Friends and colleagues Sarah and Wendy talk about why so many of us reach overwhelm and burnout in the care sandwich that is midlife and share their favourite coaching strategies and tools to help busy women scale back on their to-do list and clear some space to bring in more of the things that serve them (listen to Part 2 of this episode, coming soon, for those strategies!). Topics include being v. doing, how to say no more often, how to care less, how to figure out what’s no longer serving...

Susan Hodgson is an Irish expat coach helping women navigate new territory with their drinking amidst the challenges of living abroad and trying to find that elusive feeling of “home”. She lives near Paris with her French husband and three kids who enjoy correcting her grammar and complaining about holidays back to the Donegal rain. Susan shares her story of becoming alcohol-free, and Wendy and Susan discuss the common misconceptions of expat life, why it can make drinking less more...

Melissa Chureau is a purpose and mindset coach, lawyer, and podcaster. She helps women move beyond imposterism and perfectionism to create space in the mind, and uncover our true, integrated selves. As a lawyer for 20 years, she has witnessed many people who work and live out of alignment with their values and purpose—often because they don’t know their worth, regardless of their successes. Many feel like imposters waiting to get exposed, and afraid that who they really are isn’t enough. ...

Michael Amster, M.D., is the co-author (with Jake Eagle, LPC) of the new book The Power of Awe. Dr. Amster is a pain management specialist and awe researcher who teaches at the UC Berkeley Greater Good Science Center. He’s also a long-time meditator and yoga instructor. He joins host Wendy McCallum to share what he and Jake discovered a few years ago about the amazing power of “microdosing awe” and how the simple practice they teach can impact almost every area of your physical, mental and...

Julia Anderson shares her incredible story of leaving the narrow experience of her evangelistic Christian upbringing (including its purity culture) at the age of 19 to raise her newborn daughter and create the independent, successful life she craved. Julia is now the CEO of the Canadian Partnership for Women and Children’s Health (CanWaCH) and has over 15 years of senior and executive-level experience in international development, not-for-profits, civil society, human rights, and gender...

As a best-selling author and speaker, Meg Geisewite is changing the narrative on the mommy wine culture, hustle culture, and our pro-drinking culture. In Meg’s debut book, Intoxicating Lies: One Woman's Journey to Freedom from Gray Area Drinking, Meg flips the script on the five most intoxicating lies we tell ourselves about alcohol.  In this episode, Meg shares her story of being an ordinary, working mom who found herself trapped in the mommy wine culture, and how her love of science led...

Emily Lynn Paulson is the author of the new book Hey, Hun: Sales, Sisterhood, Supremacy, and the Other Lies Behind Multilevel Marketing and Highlight Real: Finding Honesty & Recovery Beyond the Filtered Life. She is also a speaker, recovery coach, and the founder of Sober Mom Squad, and has given two powerful TEDx talks, both challenging the status quo of parenting, alcohol use, and feminism as we know it. Emily has also been featured in major publications such as the Today Show, New...

Amy and Matt Edwards are the hosts of the Alcohol-Free Marriage Podcast. Amy is also a certified coach who helps high-achieving women get out of the shame and blame cycle when it comes to their relationship with alcohol. They join host Wendy McCallum today to share their story of quitting drinking as former craft beer enthusiasts and starting the podcast – the ups, the downs, and some of the joyful surprises of leaving alcohol behind together. Tune in to find out how they got to the decision...

Tabbin Almond is a certified coach living in Devon, England, who is passionate about removing the stigma and creating meaningful employee support around alcohol use disorder. She is committed to changing the corporate wellness conversation to include alcohol as an important factor in employees’ physical and mental health. Tabbin has a book in the works called The Wellness Conversation We’re Not Having, where she explores the corporate world’s failure to address the role that over-drinking is...

Host Wendy and her friend and colleague Sarah Baillie discuss a 2011 article from The Atlantic (by author Sandra Tsing Loh) that is still a very relevant and hilarious read for women in midlife, no matter where they are when it comes to the hormonal transition of perimenopause and menopause. They discuss what it would mean if fertility was actually the “Big Change” and menopause was just a “return to normal” and why this theory actually makes far more sense in our modern world. Sarah talks...

Scott Pinyard is the owner and coach at Modern Coparent, a company dedicated to helping people find peace while coparenting. He has years of coaching experience both in private practice and as the Head Coach of This Naked Mind. Scott’s focus is in helping people through challenging growth with compassion, patience and humor. Scott shares his personal story of modern coparenting and how he came to be a coach in this area. He explains how our lives are built on story and how these stories...

Amanda Lee is a domestic abuse survivor and the author of the new book One of The Lucky Ones. 1 in 3 women have experienced physical violence by an intimate partner. This extraordinarily common form of abuse silences victims and paralyzes them with terror, a pattern Amanda is all too familiar with. In this episode, Amanda shares her dramatic story. Like so many women, over time her fairy-tale romance became increasingly turbulent and violent. And like so many, she felt at times that her...

If you recently saw the revised drinking guidelines in Canada and gasped, you’re not alone. Most Canadians are drinking more than two drinks a week, the new low-risk maximum. Ann Dowsett Johnston is an award-winning journalist and the bestselling author of Drink: The Intimate Relationship Between Women and Alcohol, a book named one of the top 10 of the year by the Washington Post. Ann is also now a psychotherapist, and Wendy’s friend, mentor and writing coach.   Ann joins Wendy for a...

