The Truth You've Been Avoiding

If you're waiting for clarity, you're waiting forever. If you're "still processing," you're stalling. If you don't have capacity, you don't have commitment. This episode of Hot Mess Magic is not your emotional support audio—it's a mirror that doesn't give a shit how you feel about what it shows you.

This is raw personal transformation podcast content for people done pretending. No motivation. No softness. Just the scorched-earth truth about why you're still stuck and what it actually costs to change.

What This Episode Exposes

~0:00–2:00 | The...

Let's face it: rock bottom doesn't come with a roadmap, and nobody tells you what survival actually costs.

You already know this, even if you haven't wanted to admit it. Here's the thing—you've been trying to skip the hard part, distract yourself out of grief, or accomplish your way out of sadness, and it's keeping you stuck in the same goddamn spot with heavier emotions every time.

In this episode of Hot Mess Magic, Angela Gentile exposes what it actually took to get out of $20,000 in debt while homeless, grieving, and working seven jobs an...

Let’s face it: when a year doesn’t go as planned, it’s usually because something bigger is trying to break through.

In this episode of Hot Mess Magic, Michelle shares how 2025 brought everything to a full stop—getting flagged, losing monetization, killing two podcasts, firing a promoter, and grieving the death of an identity she wasn’t ready to let go of. What looked like chaos was actually clarity trying to surface.

This isn’t a story about pushing harder or fixing the mess. It’s about what happens when control becomes the problem, when...

Let's face it: entrepreneurship burnout doesn't look like exhaustion. It looks like success. Seven figures. Multiple locations. 20+ employees. Awards. Recognition. And a 2am breakdown on your knees, screaming into the dark because your soul can't take it anymore.

You already know what this feels like. The shoulds drowning out the wants. The external validation replacing your intuitive clarity. The perfect life that's actually a prison. Here's the thing: entrepreneurship burnout isn't about working too hard. It's about living the wrong life while performing the right one.

This episode exposes the pattern nobody talks about—when su...

Stop Waiting for Permission

Episode Summary:

Let's face it: you already know what you need to do. You listened to last week's episode about disappointing people. You nodded along. Maybe you even shared it. And then your mom called, your coworker asked, your partner assumed. And you said yes when you really wanted to say no.

You already know your body's been screaming NO for weeks. Here's the thing: you don't need better boundaries. You need to stop waiting for permission to use them. You're still asking "Am I allowed? Is it okay...

Let's face it: you spent Thanksgiving performing gratitude while your nervous system screamed. You said yes to obligations you didn't want. You smiled through invasive questions. You ate food that didn't feel good because refusing would "cause a scene." And now? December is coming. Four more weeks of this. The holiday dress rehearsal is over—time to decide if you're running the same people-pleasing pattern or finally choosing your nervous system over everyone else's comfort.

You already know what happens when you keep saying yes while your body screams no. Here's the thing: other people's disappointment is no...

Let's face it: you did the work. You healed, you regulated, you became magnetic. And then you had to turn down the very things you'd been calling in. Not because they weren't meant for you, but because your nervous system literally couldn't hold them.

You already know this feeling. The doors opening everywhere while your body screams "no more." Here's the thing: this isn't self-sabotage. It's not fear. It's biology. You can't download a new operating system when the old one is at max capacity.

This episode exposes the specific grief nobody talks about: manifesting...

Let's face it: I've been doing the exact thing I tell everyone else not to do performing instead of being real. I sat down to edit this week's episode and couldn't do it. Not because it wasn't good, but because I realized I've been giving everyone else permission to share their messy middles while keeping my own stories safely tucked away.

You already know what that looks like. Sharing other people's transformations. Interviewing amazing humans. Creating space for everyone's truth except your own. Here's the thing: I forgot why I started this podcast. I got caught up...

Let's face it: After 25 years of marriage, you don't just lose a spouse—you lose the entire identity you built around being someone's wife.

Gray divorce hits different. You're not divorcing in your 20s with your whole life ahead of you. You're sitting in midlife with decades of "supposed to" crumbling around you, asking: Who the hell am I now?

