What happens when life brings you to your knees and forces you to discover who you truly are?
Cracking Open is the podcast for anyone who has faced a defining moment of crisis, grief, trauma, or rock bottom and found themselves transformed by it. Hosted by Molly Carroll, licensed therapist, TED speaker, published author, and coach, each episode dives deep into the raw, real stories of actors, athletes, thought leaders, healers, and everyday warriors.
Whether it was the loss of a loved one, addiction, childhood trauma, incarceration, or an unexpected life collapse, these "cracking open" moments shape everything: how we parent, love, work, lead, and connect.
What you'll discover:
How trauma and crisis can become the greatest catalysts for growth
Tools and insights from mental health, healing, and personal transformation
Honest conversations that normalize struggle and celebrate resilience
If you're navigating grief, trauma recovery, personal growth, or a major life transition, or you simply want to feel less alone in your human experience, this podcast is for you.
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Kat Courtney: Ayahuasca, Ibogaine, and Learning to Be Human
Thursday, September 24, 2026 • Duration 58:01
I've interviewed over 100 people on this podcast, and this conversation hit me in a way none of the others have. It made me reflect deeply on my life and what is still holding me back. And if you've ever been curious about plant medicine, or want to learn anything about it, this is the episode to listen to.
Part of what hit me may be timing. I'm taking my daughter, my last kid, to college the day before you hear this episode. One day I'm scared and in tears, and the next I feel a little free, hearing a voice say, "It's your time, Molly, to get back more of you, your marriage, your career." It's a hodgepodge of emotions, and Kat's reassuring, loving, and wise voice gave me real comfort in this time of transition.
And oh my gosh, did this episode ever quench my thirst for answers about plant medicine!
Content note: This episode includes a firsthand account of a suicide attempt, plus discussion of addiction, trauma, and death. Please listen with care.
Kat is not only extensively trained in plant medicine, but she's also remarkably knowledgeable about its effects, its healing potential, and the laws surrounding it. She speaks to it medically, physically, emotionally, and spiritually, with a reported 1,000+ ayahuasca ceremonies behind her.
But I'd encourage anyone to listen, even if you're not interested in plant medicine, because she also talks about how to function in this world as a human. You'll hear morning and evening rituals, daily practices, and tips and tools to feel more balanced, joyful, and alive.
About Kat
Kat Courtney is a pioneer in the modern plant medicine space and a traditionally trained Ayahuasquera and Huachumera with over two decades of professional psychedelic experience. She apprenticed for 10+ years in the Shipibo-Conibo and Quechua-Lamista traditions, and she's the author of Plant Medicine Mystery School Vol 1. She leads Master Plant Diets in person and remotely, offers shamanic coaching, and is a certified death doula.
In this conversation, she shares the moment her life cracked open in her early 20s, how ayahuasca became the missing piece in her healing, and why she believes the hardest moments of our lives hold the greatest gifts.
In this episode:
Surviving a suicide attempt and choosing to go on “a mission to heal”
Why your pain is valid, even when it doesn’t match your life story
SSRIs as a life raft vs. plant medicines as a way to “close trauma loops”
Ibogaine for addiction and trauma work
The four Cs of shadow work: crisis, clinical, cultural, and chemical
Kat’s Colorado arrest and the future of plant medicine legality
Practices for everyone
Morning: Take an hour before email and screens to check in with yourself and set an intention.
Evening: Name your best win of the day and let your body release the rest.
Ongoing: Catch the inner critic, work with your dreams, and ask, "Does this bring me joy and comfort?"
Kat's four questions for any facilitator
Who trained you, and for how long?
What's the hardest thing you've been through, as a participant and a facilitator?
How do you handle it when someone says they don't feel safe in your space?
What's your protocol if someone has a psychotic break or a very hard experience?
Taking my last kid to college is cracking open an old identity for me as a mom, and it's making me look at my life through a different lens. Listening to Kat reminded me that there are so many ways to do that deeper work: plant medicine, daily rituals, therapy, time in nature.
What stuck with me most is that I can't just wait for life to do it for me. I need to step in and do the reflection myself, so that my life is rich and full with or without my kids in the house. I hope this conversation leaves you feeling the same way, whatever transition you're in and whichever path feels right for you.
This episode reflects the guest's personal experiences and opinions and is not medical advice. Plant medicines can interact dangerously with medications, including SSRIs, and many are illegal in the U.S. If you're struggling, please reach out to a mental health professional or a crisis line such as 988 in the U.S.
