it feels genuinely ridiculous to pull out my phone and record myself doing something this dumb, just to post it. And also, doing the actual dumb thing worked. I smiled more today than I have in a while. Both are true: it’s silly to document it, and it made me happier anyway.

I think there’s no better time than a hard time to have some fun. Come along on the journey with me.

How do you have fun? Tell me below — I need ideas. 🤍

09/27/2026

I think I lost my fun.

Honestly, it feels like most of my life has been a slow progression of losing my fun. So over the next year, I’m on a mission to find it. Even though things are hard right now and it seems like the worst time to focus on my fun- it somehow feels like the exact right time to find it. Somehow, both can be true.

Buuuut I need your help! What’s something that’s actually fun for you? Not “self-care”, not wellness, not what you think should be fun. Just something genuinely fun.

Tell me in the comments, I need ideas. 🤍

09/25/2026

I keep waiting for permission that isn’t going to come from anyone but me.

Jess said something in this conversation that named exactly what many of us struggle with daily. The truth we’re avoiding is uncomfortable. And we often shove it away, and then wait for someone else to give us permission or external validation that it’s something we need to do. We wait for the “external sign”.

I do this constantly. I want everyone who crosses my path to just say, yeah, you need to do this, Nikki. And that’s my forever work - letting go of the want and the need of external things to tell me what I need to be doing.

Full episode is up. Comment LISTEN and I’ll send it your way. 🤍

09/22/2026

What if the dread you feel every morning is data — not weakness, not anxiety to push through, but your body telling you something your brain isn't ready to hear yet?

Jess spent 10 years building a tech career she never planned on having. She was the sole provider, a divorced solo parent half the time, and someone who had tied her entire self-worth to the career she'd built from scratch. Then in 2023 she got sick — over and over — colds, sinus infections, a sore throat that wouldn't quit — until a perfect storm of professional chaos and a manager who didn't approach her with care forced her to take medical leave.

And on that leave, she finally gave herself permission to stop.

This is Jess L. — founder of Not Working in Tech, where she helps people in corporate tech navigate their company's leave policies, take the break they need, and figure out what comes next.

In this episode we talk about how to tell the difference between productive discomfort and the kind your body is screaming to move away from, what the year of not working actually looked like — watercolors, solo hikes, road trips to see people she'd lost touch with, why dread is one of the most useful data points you have about your own life, how work isn't working in America and why that's a systemic problem not an individual failure, and what it means to surrender to the not knowing.

If you've been waiting for permission to stop — this one is for you.

🎁 Free resource for when you're in the messy middle → https://itsboth.kit.com/873c6c3733

⏱️ Chapters
00:00 Who she was before — neglecting her own needs while providing for everyone else
01:19 Ten years in tech when she only planned to stay for a stop
02:47 Waiting for permission that was never going to come from the outside
05:19 The line in the sand — getting sick over and over
06:10 The manager who had it in for her and the moment everything broke
07:38 Taking medical leave — and telling her doctor the full truth
08:40 The first Monday of leave — the shift she felt immediately
10:41 The fear underneath the relief
11:16 How long it took to give herself permission not to go back
13:13 How to tell the difference between growth discomfort and "hell no" discomfort
15:27 Why being open to discomfort can also get you into bad situations
17:49 Dread is data — what it's actually telling you
19:12 The meeting she dreaded that turned out to be everything she wanted work to feel like
21:55 What the gap year actually looked like — watercolors, hikes, reconnecting
24:59 How Not Working in Tech was born
27:24 Work isn't working in America — and it's a systemic problem not yours to fix alone
29:44 Take your leave, use your PTO, read your benefits package
31:46 What to do when you don't have a year's savings to take a break
38:00 When she finally felt at peace with her new life
40:56 What to say to someone in the liminal space who doesn't know what comes next
42:06 Surrender to the not knowing
43:55 Stillness, solo hikes, and why being with yourself is so uncomfortable
45:57 Looking at the horizon — the literal science of it
47:42 Why birds regulate your nervous system
48:45 Ridiculous or relatable — saving tinfoil for the dishwasher instead of buying rinse aid

👤 Jess L. — founder of Not Working in Tech
• Website: https://www.notworkingintech.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/notworkingintech

💬 If this resonated — share it with someone in the messy middle. It's how new people find the show.

🙋🏻‍♀️ I'm Nikki P. — therapist turned storyteller, host of It's Both — Living in the Messy Middle. A top 5% podcast globally for people navigating anxiety, life transitions, and the space between who you were and who you're becoming. No toxic positivity. Just real language for living through it.