Nanette Murphy knows. Her world collapsed after 25 years. Divorce wasn't part of the plan. It felt like the ground disappeared beneath her. She sat in silence, in sadness, by herself for two years—thinking she was...

Let's face it: you can have the degree, the stability, the Chanel bag—and still be absolutely dying inside.

Julie Cyvonne looked perfect on paper. Lawyer. Stable career. All the external markers of success. Except she was falling apart. Anxious. Depressed. Completely disconnected from herself. This is the reality of identity crisis for women who've checked every box society handed them and it's not actually a crisis. It's a wake-up call.

You already know how this story goes. You've lived some version of it yourself.

Here's the thing: Julie's breakdown in law school wa...

Let's face it: You're lying in bed at 2am doing the math on your age, your bank account, and where you thought you'd be by now—and the shame is crushing you.

You already know this timeline you're measuring yourself against is bullshit. Here's the thing: Time is irrelevant, but your nervous system capacity isn't. What your body could hold in your 20s is completely different from what it can hold now—and that's not failure. That's evolution.

This episode exposes the toxic pattern of measuring your worth against arbitrary timelines while your...

Let's face it: You can do everything "right" in a divorce and still feel like you're being punished.

Courtni Clay woke up with bottles on her nightstand, eyes so swollen she could barely see, after her divorce lawyer told her exactly how much it was going to cost her to lose everything. She wasn't the one who did anything wrong. She filed to protect her kids. Yet she's the one paying—literally and emotionally—while her ex walks away. Sound familiar?

Here's the thing: Courtni spent years being the "comeback queen," bouncing back from setbacks, pivo...

The most dangerous friendships aren't the ones that blow up, they're the ones that quietly convince you your growth is an inconvenience. That wanting reciprocity on your birthday makes you entitled. That their abandonment is somehow your fault. They'll split the check, call you a user while you're taking care of their dogs for days, and gaslight you into believing you're the problem. This is how people keep you small while wearing the mask of friendship.

Michelle dissects last year's birthday in the Canadian Rockies; the moment a "best friend" revealed herself as someone who needed Michelle...

Let's face it: You don't get to decide when rock bottom finds you. Angela Gentile had $500 to her name, was bouncing from couch to couch with her dog Noelle, swimming in $20,000 of debt, and had just lost her father. The perfect storm of grief, financial devastation, and complete instability.

Here's the thing: She didn't Instagram-story her way out. She worked seven jobs simultaneously. She lived on bare-bones everything—holey underwear, calculated grocery trips down to the ounce, saying yes to every $20/hour gig. No hair done, no nails done, no social life. Just ruthless commitment to getting ou...

Let's face it: You've been hustling since you were a kid, proving your worth with every achievement, every perfect performance, every time you carried it all without asking for help. Yet here you are—successful on paper, falling apart in your body.

Jes Robins gets it. She was hit by a car going 74 miles an hour, went through 16 surgeries, and tried to heal like a hustler. She rebuilt the same toxic cycle, climbed to the top again, and found herself at 350 pounds, in chronic pain, hating everything she'd built. The breakdown moment? Sitting on her basement floor re...

Let's face it: You've done the diets. All of them. And you've gained weight with every single one because the entire weight loss industry is built on a lie from the 1930s—a theory that was never tested, never proven, and has kept women trapped in starvation cycles for decades.

Dr. Roya Shamsay gets it. She gained 45 pounds after giving birth, spent 10+ years on diet after diet, and ended up 120 pounds overweight with pre-diabetes symptoms. Standing in her kitchen at 247 pounds, terrified her daughter would grow up without a mother, she asked God for help. The answer? "I...

I built an entire brand around being a hot mess—and then I had to kill her.

This episode of Hot Mess Magic isn’t about inspiration. It’s about exposure. Michelle Burke gets brutally honest about identity death, self-sabotage, and fear of success—and why sometimes you have to bury the version of yourself you created just to survive.

From car repossession to sexual assault to nights of not knowing where she’d sleep, Michelle reveals how her survival identity became a cage. She burned down her first podcast (Wine, Whiskey & Life) after 10 episodes, sabotaged...

