"I woke up one day and I started to feel. And what I felt, it wasn't pretty. I was like, I'm not happy. And that was the very first time I put myself first." — Mercedes Hernandez

Mercedes Hernandez built The SoCo Markets from scratch — 11 vendors on a closed-off side street, a vision, and no guarantee it would work. Six years later, it's one of Sonoma County's most beloved community events, drawing vendors from across the Bay Area and bringing thousands of people together every year. But this episode isn't really a business story. It's a story about what happens when you finally stop building for everyone else and start building for yourself.

In this episode of Her Story Unscripted, Mercedes shares her full journey — from a 15-year-old retail worker discovering a passion, to opening her first brick-and-mortar at 20, to creating experiences like Fork'n Good Food Festival and Roast & Rhythm. Then she gets real about the personal chapter she's been walking through: ending a 15-year relationship, living completely alone for the first time in her life, sitting with the loneliness instead of running from it, and slowly coming back to herself through counseling and a whole lot of self-honesty. This is an authentic storytelling conversation about identity, codependency, personal growth for women, and what freedom actually feels like when you finally choose it.

If you've ever lost yourself in a role — a relationship, a business, a version of who you thought you were supposed to be — this conversation will meet you right where you are. New episodes every Thursday on all major podcast platforms.

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Highlights

0:00 Opening quote — Mercedes on identity

0:39 Heather's intro + welcome to Her Story Unscripted

1:05 Welcome, Mercedes — how Heather found her

3:31 How Mercedes started in retail and discovered her passion

4:21 Opening Bow & Arrow Clothing at 20, the JC entrepreneurship program

6:07 SoCo Markets is born — from 11 vendors to 90

8:53 Growing the market calendar: Fork'n Good, Roast & Rhythm, Closet Clean Outs

10:50 What it really takes to run a successful community market

18:30 The personal pivot — ending her marriage and stepping into the unknown

21:40 Codependency, people-pleasing, and going numb

27:48 Living alone for the first time — and what she found there

32:39 Identity, worth, and what she'd leave listeners with

About Mercedes Hernandez

Mercedes Hernandez is a serial entrepreneur and community builder based in Sonoma County, California. She opened her first retail store, Bow & Arrow Clothing, at 20 years old, and went on to build SoCo Markets — a thriving platform for small businesses and local vendors that now hosts events across the Bay Area. From the Fork'n Good Food Festival to Roast & Rhythm to monthly Closet Clean Out pop-ups, Mercedes has become one of the most creative event minds in Northern California. She's passionate about giving small businesses a platform, and about building the kinds of experiences that bring communities together in real, meaningful ways.

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"We only get one life, and we don't know when that invisible clock is gonna run out. So you have to make time for people and for things that are important to you." — Christina Alonzo

It started as a normal weekend. By Tuesday, Christina Alonzo was sitting in an ER telling the doctor everything she had been quietly noticing for days. By Wednesday, the diagnosis was in: glioblastoma — an aggressive, inoperable brain cancer. Her husband Kurtis was 44 years old and had never even had a cold. From the date of diagnosis to the date of his death was four months.

In this episode of Her Story Unscripted, Christina Alonzo returns to the podcast three years after her first appearance to share the story of the year that changed everything. She opens up about becoming Kurtis's full-time caregiver while raising a toddler, navigating impossible medical decisions, and the termination email from his employer that arrived the very night he died. She also shares the story of her 200-pound weight loss journey — and how losing the weight became something far more significant than she ever expected when Kurtis got sick. This is an honest conversation about grief, love, and what it actually looks like to keep living when someone you love is gone.

For any woman who has ever taken time for granted, avoided a hard conversation, or wondered how anyone survives something this big — this episode is an unscripted reminder that life is shorter and more sacred than we let ourselves believe. New episodes every Thursday on all major podcast platforms.