🔗 Find It's Both everywhere
🎙️ Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/its-both-personal-growth-for-real-life-transitions/id1811385185
🎙️ Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7KYLGul54qb4uKnfGkkrMm
📺 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/?sub_confirmation=1
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/itsbothpodcast/
✉️ Speaking/partnerships: [email protected]

💬 If this helped — subscribe, share it with someone in the messy middle, and leave a review on Apple. It helps more people find the show.

Music licensed through Soundstripe.
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09/17/2026

Years before Amber Stewart and her wife left the United States, they sat down and drew two lines in the sand. If this law passes, we go. If this thing happens, that's it. For a while, neither line got crossed.

And then they did — on the exact same night Amber found out their last fertility treatment hadn't worked.

Amber is someone I've known for years, from back in Nashville. She and her wife Jamie — who is trans — had been watching the laws change, paying attention before most people knew what was coming. They left for Uruguay. And what I didn't know until this conversation was everything that led up to that moment. The years of waiting. The community that pulled away. The grief they were already carrying when they made the call.

She said something I haven't been able to stop thinking about: she wasn't at peace with leaving. But she was certain it was right. And those are not the same thing.

In this episode we talk about drawing lines in the sand before the line gets crossed, what it actually feels like to leave a place that raised you, the night two devastating things happened at once, why you have to give yourself permission to say you don't like something before you can actually like it, and what it means to be certain without being peaceful.

🎁 Free resource for when you're in the messy middle → https://itsboth.kit.com/873c6c3733

⏱️ Chapters
00:00 Not at peace but certain — the teaser
00:21 Meet Amber — eight generations in Nashville, now in Uruguay
01:32 The years nobody knew about — watching the laws change from inside Nashville
03:35 Buying a house and drawing lines in the sand
05:28 The two lines — and what finally crossed them
07:29 The night they told people they were leaving
08:25 People who resented them for not staying to fight
09:05 Giving into a community you know you're leaving
10:38 The duality of people who shared their values — but thought they were wrong to go
12:26 "We didn't know Trump was going to be re-elected"
13:26 Uruguay — ranked third in the world for equality measures
15:28 The waitress from Cuba who got angry on their behalf
17:07 The night two devastating things happened at once
18:40 The fertility process — the s***m donor rabbit hole
19:28 The timeline pressure of the 2024 election
20:01 Choosing Jamie over the dream they had built together
21:28 Certain it was right. Not peaceful. Both.
23:04 Is becoming a parent still possible — where Amber is now
24:03 Winter in Uruguay and the permission to say "I don't like it here"
26:42 Why complaining deserves to be uplifted
27:24 What every couple who moves here either does — divorce or grow stronger
28:42 Identity after uprooting — who are you when nothing translates?
29:38 What Amber misses most about America
33:21 The book — In the Garden, an almanac for uprooting
38:38 What Amber is still holding the bothness around — faith, fiddles, and nineties country music
43:35 Names, immigration, and getting Ellis Islanded in Uruguay
47:50 Ridiculous or relatable — seven years of the exact same breakfast and turbulence in airplane bathrooms

👤 Amber Stewart — writer & author of In the Garden: An Almanac for Uprooting
• Book: https://bookshop.org/p/books/in-the-garden-an-almanac-for-uprooting-amber-stewart/73085559c514d316
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/unborderedmag/

💬 If this resonated — share it with someone in the messy middle. It's how new people find the show.

🙋🏻‍♀️ I'm Nikki P. — therapist turned storyteller, host of It's Both — Living in the Messy Middle. A top 5% podcast globally for people navigating anxiety, life transitions, and the space between who you were and who you're becoming. No toxic positivity. Just real language for living through it.

🔗 Find It's Both everywhere
🎙️ Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/its-both-personal-growth-for-real-life-transitions/id1811385185
🎙️ Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7KYLGul54qb4uKnfGkkrMm
📺 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/?sub_confirmation=1
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/itsbothpodcast/
✉️ Speaking/partnerships: [email protected]

💬 If this helped — subscribe, share it with someone in the messy middle, and leave a review on Apple. It helps more people find the show.

Music licensed through Soundstripe.
Code: CPQLO1EKI5ECDG1U, L5PEOFTPRUNINU5E

09/14/2026

Love having friends. Hate making them.

The small talk. The being the one who reaches out first. The wondering if it’s weird.

I just want the friendship without the getting-there part.