How Death Doulas Help Us Live Lighter with Karen Callahan & Jen Tadjedin
Thursday, September 3, 2026 • Duration 01:00:51
Quick heads up: we are talking about grief, death, and all that we can learn from this deep topic today.
I know, I know, stay with me. Because we spend so much energy avoiding the one thing that's guaranteed to happen to all of us: death.
But I am learning death doesn’t have to be so heavy. It can actually bring so much more light into our lives: perspective, gratitude, appreciation.
Those of you who know me or have listened to this show know that I lost both of my parents when I was in my 40s, and I’ve lost friends along the way too. Now, with my own kids heading off to college, I’ve been feeling so many emotions, grief being one of them. So when Karen and Jen reached out to come on the podcast, it was a resounding yes.
Karen Callahan and Jen Tadjedin are death doulas who left careers in tech and advertising to help people navigate dying, grief, and end-of-life planning work they both came to after losing people close to them. On this episode, we talk about what a death doula actually does, why we’re so afraid of this conversation, the paperwork nobody wants to fill out but everyone’s grateful for later, and the woo-woo stuff too: mediums, dreams, and the ways our people keep showing up after they’re gone.
In this episode
What a death doula actually does: part medical advocate, part care manager, part emotional support, far bigger than just being there at the very end
Their origin stories: Karen after losing both parents within two years; Jen after a hospice training changed everything
The Peace of Mind workshop: five components, and why the conversations matter more than the paperwork
Why we’re so afraid of death and the couple whose workshop became the tipping point to move to San Diego finally
Grief has no timeline: Karen on the “foggy” first year, and why compassion beats any schedule
The medium, the dream, and what comes after personal stories that reshaped what they believe happens next
Healing relationships after death ritual, unfinished business, and why some healing only comes after someone’s gone
Even though death still scares me, I love finding the time and space to actually talk about it. Every time I do, I walk away feeling more peaceful, more light, and more grateful for the life I get to live right now. I hope this conversation gives you a little bit of that too.
If you’re ready to do the meaningful work of truly knowing and accepting yourself, I’m currently accepting new therapy clients. I specialize in helping people:A note from Molly: For three years, I’ve poured my heart into this podcast, creating over 100 episodes. I’ve funded everything myself to focus on meaningful conversations, but to keep bringing you the quality content you deserve, I need your help.Even $5 a month, less than a coffee, helps cover hosting, editing, and prep time. If this podcast has supported you, would you consider joining? Stay Connected with Molly: F
Kathy Eldon: Don’t Despair, Don’t Give Up Grief, Loss, and Finding Light After Tragedy
Thursday, August 6, 2026 • Duration 50:55
I’ve been sitting with a strange kind of grief lately, the kind that comes from something good. Both my kids will be in college soon, and I know how lucky I am to say that. Still, I keep hearing the same thing from everyone around me. “Molly, this is your time!”
Some days that’s true. I feel free, open, like a whole new chapter is standing right there waiting for me. Other days my heart aches just thinking about the quiet house. No one asking me to make them a sandwich. No shower running in the morning, no dishes thrown in the sink because someone was rushing out the door. That sound, that mess, I miss it before it’s even gone.
So I needed today’s conversation more than I realized when I sat down to record it.
My guest is Kathy Eldon, and her opening line to me set the tone for everything that followed. Don’t despair, don’t give up. There’s no way out, but through.
Kathy’s life has been one long act of reinvention, from a conservative upbringing in Iowa, to a journalist in Nairobi, to a mother who lost her 22-year-old son Dan, a Reuters photojournalist killed while covering the crisis in Somalia. She has since built Creative Visions Foundation, which has incubated more than 400 projects across five continents and touched over 100 million people. She’s the author of 17 books, including her memoir In the Heart of Life, which cracked me wide open before we even hit record.
In our conversation, Kathy shares:
✨ How being cracked open again and again, by apartheid, by divorce, by grief, became the shape of her entire life rather than something to recover from and move past.
✨ What she has learned about grief after losing Dan, including why the second year was harder than the first, and the one piece of advice she gives everyone who is grieving.
✨ How she turned unimaginable loss into Creative Visions, and what it looks like to give your creative spark to something bigger than yourself.
We also talk about her noisy spirits, her visits with psychic mediums, and her simple, powerful closing words: find a path to joy.