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Highlights:

00:00 Cold open — Christina on the invisible clock

00:49 Heather introduces Her Story Unscripted

01:15 Welcoming Christina back — three years and a lot of life later

02:21 The normal weekend that wasn't — Curtis gets sick

5:28 The ER visit and the diagnosis — glioblastoma

7:15 Choosing chemo and radiation — a hail mary for a 44-year-old in perfect health

12:18 How quickly he declined, and what caregiving looked like at home

14:18 Curtis's death in March 2025 — four months after diagnosis

18:55 What helped Christina survive this season

22:13 The termination email the night he died

27:22 200 pounds lost — and how the GLP-1 journey intersected with Curtis's care

25:10 How to actually show up for someone in grief

36:10 Life now — Addie, memory-keeping, and saying yes

38:03 Christina's one takeaway for the listener

About Christina Alonzo

Christina Alonzo is a mother, content creator, and Sonoma County local who has walked through more grief in the last few years than most people face in a lifetime. From losing babies to navigating a sudden and devastating brain cancer diagnosis in her husband Curtis, she has shown up with remarkable honesty and grace at every turn. In the past year and a half, she has also completed a transformative 200-pound weight loss journey that changed not just her body, but the way she moves through the world. She is raising her daughter Addie with Curtis's love still at the center of their home

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"We all have a story to tell. We all have journeys, we've all been through things — and some of us are worse than others. But we all have a story to tell." — Heather Nelson

There's something that happens when a woman decides to stop performing and just say it the way it actually is. No script. No polish. No waiting for permission. For Heather Nelson, that decision didn't arrive all at once — it built slowly over five years of sitting across from women who had the courage to share the messy, real, unfiltered truth of their lives.

In this very first episode of Her Story Unscripted, Heather pulls back the curtain on the rebrand — and everything that led to this moment. She shares the honest, unscripted story of why she podcasted for five years under a name she never fully loved, what finally pushed her to start fresh, and the mission that has been quietly driving her since the very beginning — creating a space where women can show up as they are and say what they actually mean.

If you've ever felt like you were performing a version of yourself instead of living as the real one — this is the conversation you didn't know you needed. Heather isn't here to give advice or hand you a roadmap. She's here to sit with you, ask the questions nobody else thinks to ask, and remind you that your story matters exactly as it is.

In this episode, you will learn:

• The lunch conversation five years ago that made me realize women needed a space to tell their real stories
• Why I never fully loved the name Life Conversations with a Twist — and what finally made me let it go
• The months-long rebrand process that pushed me to get clear on my mission, my values, and who I'm really doing this for
• How the name Her Story Unscripted came together — and the quiet, powerful reason the word "unscripted" felt so right
• Where I'm headed with this podcast, what you can expect going forward, and why I believe women sharing their true stories is one of the most powerful things we can do

Episode Highlights

• 0:00 – The moment that started it all — women and their unscripted stories
• 0:28 – Welcome to Her Story Unscripted — the new brand intro
• 0:55 – Heather kicks off the launch episode
• 1:19 – Introducing the rebrand from Life Conversations with a Twist
• 1:56 – Five years in hospitality and the conversations that wouldn't leave her
• 3:55 – Why women's stories needed a space — the heart behind the podcast
• 5:06 – How Life Conversations with a Twist was born
• 5:36 – 200+ episodes, 160 women, and what kept Heather going
• 7:14 – The Connection Hive, Set & Strike, and finding what truly fuels her soul
• 10:02 – The decision to rip the band-aid and start fresh
• 11:21 – Naming a podcast — why it had to be perfect
• 12:03 – The moment Her Story Unscripted clicked
• 13:09 – Why "unscripted" matters — women, silence, and permission to be real
• 15:01 – What's coming — new look, new energy, big goals
• 17:17 – Thank you, and what you can do to help this podcast grow
• 19:20 – Solo episodes, Heather's personal story, and what's ahead
• 22:09 – Final thoughts — see you next Thursday

Meet Your Host:

Heather Nelson is the host of Her Story Unscripted and founder of The Connection Hive, a business strategy and community brand rooted in the belief that real connection changes everything. A connector by nature and a storyteller at heart, Heather has spent over 25 years in the hospitality industry — and more than five years creating a space for women to share honest, unscripted conversations about life, growth, and the experiences that have shaped who they are. She lives in Sonoma County, California, where she's raising a blended, biracial family, running two businesses, and podcasting with her whole heart.