Let's face it: Survival mode feels like a badge of honor until you realize you've been wearing it for years—and it's become your prison. Robyn Tanner knows this intimately. Rare infection that nearly killed her. Thirteen surgeries. Learning to walk multiple times. Living homeless in her gym with her kids, hiding it from clients, cleaning up yoga mats and blow-up mattresses before 5:15 AM classes.

Here's the thing: Robyn didn't just survive. She's reinvented herself multiple times—corporate career to gym owner to high-performance coach to full-time writer. And at 48, she burned it all down again to chas...

Let's face it: You're still clinging to the old story. The old version of yourself. The expectations of who you should be. The fear that if you let go, you'll lose everything. But here's the thing—freedom lives on the other side of release, and you're the only one holding yourself back.

Michelle just got back from the Powerhouse Women event, and she's breaking down what happens when you stop performing, stop apologizing, and start choosing yourself. This isn't about fixing yourself. It's about releasing the grip on everything that no longer serves you—the people, the stor...

Let's face it: You knew something was wrong. The red flags were there—the love-bombing that felt intoxicating, the control disguised as care, the way you started questioning your own reality. Yet you stayed. Not because you were weak. Because narcissistic abuse rewires your nervous system to believe leaving is more dangerous than staying.

Kim Driscoll gets it. She married a narcissist, escaped with her kids and crippling debt, and spent years running on trauma response autopilot—perfectionism, chronic busyness, proving her worth through exhaustion. The breakthrough? Four words: "Busy is a trauma response." That's when she real...

Let's face it: You're drowning in shoulds. I should have done this over the summer. I should be more prepared for back to school. I should have my shit together by now. Every single "should" is a tiny weight you're carrying—and you're suffocating under the pressure you're putting on yourself.

Life threw Michelle a curveball today, and instead of fighting it, she rolled with it. What was supposed to be a different episode became something more powerful: a raw reminder to stop obsessing over "the how." That death grip you have on controlling every detail of ho...

Ever hit every milestone and still feel empty?

When Angela Jamison’s father died suddenly, it forced her to confront a painful truth: the success she built as an engineer, C-suite executive, and productivity powerhouse—wasn’t really hers. It was armor. And it was silently crushing her.

In this raw, funny, and radically human conversation, Angela shares how grief unraveled her identity and sparked the deep inner shift she never knew she needed. We talk burnout, the lie of external validation, career pivots, and how the body always knows the truth yes, even through the di...

What happens when the pain of loss becomes the portal to your power?

In this raw and deeply human conversation, Michelle sits down with transformational guide and disruptor Nichole Lee to talk about the grief that cracked them open and the messy, magical journey back to themselves.

From the devastating loss of Nichole’s mother to Michelle’s back-to-back heartbreaks after losing her dad and grandma, they unpack how grief, burnout, and rage forced them to stop performing and start listening. This is not a how-to-grieve episode. It’s a permission slip to rage, sob, scream...

Your body always knows. But in a world that trains you to override your gut with logic, how do you come back to the inner wisdom that lives below the surface?
In this unscripted episode of Hot Mess Magic, Michelle shares a raw, real-time story of what happened when her body gave a hard “no” to her carefully written script and how that moment became a masterclass in somatic self-trust.
You'll learn how to stop overthinking, get out of your head, and start trusting your intuition with simple, powerful tools that bring you back into your body.

What...

Duration: 00:08:37

What if the most productive thing you could do today was absolutely nothing? Two and a half weeks into her radical experiment, Michelle shares the uncomfortable truth about doing one hour of nothing daily and why it's changing everything.

This solo episode dives deep into the messy reality of disconnecting from our hyper-productive culture. Michelle reveals how her "spiritual resistance training" is creating unexpected clarity and why even her family is noticing the transformation. If you're a Gen X woman exhausted by the endless hustle, this authentic exploration of doing nothing will challenge everything you think you...