This conversation is for anyone standing at the edge of a new chapter, whether it’s an empty house, a loss, or a version of yourself you’re not sure how to leave behind. Kathy’s story is proof that the cracks are not the end. They’re where the light gets in.
Jodie Patterson on Staying Curious When Your Kids (and Your Identity) Are Changing
Thursday, July 23, 2026 • Duration 01:00:08
This fall, my youngest, my last one, leaves for college. Twenty-one years of being a mom, and I’m standing at the edge of a chapter I don’t know how to close. When my son left two years ago, I was a wreck. Shame that I was “too attached,” fear of who I am when mothering isn’t my daily identity, questions about my marriage, my life, my self.
So when Jodie Patterson agreed to come back on the podcast, the timing felt like more than coincidence.
This is Jodie’s third time on Cracking Open: she was episode 2, back before I knew what I was doing, and episode 65. She’s a friend, and a voice this podcast keeps coming back to. And this time, I felt how much we’ve both shifted since we last talked.
Jodie Patterson is an award-winning, globally recognized author, activist, beauty explorer, and mother of five. She was the first Black person to chair the Human Rights Campaign Board, our nation’s largest LGBT organization, and speaks widely on identity, gender, race, and radical parenting. Her memoir, The Bold World, was called “marvelous” by Alice Walker, and her children’s book, Born Ready, was gifted to every public school in Kansas. She also co-founded two beauty companies, works with Mount Sinai Hospital on health disparities and transgender medicine, and has been recognized by the United Nations as a Champion of Change.
Here’s what we got into.
✨Slow down internally, then respond from your highest self
The night before we recorded, one of Jodie’s adult children texted asking her to back off on the weekly check-ins. Her first instinct was hurt. Instead of firing back, she put the phone down, cried a little, and responded from a steadier place: “I’ll slow down, I’m a phone call away, and when you shift, I’ll shift with you.” One of the best examples of parenting adult children I’ve heard on this show.
✨Mothering as an internal revolution
Afraid AI Is Replacing Human Connection? Jack Swift on Leadership, Consciousness, and the Human-Machine Era
Thursday, July 2, 2026 • Duration 57:08
I don't know about you, but even though I use AI almost every single day, there is still a part of me that gets nervous about it.
I love nothing more than sitting across from a friend with a cup of coffee, driving in the car with my kids and husband to Seattle to see a World Cup Game (yep, I went), or being out in nature with nothing but my own thoughts, no machine, no screen, just me. I am deeply passionate about human connection. So passionate that I did a TED talk on The Power of Human Connection.
So when I think about what AI might mean for how we relate to each other, it concerns me. And yet here I am, using AI daily, and if I am honest, loving it. That conflict lives inside of me, and it is exactly what led me to this conversation with today's guest, Jack Swift.
I met Jack about two years ago. I was up in the hills outside of Los Angeles, spending the day at a conference on human performance, and at dinner that night I ended up sitting next to Jack.
Within minutes we were talking about Jungian psychology, Internal Family Systems, and the nature of the soul.
That is just who Jack is.
He goes deep fast, and with such warmth that you don’t realize how far you have gone until you come up for air. Something about him immediately put me at ease about what it means to be human in this moment.
Jack grew up in Hope, Arkansas (yes, the same town as the Clintons), where something was planted in him early around service and possibility. That thread carried him to West Point as a DI athlete, to the Army as an Airborne Ranger, into institutional finance, and eventually to co-found and lead TIFIN. On this AI-native fintech platform, he grew the team from 30 to over 300 people and oversaw JPMorgan's acquisition of 55ip. When Jack talks about AI, he is not theorizing. He has lived it from the inside.
And yet what strikes me most about Jack is not his resume. It is that alongside all of that, he co-founded Sangha, a community I am lucky enough to be part of. A collective of heart-centered leaders, small circles of people who meet regularly, grow together, and integrate their inner work into every part of life. It tells you everything you need to know about who Jack really is.
Why Small Talk Is Making You More Lonely (And What To Do Instead)
Thursday, June 11, 2026 • Duration 19:28
I recorded this episode in the middle of one of the most emotional weeks of my life. My daughter Cora was three days from graduating high school, and I found myself at backyard parties where the conversation kept drifting to the same familiar places: the weather, work, the kids.
And I felt that quiet ache I believe so many of us are carrying right now. The longing for something deeper. More real. More connected.
So that’s what today’s episode is about: how we find the courage to have more connection.