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“I really think sitting down and understanding where you want to go, and the things that make you happy and bring you joy, those are the things that you need to put more energy into. The things that are not benefiting you, you have the power to control that, to take that narrative and change it.” —Heather Nelson

We reach a point where pushing harder stops working. The weight builds quietly through responsibility, ambition, and expectations until clarity becomes the only way forward. This conversation sits in that moment of reckoning and choice.

In this episode, Heather reflects on a year that forced slower decisions, harder boundaries, and more honesty about what fuels our work and our lives. From podcasting and business shifts to mental health and surrogacy, the year reshaped how focus and care show up.

Press play for a real-time reflection and step into what comes next, including:

• End-of-year reflection and clarity in 2025
• Rebranding the podcast and future vision
• Letting go of hustle culture
• Choosing focus over doing everything
• Mental health, anxiety, and burnout
• Navigating leadership while carrying family responsibility
• Surrogacy journey updates and setbacks
• Redefining success heading into 2026

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Episode Highlights:

06:32 Announcement! Podcast Rebranding– Why Now and What’s Next

10:55 Vision for the Future – Podcasting, Aspirations, & New Goals

14:08 Personal Growth, Self-Care & Mental Health Insights from 2025

17:40 Surrogacy Journey: Triumphs, Challenges, and Honest Updates

27:05 Professional Projects: Connection Hive, Coaching, and Set & Strike Goals

31:30 Building Community: Retreats, Masterminds, and Empowerment Events

33:52 Manifesting Success: Vision Boards, Intentional Living & 2026 Goals

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“Our scalp, hair, all these are meant to protect our most vital organ, which is our brain. The reason you get itchy, you can feel when you get oily, is because it's that sensitive to protect it. So we need to learn not to ignore those signs.” —Anne Marie

We know that “successful” careers can quietly drain our bodies and energy. Many of us push through pain, burnout, and misalignment because it looks stable from the outside, while our health and purpose pay the price. This conversation sits at the intersection of career change, service, and the often-ignored world of scalp health and hair loss.

Our guest, Anne Marie, is a stylist, head spa specialist, and head of community events at Dolce Vita Salon. Her path runs from nonprofit work and case management through chronic back pain, grief, and a move to Hawaii, to finally owning her gift with hair and healing-centered scalp care.

Hit play to explore how aligned work and intentional beauty rituals can support real healing, not just surface-level change.

• How Annie went from nonprofit case manager to head spa specialist
• The role of service, grief, and chronic pain in reshaping her purpose
• What a Japanese head spa actually is and how it supports scalp health
• How hormones, stress, and DHT drive hair loss in women
• Why scalp microbiome health matters more than trendy products
• How Dolce Vita Salon approaches education, community, and giving back

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Episode Highlights:
01:17 Meet Anne Marie
04:30 Chronic Back Pain, COVID, Burnout & Losing Her Dad – Hitting Rock Bottom
08:07 What’s Your One Gift?
10:05 Finding Purpose Young vs. Midlife:
15:49 Conditioner Mistakes, Scalp Microbiome & Why You Need a Scalp Serum
20:14 Postpartum Hair Loss, Hormones, Stress & How Scalp Treatments Help
26:58 Creating a Sacred, Grounded Space for Scalp Healing & Nervous System Calm
28:56 Intensive Training: Associate Program, Ongoing Education & Mastering Hair
32:01 Why Scalp Care Matters More Than You Think (Ages Faster Than Your Face)

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Connect with Anne:
Anne Marie is a scalp and hair health specialist at Dolce Vita Salon in Santa Rosa, California, where she combines advanced Japanese-inspired head spa techniques with a deeply client-centered approach. With a degree in psychology and a background in nonprofit work and direct service, she brings a unique blend of technical expertise and emotional intelligence to her practice.

