Live LIGHTER

You have been told to be more confident. To speak up. To be more strategic, less emotional, less nice. As if the friction you feel at work is something in you that needs fixing.

My guest this week spent years being told exactly that, until she realized the problem was never her. And more importantly, she figured out what to actually do about it.

Michelle McDaid spent more than twenty-five years leading engineering teams in tech, incl...

You keep saying you need more space. More time to breathe. More room to think. More moments where no one needs anything from you.

The real reason space feels so hard to create usually isn't about time at all.

In this solo episode, Jess breaks down the two types of space we need to truly live lighter: the external space around us and the internal space within us. She gets into why so many high-achieving women instinctively fill every ...

Content note: this episode includes discussion of birth trauma and a life-threatening medical experience. Come to it when you have the space to.

This episode is unlike any I have recorded. Because the bravest thing my guest does is not in the story she tells. It is the fact that she is telling it at all.

Ashley Graham spent years in PR helping other people share their stories. This is the first time she is telling her own. And she is...

You are not the problem. The system is.

For decades, women have been handed the same advice: lean in, speak up, be more confident, adapt. As if the discomfort we feel at work is a personal shortcoming to fix rather than a structural problem we were dropped into.

My guest this week spent thirty years inside male-dominated industries, from research science in remote Alaska all the way up to CEO of an international nonprofit, believing ...

Motherhood isn't about getting it right all the time.

In this conversation with perinatal and infant mental health therapist Jen Burke, we unpack why so many moms live under the weight of guilt and why that guilt is often keeping us from being present.

We talk about:

•  The difference between guilt that helps us grow and guilt that turns into shame 
•  Why repair matters more than perfection 
•  How social media f...

You work hard. You show up for everyone around you. You give your time, your energy, your care, and your expertise without hesitation.

But when someone offers you help...

When you receive a compliment...

When success finally arrives...

Why does it feel so uncomfortable?

In this episode of Live Lighter, Jessica explores one of the most overlooked patterns among high-achieving women: our difficulty receiving. From childhood conditioning t...

Women are leaving corporate in record numbers.

And they're not leaving to slow down. They're leaving to build something on their own terms.

I spent 18 years in corporate, the last 8 at Adobe, before I walked away from a tech salary to build something of my own. And I see this same story play out with the women I work with every single week.

Women are starting businesses at unprecedented rates, burnout among women leaders continues to ...

For most of my life, I was terrified of death.

As a child, I can remember lying on the floor of my bedroom, overwhelmed by the realization that one day my mom would die. The fear was so intense it felt debilitating.

Then, 30 years later, my greatest fear became reality.

When my mom passed away in 2022, I expected my fear of death to grow stronger.

Instead, something unexpected happened.

In this episode, I share the story of losing my mo...

Every expert was once a beginner.

But most of us forget that the moment we step into something new.

We live in a world that rewards expertise, achievement, and getting it right. So when we're no longer the expert, when we're learning, fumbling, and figuring things out as we go, it can feel deeply uncomfortable.

The self-doubt gets louder. The inner critic gets stronger. And suddenly the urge to quit starts to feel very convincing.

In t...

Anger isn't the problem. Suppressing it is.

For generations, women have been taught that anger is dangerous, inappropriate, or something to feel guilty about. The result isn't less anger. It's more resentment, self-doubt, anxiety, and disconnection from ourselves.

In this episode I unpack the surprising history behind women's relationship with anger, why so many of us learned to suppress it, and what that suppression is actually cost...

You've done the labs. You've heard "everything looks good."

And you still feel like crap.

This episode is for you.

Alex Mufson is the founder of Canary House, an integrative clinician who spent 14 years becoming the provider she needed after her own health unraveled while every doctor told her she was fine.

In this conversation, we get into why the women who look the most put-together are often the hardest to diagnose. Why your labs ca...

There is a part of many women that was never given permission to fully exist.

Not because it wasn’t real or because it wasn’t natural.

But because somewhere along the way through culture, religion, relationships, family dynamics, or the pressure to “be a good girl”, many of us learned that this part of ourselves was something to suppress, disconnect from, or feel ashamed of.

And that disconnection costs more th...

You've done the work. You've read the books. You've tried to change.

And yet something keeps getting in the way. The same patterns. The same reactions. The same moments where you end up wondering... why do I keep doing this?

Here's what nobody told you: it's not a character flaw. It's not a lack of discipline. It's a survival pattern your nervous system built when you were young, one that was brilliant when you needed it, and one tha...

Most of us are spending the majority of our lives entirely from the neck up.

Thinking, planning, analyzing, worrying, scrolling... all of it happening in the head while the body just carries us from place to place. We are moving so fast, working so hard to keep up with the pace of the world, that we are rushing right past the actual human experience. 

And somewhere in the process, we've lost touch with something really fundament...

This one is personal.

I grew up in an era where women were in a constant, quiet war with getting older. Nobody questioned it. Youth was beauty. Beauty was worth. And that was just the water we all swam in.

In my early forties I tried Botox for the first time. And then a handful of times after that. Each time convincing myself it was fine. Each time something in me feeling slightly off.

But it wasn't until I started asking the harder q...

You're doing everything right. But something still feels... heavy.

Not dramatic, just heavy. Like you're moving through life a little bit at arm's length... present enough to function, but not quite in it.

Here's what's actually going on: when we push down the hard feelings (the frustration, the grief, the anxiety) they don't disappear. They get stored in the body, and they quietly weigh us down from the inside.

And here's the part th...

I thought leaving my 18-year corporate career was going to be the hard part.

I was wrong.

What no one tells you about walking away from the title, the paycheck, and the life you built, is that you come face to face with yourself. And for the first time, there's nothing external left to hide behind.

In this first episode, I'm sharing what really happened when I went from $250K a year to zero overnight and what I had to unlearn about wh...

You can do everything right… and still feel completely drained by your own life.

In this trailer, Jessica Berg introduces Live Lighter, a podcast for women who are done carrying the pressure, the expectations, and the invisible weight of holding it all together.

This is about letting go of what was never yours to carry.
 Reclaiming your power.
 And finally creating a life that feels as good as it looks.

If ...