Something Is Shifting
Because I think we all feel it. This quiet ache underneath the busyness of our lives. We reach for our phones in line for coffee instead of turning to the person next to us. We text instead of call. We scroll instead of sit. We show up to gatherings and perform a version of ourselves the edited, polished, “I’m fine” version instead of actually arriving in all our beautiful messiness.
And from this? We feel less connected. More lonely. More invisible.
Here’s what I’ve learned in 25 years as a therapist: loneliness isn’t about being alone. You can be surrounded by people at a party, in a marriage, in an office full of colleagues and still feel profoundly unseen. The opposite of loneliness isn’t proximity. It’s depth.
And the data tells us loneliness is worse for your health than smoking, obesity, or high blood pressure. Anxiety and depression are the highest ever, and we are more likely to die from feeling lonely. The epidemic is real.
But here’s what I know after 25 years of sitting with people in my office: loneliness is not the problem. It’s the symptom. Connection is the medicine. And the prescription? COURAGE.
The courage to ask a real question. To say the true thing. To let someone love you back. So here are the four pillars of courage to create more connection and therefore more LOVE.
The Four Pillars of Courage for Connection
✨1. Ask for Help
Here’s the thing about asking for help: we avoid it because we think it makes us look weak or like a burden. A Harvard and Wharton study found the number one reason people don’t ask for help:
I Want to Be Wild: Emma Tynan on Letting Go of More and Coming Home to Yourself
Thursday, May 28, 2026 • Duration 47:37
I found Emma through Maria Shriver's newsletter, and her words stopped me cold:
"I no longer want more. I want to be wild."
I felt my whole body exhale. Because I knew exactly what she meant. The TED Talks, the books, the funnels, the coaching groups, I had all of it. And so did Emma. And somewhere underneath all of it, we both heard the same quiet voice saying: this isn't it.
This conversation is for anyone who has ever felt that way.
Meet Emma Tynan
Emma Tynan is an Irish writer whose work explores belonging, the inner life, and contemplative practice through lived experience. She lives in the Pacific Northwest and is currently writing her first book, Brave Words. She also facilitates international luxury retreats in devotion to St. Mary Magdalene, and before all of this, she founded an international life coaching company that served thousands of students worldwide for over a decade.
What We Get Into
Closing a decade-long business in a single afternoon. Emma got her name on the office door and two weeks later heard four words rise up within her, standing outside her son's school: give me everything. She sent the emails that same day.
Her son Eli and the gift inside the unexpected. Emma's youngest is autistic. His becoming was an invitation to grieve, surrender, and release everything she thought life was supposed to look like. She homeschooled him for a year, with hot chocolates, forest walks, and a chalkboard in the dining room. She'd do it ten times over.
Distraction disguised as productivity. Years of funnels and Facebook ads, chasing the next strategy while a voice in her heart kept saying the same thing: write the book. I felt this in my bones.
Mary Magdalene and reclaiming what's true. Emma's work centers on restoring Mary Magdalene's real story, scholar, apostle, prophet, not the fiction she was branded with for centuries. In Ireland, this history is not abstract. It's in the bones of the culture.
✨
The Leader Within: Shadow Work, Core Values & the Power of Human Connection with Thomas Droge | Ep. 104
Thursday, May 14, 2026 • Duration 53:07
What does it mean to truly lead not just in a boardroom, but in your relationships, your family, and your own inner life? In this deeply moving episode, therapist and host Molly Carroll sits down with Thomas Droge, executive coach, Chief Mindfulness Officer, mindfulness speaker, and author of The Leader Within, to explore the practices that create real, lasting transformation.
Thomas brings over three decades of integrated medicine, qigong, meditation, and contemplative work into a raw, honest conversation about shadow work, living your core values, the healing power of human connection, and what happens when life cracks you open without warning.
You'll hear Thomas share the moment his wife came out of surgery paralyzed — and what that crisis revealed about love, presence, and showing up. This episode is for anyone feeling stuck, disconnected, or searching for deeper meaning in a noisy world.
Topics covered:
Shadow work and embracing your "evil twin"
How to identify and live by your core values (the precepts practice)
Leadership as a human skill — for parents, teachers, and everyday people
Molly Magic: The Power in Life's No's and Not Yet's
Thursday, April 30, 2026 • Duration 23:11
You got a NO this week.
Maybe more than one. Someone said no to you. Or your kid came home with that look on their face. Or you've been trying and trying, and the door just won't open.