After discovering her innate talent and passion for hair at a young age, she pursued advanced training at Dolce Vita. She now specializes in scalp spa treatments that reset the scalp’s microbiome, support healthy hair growth, and provide a restorative, meditative experience for her clients.

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“That's the thing that's maybe getting lost in some of the fear mongering around it is that, it's not the easy way out. It doesn't mean that you don't have to do the work. It means that when you do the work, the work actually makes the difference.” —Aja Beckett

Food noise can sit in the back of the mind all day, from planning the next meal at breakfast to carrying quiet shame after every snack. In a culture that moralizes weight and labels bodies as failures, real medical treatment for obesity often gets buried under hot takes about shortcuts and cheating. This conversation brings the lived reality of GLP-1 medication into the light, with honesty about both relief and responsibility.

Aja Beckett shares decades of struggling with obesity, endless diets, and that constant mental hum around food, then walks through how starting a GLP-1 weight loss drug shifted cravings, energy, and hope. Her experience led to building Shotsy, a companion app that tracks doses, side effects, and progress for people on GLP-1 medications.

Press play to hear how this new class of medications is reshaping daily life, mindset, and digital tools around obesity care, including:

• What GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy actually do in the body
• The difference between “food noise” and genuine hunger
• Why weight loss drugs are not a lazy shortcut or moral failure
• How mental health, cravings, and compulsive behaviors often change on GLP-1s
• The cost, access, and safety concerns around weight loss injections and pills
• How a GLP-1 tracking app grew from one person’s spreadsheet into a fast-growing product
• What long-term obesity treatment and maintenance can realistically look like

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Episode Highlights:
01:11 Meet Aja Beckett: Founder of Shotsy & GLP‑1 Success Story
04:43 Discovering Ozempic & a Difficult Doctor’s Visit
07:35 Beyond Weight Loss: GLP‑1, Mental Health & Addictive Behaviors
10:43 Losing 90 Pounds: From Obesity to Healthy BMI
13:30 Do You Still Have to Eat Healthy & Work Out on GLP‑1?
16:21 When the Food Noise Stops: First Days on GLP‑1
19:37 Super Bowl Snacks, Portion Control & Balanced Indulgence
22:12 Body Dysmorphia in Bigger & Smaller Bodies
26:00 Safety vs Affordability: Regulation, Shortages & DIY Risks
32:09 Introducing Shotsy: The GLP‑1 Companion App Idea
39:50 Why Tools Like Shotsy Matter for Accountability & Tracking
42:21 GLP‑1 Isn’t the “Easy Way Out”: Doing the Work & Seeing Results

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Connect with Aja:

Aja is an iOS engineer and GLP-1 user turned founder, combining personal experience with top-tier tech expertise. She has worked with major organizations like Apple, CNN, TED, and The Athletic / The New York Times. She previously built Civil, a platform recognized by WIRED, The Guardian, and TechCrunch. Today, she leads Shotsy, using community-driven design and data insights to help people manage their GLP-1 treatment journey.

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"It gives people from grief to relief. It gives them a little bit of a lightened load when it comes to their emotional state, and they can not move on, but utilize it better." —Jenessa Wyatt

This episode explores how grief, fear, and uncertainty can be faced without losing grounding in real life. Psychic medium Jenessa Wyatt shares how her work blends evidence, intuition, and spiritual connection to help people find healing, protection, and clarity. Through stories of health warnings, house clearings, and personal lessons, she offers a practical, no-fluff perspective on how spirituality and everyday life can coexist.

Tune into this episode and explore how grief, intuition, and spiritual protection can sit side by side with everyday life, not outside it.