Are you stuck in a job, habit or relationship that’s not serving you? Maybe you’re struggling with whether you should stick it out a little longer in case it gets better? In this episode, Wendy shares the approach she uses with coaching clients who are feeling unsatisfied and unfulfilled to help them gain clarity, get unstuck and start taking action to create the life, habits and relationships they dream of. She explains how to articulate the fear behind your resistance to change, how to make...

Jenn Salib-Huber is a Registered Dietitian, Naturopathic Doctor, and intuitive eating advocate. Jenn provides health and hormone education to women in midlife without a side of diet culture, so they can make peace with food, aging, and hot flashes and find the confidence they deserve in midlife.   Jenn and Wendy discuss the concept of “undieting your life”, body neutrality v. body positivity, the second peak of body dissatisfaction that occurs in perimenopause, the real factors that...

Fellow This Naked Mind coach and friend Christy Osborne joins Wendy to celebrate her five-year anniversary of quitting drinking. Wendy shares her alcohol story, including her “last straw(s)” and talks about everything that has changed for her (big and small!) since she had her last drink. Christy and Wendy discuss some of the surprise gifts of going alcohol-free, how they parent and role model around the topic of drinking, and both share a drinking story that used to bring them shame but now...

Wendy and her best friend Megan, who have five young adult children between them, reflect on their transition to an empty nest together this fall. They share the story their unique lifelong friendship, and their shared experience entering motherhood, midlife, and now empty nesting together. They recount some of their favourite parts of living without kids again and some of the unforeseen challenges (or are they perks?) like chocolate covered peanuts for lunch and key lime pie for dinner,...

In today’s episode, regular co-host and bestie Dr. Sarah Baillie, N.D., joins host Wendy to talk all things teenager. They share their top insights and tips as experienced parents of teens, including strategies to diffuse tension, improve communication, and re-frame the teenage years to increase the joy and decrease the common frustration around parenting young adults. It’s an honest, raw, and funny conversation (as always!) between two moms who get it. Don’t miss this one! Topics include...

How many years have you made New Year promises only to find yourself making them all over again 12 months later? Wendy shares her Top 10 Tips for making lasting habit change in 2023 and every year thereafter in this bite-sized solo episode. With these strategies you’ll make permanent, meaningful change this year instead of giving up when “life gets lifey”, as it always does. Learn about trying different, not harder, stacking small change, the power of positive emotion, and the pitfalls of a...

Wait! Before you say, “But I don’t have a problem with alcohol”, know this – Wendy’s tips in this bite-sized solo episode are critical to making permanent, meaningful change in ANY area of your life. Whether your coping mechanism of choice is red wine, salt and vinegar chips, cupcakes, or Nordstrom Rack, there’s something in this episode for everyone. Learn the 3 C’s of making change with an experiment mindset, how this approach changed EVERYTHING for Wendy in January 2018 and led to her...

In this episode, Wendy talks to Mary Byers, author, speaker, and coach, who helps organizations and individuals set priorities and develop winning focus, about Mary’s experience with her “One Word Year” experiment. Mary explains how she has let one word guide her each year for the last decade, and how that’s helped her to concentrate on what’s most important, simplify her focus, and improve her life. Wendy and Mary discuss the power of this practice and Mary provides guidance on how to...

It’s the 100th episode of Bite-Sized Balance! In today’s episode of ‘the little podcast that could’, regular co-host and bestie Dr. Sarah Baillie, N.D., joins host Wendy to celebrate 100 episodes of Bite-Sized Balance, the “fake” podcast that Wendy started over two years ago. They each choose a handful of episodes that stand out for them from past seasons and discuss why you should give them a listen if you haven’t had the chance or are a new listener to the show.   They also talk about...

Sara McElroy is a former hustle culture devotee, ex-chief marketing officer, the Wall Street Journal’s poster girl for pandemic career burnout, and a two-time member of the Great Resignation: class of 2021 and 2022. Following a stress-induced shingles diagnosis in early 2021, Sara decided to hit the reset button on her life; she quit her hard-won CMO job and trekked to Peru's Sacred Valley to reset her frayed nervous system. When she returned, she relocated from the buzzy metropolis of...

Kelley Kitley is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and therapist with over 20 years of experience in the field, a sought after international mental health media expert, a mom of four, and a bestselling author of her autobiography of survival “My self.” She has appeared in hundreds of publications, podcasts, live news, and radio shows including The Today Show, The Chicago Tribune, Self magazine, Shape, Dr Oz, The Drew Barrymore Show, the Wall Street Journal and the Oprah Magazine, and owns...

Racquel Reid is a certified This Naked Mind coach with a unique story of recovery. In this episode, Racquel shares her drinking story and explains why her life got smaller 11 years ago when she first stopped drinking, and how after years of feeling “abnormal” and hiding away from the world, she rediscovered her power and magic and has built a life beyond what she could have imagined. Both in the “zigs and zags” of menopause, Racquel and Wendy discuss how happy they are to be alcohol-free at...