Here's what the research tells us: your brain processes social rejection in the same region as physical pain. Neuroscientist Naomi Eisenberger found that the anterior cingulate cortex — the part that lights up when you're physically hurt — lights up identically when you're rejected. You are not being dramatic. You are being human.
And your brain doesn't distinguish between a big no and a small one. The strawberries being out of stock. The email that never came back. Your nervous system treats them all the same way. The small nos stack. By noon, your threat response has been firing all morning — and your fear brain starts whispering: maybe you're not enough. Maybe you should stop trying. That is not wisdom. That is fear doing its job.
A no is information about that moment. It is not a verdict on your worth.
When it happens to someone you love. When your child doesn't make the team, isn't invited to the party, comes home with that look — it hits differently. Research shows that when someone we love is rejected, our brains register it as if it happened to us. Add the helplessness of not being able to take it from them, and it's a lot to carry. So: feel your own pain first. Then sit with them. Listen. Show them what it looks like to get back up. How you handle your nos is teaching everyone around you how to handle theirs.
Four tools for the no you're holding:
1. Name which no it is. A not yet has a crack in it — soft language, an open door, worth showing up for again. A real no feels different in your body: clear, final, repeated. Releasing a real no isn't defeat. It's clarity. It frees up every ounce of energy you've been spending on a closed door.
2. Write it out. Unprocessed nos become stories — nothing works out for me, I always get passed over. Those aren't facts. They're feelings. Write it out and watch it lose its grip. Naming an emotion reduces its intensity and moves you from fear brain back into thinking brain.
Shaka Senghor: How to Escape Life's Hidden Prisons and Be Free
Episode 102
Thursday, April 16, 2026 • Duration 56:52
Whenever someone asks me for a word that describes how I want to live, my answer is always the same.
Freedom.
Not just personal freedom, but freedom in my mind, my body, and my spirit. Maybe that comes from being raised Catholic, or maybe it’s simply my wild spirit that has never wanted to be contained.
So when I read Shaka Senghor's How to Be Free: A Proven Guide to Escaping Life’s Hidden Prisons, I knew I needed to have him back on the podcast.
Because this message isn’t just for people who have been behind bars. You don’t need a prison cell to feel imprisoned.
It’s for anyone lying awake replaying something they wish they could let go of. Anyone who can’t move past a loss. Anyone whose carefully built walls are keeping even joy out.
Shaka Senghor is known for his remarkable journey from solitary confinement to the C-suite. He is a New York Times bestselling author, a resilience teacher, and one of the most powerful voices we have on transformation, healing, and justice.
In his latest book, he names the hidden prisons that keep us stuck. They are not made of concrete and steel, but of grief, anger, shame, and fear.
And here is the truth that changes everything.
These prisons have doors.
In This Episode, We Explore
Grief Shaka begins his book with grief for a reason. We talk about loss in a deeply human way, including the death of his beloved dog and his brother. In one of the most moving moments of our conversation, he shares how he refused to let his dog’s passing go unacknowledged, even taking legal action against the care center responsible. This is grief met with both love and accountability.
Anger What does it mean to be the master of your emotions rather than a prisoner of them? He reframes anger as something that, when understood, can become a source of power and agency rather than destruction.
If this episode brought something up for you, I’d love to hear about it — leave a comment or send me a message. And if you know someone who needs this conversation, share it with them.
If you’re ready to do the meaningful work of truly knowing and accepting yourself, I’m currently accepting new therapy clients. I specialize in helping people:
Break stuck patterns in relationships or life decisions
Develop coping strategies for anxiety and depression
Navigate life transitions with clarity and purpose
Create more joy, balance, and healthy habits
A note from Molly: For three years, I’ve poured my heart into this podcast, creating 90 episodes. I’ve funded everything myself to focus on meaningful conversations, but to keep bringing you the quality content you deserve, I need your help.
Even $5 a month, less than a coffee, helps cover hosting, editing, and prep time. If this podcast has supported you, would you consider joining? Support here
We box ourselves in as much as the world boxes us in, and the deepest revolution is internal. Raising five kids across different relationships, cultures, and identities has taught Jodie that gender, faith, and family are far more fluid than she was raised to believe.
✨Two years without a lover
After a family near-death experience, Jodie stopped dating entirely for two years, not from lack of desire, but because energy is finite. She described it like moving houses and finally seeing what’s been under the carpet for years. What she found is the foundation for how she’s dating now, at 55, with a clarity she didn’t have before.