• How Jenessa describes being a psychic medium and why comedy is part of her work
• Turning “grief to relief” through evidence-based mediumship
• Specific stories of medical warnings, early cancer flags, and ICU “downloads”
• Daily spiritual protection rituals with white light and candles
• A dark entity attachment, poltergeist-like activity, and what finally cleared it
• How she protects survivors of abuse during readings
• Working with spirits in homes, from gentle presences to unsafe entities
• Sage, rituals, and practical house cleansing steps
• Children as sensitives, signs to watch, and when spirit contact becomes a concern
• Political energy, staged-looking events, and how fear is used to control
• Corporations, pharma, food systems, and the economics of fear
• Managing intuitive downloads without losing mental and emotional stability
• Jenessa’s vision for a reality show that normalizes spirituality without scripts
• A live mini reading for Heather: her friend’s sudden passing, family health, and career shift

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Episode Highlights:
01:31 Meet Jenessa: From Grief to Relief
09:00 Carrying Heavy Topics: Death, Cancer, & Emotional Boundaries
13:02 How Forgetting a Candle Opened the Door to a Dark Attachment
17:00 Protecting Trauma Survivors
30:48 When to Take It Seriously
37:09 Who Really Runs Things
47:06 Validating Energy and Personality Traits
53:33 For the Family

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Connect with Jenessa:
Jenessa Wyatt is a Santa Rosa–based psychic medium who helps people move from grief to healing through evidence-based, compassionate readings. She offers private and small-group sessions (in person and on Zoom), engaging stage shows that blend mediumship with humor, and monthly online classes that teach others to develop their intuitive abilities—all with a strong emphasis on validation, protection, and emotional safety.

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“As a person who did not have anything to do but to keep moving forward, I did.” —Jenica Leonard

Some lives do not fall apart all at once. They crack slowly under cancer scares, caregiving, impossible workloads, quiet drinking, and the pressure to hold everything together. This conversation sits in that place where careers, bodies, and identities stop cooperating, and starting over is no longer optional.

We meet Jenica Leonard, a second‑generation attorney, breast cancer survivor, and sober mom who went from “for the people” prosecutor to criminal defense, from mommy wine culture to DUI, from breakdown to a different kind of service. Her story shows how tables turn when health, addiction, and the justice system collide, and how recovery can reshape the way our work and values line up.

Press play to explore how our hardest chapters can become a blueprint for starting again, on our own terms, with our whole lives in the room.

• Growing up with a pioneering female lawyer and choosing public service
• What it really means to be a prosecutor versus a criminal defense attorney
• Multi‑generational cancer, BRCA, and a breast cancer diagnosis at 37
• Double mastectomy, complications, and life in long‑term treatment
• The quiet slide from “normal drinking” into addiction and DUI
• Getting sober in the same community served as a prosecutor
• Mental health collapse, PTSD, and leaving a stable government job
• Midlife, menopause, and building a new legal practice around real values
• Finding support in recovery, women’s circles, and local service
• Boundaries, protecting our energy, and not abandoning ourselves again

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Episode Highlights:
01:42 Meet Jenica— A Life-Changing Career Transition
09:41 Jenica's Family Influence and Career Choices
15:13 Encounters with Former Defendants and The Power of Respect
18:53 A Family of Cancer Survivors
24:28 Surgical Complications, Expanders, and Multiple Surgeries
30:25 Tubbs Fire, Evacuation, and Running the PTA While on Chemo
36:21 Surgical Menopause, Meds, and Long-Term Side Effects
41:44 Pain, Mastectomy, Recovery, & Online Support
48:11 The DUI Arrest that Changed Everything
53:39 Getting Sober in the Same Community You Prosecuted
01:02:22 Grace, Self-Compassion, and Doing Your Best in a Hard World

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Connect with Jenica:

Jenica Leonard is a Sonoma County–based criminal defense attorney with over 15 years of experience, including a career as a former prosecutor in the Sonoma County District Attorney’s Office. A second-generation attorney, she now advocates for individuals in the criminal justice system, focusing on protecting constitutional rights.

She is deeply engaged in community service and women’s empowerment, serving on the Board of Women’s Recovery Services. A breast cancer survivor and woman in long-term sobriety, Jenica brings lived experience into her work, using it to uplift other women and contribute meaningfully to her community.

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