Permission to Be Complicated: Parenting, Peacemaking & Owning Your Voice w/Kelsey Blahnik

What if your competing thoughts aren’t a problem to fix, but a roadmap to self-awareness, deeper relationships, and emotional clarity?

In this powerful conversation, Megan welcomes back therapist, author, and group practice founder Kelsey Blahnik to discuss her newly released book, The And Way: Assertive Peacemaking in a Divided World. Together they unpack the real-life parenting, relational, and personal transformation work that happens when we stop choosing either/or and start living in the “and.”

Whether you’re navigating grief, generational wounds, political tension, parenting criticism, or your own messy impulses, this episode is your compassionate call-in to get curious, not combative.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Internal Family Systems (IFS) and how to work with your “competing impulses”

• What it means to develop a “clay mindset” (yes, it’s different than growth mindset)

• How to stop labeling yourself (or others) with traits that leave no room for change

• The difference between being confident in conflict vs. comfortable

• The power of self-compassion in deconstructing childhood coping mechanisms

• Assertive communication tools for high conflict moments with family, partners, and workplace bullies

• How “true self energy” builds resilience, calm, and connection

• And why humanity isn’t black and white but a living, imperfect spectrum

This episode is equal parts therapy session, book club, and brave conversation. If you’ve ever wondered how to stop avoiding hard conversations while still staying grounded in your truth, this one’s for you.

🛒 The And Way is available on Amazon (Prime shipping, obviously) 🔗 More from Kelsey at TheAndWayPress.com or @theandway 💥 Make it your next book club pic...we dare you.

www.suburbanburnout.com