Feeling stuck after making a bold, aligned move? That uncomfortable in-between space isn’t failure—it’s the transformation doing its thing. Welcome to the void. This is where the old you has been stripped away, and the new you hasn’t fully arrived yet.

 Episode Summary

If you're a woman over 40 navigating major life changes—career pivots, identity shifts, spiritual awakenings—this one’s for you. Michelle Burke drops into the messy middle of growth and shares how to trust your gut even when clarity feels miles away.

This raw, unscripted episode dismantles the...

What happens when you break a promise to yourself and discover it was the most aligned thing you could do? Michelle gets raw about ditching her 30-day challenge and why your intuition might be smarter than your strategy.

Episode Summary

In this unfiltered solo episode, Michelle explores the gap between intention and alignment after missing a day in her 30-episode challenge. Drawing wisdom from Richard Branson's success secret and her own body-based knowledge, she dismantles the myth that consistency without integrity equals success. This is essential listening for Gen X women ready to stop performing...

Discover how to reconnect with your authentic self through forgotten passions and intuitive guidance. Learn to trust your soul's breadcrumbs in this personal development podcast episode about self discovery and spiritual awakening.

Episode Summary

Michelle shares her transformative week of rediscovering your authentic self - from watching her brother play hockey to exploring new towns and standing in an old theater. This personal development podcast episode reveals how authentic being naturally expresses itself through activities that light you up, helping you move from survival mode into your true essence. It's the perfect follow-up to Episode 5...

Stop Being a Human Doing and Start Being a Human Being

Tired of chasing your tail with endless backup plans that never pan out? Michelle delivers a truth bomb about why you're stuck in survival mode and how Generation X got addicted to trauma without even realizing it.

This episode cuts through the noise about stepping out of your comfort zone and gets real about stepping back into your power. Michelle breaks down why we sabotage ourselves the moment things start feeling good and how to break the cycle.

Key Takeaways

• Pl...

Think you failed at self-care because you didn't follow the "rules" perfectly? Michelle reveals why honoring your natural rhythm is actually more revolutionary than forcing yourself into someone else's box.

Episode Summary

Michelle shares her honest experience with attempting an "hour of being" and why breaking it into four 15-minute intervals throughout her busy day was actually genius, not failure. She dives deep into why our nervous system fights stillness harder than chaos, the chemical addiction to cortisol and dopamine that keeps us perpetually busy, and how flexibility in our self-care practices is freedom, not...

When was the last time you looked in the mirror and actually recognized yourself?

If you're staring at a stranger especially if you're navigating perimenopause or major life transitions, this episode is your wake-up call. Michelle gets raw about losing sight of herself and shares the exact framework that's helping her (and can help you) resurrect the woman you really are.

In This Episode: Michelle opens up about her own identity crisis, introduces the powerful ABCs of Becoming Her framework, and issues a 30-day invitation that could change everything.

You'll Learn:

What happens when your own mother asks you why you love everyone else more than yourself? For today's guest, this jail cell confrontation became the turning point that saved her life.

Episode Summary: Leticia Francis, "The Survival Mode Disruptor," reveals her journey from decades of toxic relationships to becoming a transformation coach. This raw conversation explores how to break free from survival mode, stop giving your power away, and rebuild your identity from the ground up.

Key Takeaways:

 Ready to stop pretending you have it all together? This isn't another "fix yourself" podcast - it's your reckoning.

Episode Summary: Meet Michelle Burke and discover what Hot Mess Magic really means. This isn't about embracing chaos for the sake of it - it's about mining your mess for the gold that's been hiding there all along. A radical transformation awaits the woman brave enough to stop holding it all together.

What You'll Get:

Ever found yourself crying on cold bathroom tiles, wondering how it got this bad?

Welcome to Hot Mess Magic! Where we stop pretending that rock bottom is failure and start seeing it as your fucking trampoline. Michelle Burke kicks off this raw, unfiltered journey by sharing why that moment when everything falls apart isn't your ending, it's your beginning.

In This Episode: Michelle gets brutally honest about losing everything, burning down her first podcast, and discovering that the mess isn't something to hide from, it's your greatest teacher and your launching pad to who you're...