✨Healing versus fixing
Jodie’s daily practice isn’t about optimizing; it’s about healing what’s underneath instead of numbing it:
Stretching before she’s even out of bed
Ten minutes on a vibration plate
Weight training and an hour walking her dogs
Whole foods, less caffeine
Plant medicine and clinical ketamine therapy, used intentionally and under care
✨Hustle down, flow up
I shared the phrase my solopreneur friends coined: hustle down, flow up, and Jodie lit up. Less ambition to write the next book or chair the next board. More interest in what makes her feel alive: alone time, surfing for the first time in Costa Rica, tree hugging.
✨Humility, earned
Jodie said something I won’t forget: she’s had to earn her children’s respect and companionship, the same way she’d earn it with anyone she loves. That humility has softened her — while her boundaries have only gotten clearer.
I came into this episode carrying so much about my own transition twenty-one years of identity wrapped up in being someone’s mom. Talking to Jodie didn’t hand me answers, but it did something better: she gave me permission to be me again. If you’re standing at your own edge of letting go, I hope this conversation gives you that same permission.
Jodie, thank you for trusting me with this conversation again. Listen to the full episode wherever you get your podcasts, and if you missed Jodie’s first appearance, go back to episode 65.
🌱 Purchase Jodie’s book The Bold Worldhere, and Born Readyhere. Follow Jodie on Instagram.
Love, Molly
🌱 Please consider supporting the Cracking Open podcast on Patreon.
Now accepting new therapy clients! If you’re feeling stuck, navigating change, or craving more purpose and peace, I’d love to support you. Learn more or schedule a session here.
What makes his story so human is that through his success, he was also quietly struggling. Leaning on alcohol to numb emotions he didn’t have words for, stuck in fight-or-flight, measuring his worth by what the world reflected back to him. He shares all of this openly, including the one moment with his daughter that finally changed everything. That part of our conversation stopped me in my tracks.
Here is a taste of what we get into:
✨Leading from the inside out and why knowing your own truth is the most important leadership skill right now ✨The “resentment trap” and what a story about music in a car taught me about relationships ✨Why “I don’t know” and “I made a mistake” are the two most powerful things a leader can say ✨How Jack uses AI agents as thought partners, including helping his own son figure out his next career chapter
If you have ever worried about jobs, wondered what to tell your kids to study, or felt like this technology is moving faster than you can keep up with, this episode is for you. Jack does not dismiss that fear. He meets it with honesty and reframes it in a way that gave me hope.
As someone who carries caution around what AI means for human connection, I can tell you this conversation with Jack left me feeling more hopeful about AI, about people, and about life itself.
xo
Molly
Jack’s Resources and Links
Level 7 Leadership: The Blueprint for the Human+Machine Era by Jack Swift, and L7 AI agent at l7leadership.com
Now accepting new therapy clients! If you’re feeling stuck, navigating change, or craving more purpose and peace, I’d love to support you. Learn more or schedule a session here.
it makes us feel incompetent.
But here’s what the research actually shows. When you ask someone for help, they see you as more competent. They trust you more. And this is the part I love so much: they feel like they matter.
I have been a therapist for decades, and I still feel resistance every single time I walk into my own therapist’s office. But this week, in the middle of all the graduation chaos, I asked a couple of friends for help. And I felt the weight lift. I wasn’t just giving love anymore. I was letting people give me love back.
Next time someone asks how you’re doing, try this instead of “fine”:
“I’ve been wrestling with something lately. Can I get your take on it?”
“Honestly, I could use some advice. I’ve been dealing with something hard.”
Watch what happens to their face. Watch their eyes change. You just told them they have something real to offer you. You just allowed them to love you.
✨2. Be Authentic
I know authenticity gets thrown around so much it almost loses its meaning. So here’s what I actually mean by it: tell the truth. Not the highlight reel, not the LinkedIn version. The real one.
I was on a walk with a dear friend recently, and I could feel she’d been carrying something heavy for months. I kept holding back, not wanting to push. But finally I said: “I see something going on with you. I feel like you’re carrying something hard. Can I be here for you?”
She was honest. She cried. And then I could share my own fears about Cora leaving for college. We walked away closer than we’d been in years.
Try slipping one of these into your next conversation:
“What’s been the hardest part of your week?”
“If you’re being totally honest, how are you?”