Anyone else? 😅

09/11/2026

They made a line in the sand. If it ever got crossed, they’d know it was time to leave. Then it happened.
Amber and her wife decided in advance: if their marriage came under legal threat, or gender affirming care got banned, that was their sign to go. Even with lines that clear, walking away still wasn’t simple.

They left the country. They’re in Uruguay now.

I think about how many of us are accepting more than we should, waiting for a line we never actually drew. Maybe it’s time to draw that line now....

Full episode is up. Comment LISTEN and I’ll send it your way. 🤍

09/08/2026

How do you explain this feeling to someone who’s never had to start completely over? There’s no one word for it. Grief and relief. Excitement and fear. Sadness and joy.

All of it. All at once.

If you’re in it too - comment MESSY and I’ll send you something for exactly this. 🩶

09/01/2026

What if the thing you're most afraid people will see about you is actually the thing that will set you free?

Amy Lenius is the director of group coaching at Next Level University and a holistic self-improvement coach who has spent years helping people understand the three core wounds that quietly run their lives. Before any of that, she spent over a decade being told her pain was just what it means to be a woman — until a diagnosis of endometriosis and the words "you might never have children" changed everything.

In this episode we talk about the three core wounds — unlovable, unwanted, and defective — and how to identify which one is running you, why people pleasing isn't a personality trait, it's a wound trying to protect itself, the difference between self-love and self-respect and why you have to start with neutrality first, why affirmations often make things worse, what it actually looks like to give up something good in the hope of something great — with no guarantee it will be, and the one question Amy asks herself every day that changes everything: will this increase or decrease my self-respect?

If you've ever dimmed yourself to keep someone comfortable — this one is for you.

🎁 Free resource for when you're in the messy middle → https://itsboth.kit.com/873c6c3733
📓 The Messy Middle Workbook → https://itsboth.kit.com/c8180366c0

⏱️ Chapters
00:00 Being whoever you need me to be — the teaser
00:34 Meet Amy Lenius — core wounds, chronic illness, and coaching
01:25 Which core wound is Amy's — and what that actually means
02:03 The three core wounds: unlovable, unwanted, defective
05:54 Unlovable vs. unwanted — what's actually different
07:26 The castle metaphor — no moat vs. no bridge
09:13 The opposite of belonging isn't rejection — it's fitting in
10:47 What it's like to help others with the thing you're still healing in yourself
11:33 You're more tolerated than loved on average — the hardest acceptance
12:35 The core wound never goes away — here's what you do with that
15:16 You're never done — and why that's actually good
16:32 The unlovable's solution: just go get better
18:09 Amy's endometriosis diagnosis — years of being told this is just being a woman
20:33 Becoming the driver instead of the passenger
22:19 Unsexy fundamentals over a long time — how she actually healed
22:48 Getting pregnant when she was told she might never have children
24:28 Why people quit the slow work — and why it's the only work that lasts
31:15 Will this increase or decrease my self-respect? The daily question
33:24 Short-term discomfort compounds into long-term identity
37:17 Neutrality first — you don't jump to self-love
38:07 Why affirmations can make things worse
39:28 "I am becoming" vs. "I am" — the language shift that changes everything
41:07 What Amy is still holding the tension around
43:00 Healing the feminine — what that actually looks like day to day
46:04 Giving up good for great — the question nobody asks
48:21 You don't lose what you gave up — it all comes with you
50:25 Ridiculous or relatable — metal music, fishing, and spiders

👤 Amy Lenius — director of group coaching, Next Level University, holistic self-improvement coach
• Website: nextleveluniverse.com
• Instagram: amylenius

💬 If this resonated — share it with someone in the messy middle. It's how new people find the show.

🙋🏻‍♀️ I'm Nikki P. — therapist turned storyteller, host of It's Both — Living in the Messy Middle. A top 5% podcast globally for people navigating anxiety, life transitions, and the space between who you were and who you're becoming. No toxic positivity. Just real language for living through it.

🔗 Find It's Both everywhere
🎙️ Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/its-both-personal-growth-for-real-life-transitions/id1811385185
🎙️ Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7KYLGul54qb4uKnfGkkrMm
📺 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/?sub_confirmation=1
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/itsbothpodcast/
✉️ Speaking/partnerships: [email protected]

💬 If this helped — subscribe, share it with someone in the messy middle, and leave a review on Apple. It helps more people find the show.

Music licensed through Soundstripe.
Code: QKKVZ72DBL4XCSZ0, YACXVDXWMTXHSXVI

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