"Stop protecting the people who treat you poorly." Are you the person who jokes about being a "people pleaser" but goes home feeling drained, anxious, and deeply resentful? You might not just be "nice"—you might be experiencing the "fawn" trauma response. Most of us know fight, flight, or freeze, but fawning is the lesser-known, often more dangerous response where you literally prop up people who don't deserve it just to survive the interaction. In this episode, we're doing the "shitty work" of peeling back those layers to understand why you learned to sacrifice your own needs just to avoid conflict. If you're tired of self-gaslighting and are ready to stop setting yourself on fire to keep others warm, this is your wake-up call.

In this episode, Hannah sits down with Andrea Bombino - motherhood and career coach, matrescence expert, and longtime friend - to unpack the developmental transition into motherhood that almost no one talks about: matrescence. Coined in the 1970s and only recently brought back into the mainstream, matrescence describes the profound physical, psychological, and identity-level transformation that happens when a woman becomes a mother. Andrea breaks down why Western culture fails to recognize this transition the way it recognizes adolescence, and why high-achieving women in particular struggle to accept a season of life that doesn't match their old definition of success. This conversation goes deep into ambition after motherhood, the guilt of slowing down, burnout recovery, values-based decision making, and why creative hobbies — even five minutes of painting or journaling — are non-negotiable for staying grounded. If you're a working mother, an executive navigating parental leave, or simply someone redefining what success looks like in this season of your life, this episode is essential listening.