People might pause. It might get a little uncomfortable. The Buddhists teach that we need to get comfortable with the uncomfortable.
✨3. Make Change
Yes, the world is noisy. Yes, our phones, schedules, and the general chaos of life are real. But we still get to choose where we spend our time and if we want to connect on a deeper level.
It is our responsibility to create the rituals, the invitations, the conversations for more connection. A month ago I challenged myself to walk up to a table of strangers, young, hip, athletic mountain bikers, and ask if they’d be on my podcast. My heart was pounding. But when I did, they looked up. They smiled. They felt seen.
And at a graduation party recently, I stopped a new friend and said, “I’m challenging myself to go deeper at these parties. So here’s my question: in a year from now, what do you want to be celebrating?”
We both got quiet. Then she said: “I want to be celebrating that I don’t worry as much. That I’ve let go of the weight I carry around my kids and my divorce. That I’m finally celebrating who I am.”
That is the kind of conversation that stays with you. That’s the one you remember.
✨4. Be in Service: Show Up to See, Not Just to Be Seen
Most of us walk into a room carrying some version of the same quiet anxiety: Do I look okay? Will people like me? Am I enough? You are not alone in that. I feel it every time too.
But what if you walked in with just one question in your heart:
“Who in this room needs to feel less alone today?”
That is the shift. That is everything. When you become the person who asks the real questions, who listens without fixing, who makes eye contact and says “tell me more,” you become magnetic. Not because you performed well. Because you made someone feel like they mattered.
Some of my favorite questions to bring to any gathering:
“What’s something you wish more people asked you about?”
“What’s the best thing that’s happened to you in the last month?”
“How do you want to live?”
I heard that last one recently from a son speaking at his father’s funeral. I haven’t stopped thinking about it since.
This Is the Moment
We keep waiting for the right time to have the real conversation. The right setting. The right moment. The right person to go first.
There is no right time. This is the moment.
By the time you read this, Cora has already graduated. The cap, the gown, the ugly crying it’s all happened. And I can tell you that the conversations I will carry from this season are not the ones about the weather. They’re the ones where someone looked me in the eye and asked something real.
At your next gathering, be the one who goes first. Ask the brave question. Sit with the pause. Put down your phone and let it go somewhere.
The world doesn’t need more small talk. It needs more of you the real, brave, loving, beautifully messy, imperfect you.
That is the magic
xo
Lots of love,Molly
What wildness really means. Not resistance. Belonging. The part of us we were taught to tame, that's the part that knows who we really are.
Quotes I'm Still Thinking About
"It was distraction disguised as productivity and scaling and growth." ✨"The thing you're most afraid to admit that's the thing that's going to liberate you." ✨"The tendrils of my soul want to touch the real earth to move not outward, but inward."
3. Burn it. Write it down, read it one last time, say out loud: "This does not define me" — and burn it. Watch it turn to ash. Can't burn it? Tear it up. Delete it. The point is the conscious choice to let it go.
4. Ask what it's making room for. What could this no be redirecting you toward? What are your yeses now? And if all you can write is I don't know yet, but I trust something is coming — that is enough. That is the whole practice.
Every no you have ever survived is proof that you are still here. Something good is ahead of you. I really believe that.
Now go find your magic. 🤍 — Molly
🌱 Please consider supporting the Cracking Open podcast on Patreon.
Now accepting new therapy clients! Learn more or schedule a session here.
Shame In one of the most courageous moments of the conversation, Shaka speaks openly about sexual abuse as a man and the silence that surrounds it. At a time when so many men carry this in isolation, his willingness to name it matters deeply.
Hope and Joy There is light here, too. This conversation is not just about surviving. It is about learning how to live. He reminds us that joy is not something we earn after suffering. It is available to us now.
Shaka spent nineteen years in the Michigan prison system, including seven years in solitary confinement. Since his release, he has become a leading voice on resilience, healing, and personal transformation. His work has been featured on Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday, and How to Be Free is a roadmap for anyone who has ever felt stuck.
Which, if we’re honest, is all of us.
Hidden prisons are real. They are built from our pain, our past, and the stories we carry about who we are.
But as he reminds us through both his life and his work, the door is always there.
You just have to be willing to walk through it.
🎧 Tune in now to listen.
With love, Molly
🌱 Please consider supporting the Cracking Open podcast on Patreon.
Now accepting new therapy clients! Learn more or schedule a session here.
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