If you've been feeling helpless, overwhelmed, or just exhausted by the state of the world, you’ll be happy to know that Nancy Mays and Martha Lawrence have figured out something really important: action is the antidote to despair.

Nancy and Martha are the co-founders of Boots on the Ground Midwest, a Kansas City-based grassroots organization that connects people with meaningful ways to get involved, from neighborhood community hubs to voter registration drives to one-on-one meetings with city council members. They launched the organization after the 2024 election when they realized they weren't alone in feeling desperate for something to do.

In today’s episode, Lili talks with Nancy and Martha about how taking action (ANY action) is more effective than scrolling for your mental health, why community involvement is one of the most powerful tools for combating hopelessness, how to find your place in advocacy even if protests aren't for you, and why rest and joy aren't things to feel guilty about, but essential acts of resistance. They also introduce the concept of "broccoli time," a guilt-free permission slip to take a break, which might be the most practical mental health tool in the episode.

Resources Mentioned

5 Calls App

Contact Boots on the Ground Midwest:

Website: https://bootsonthegroundmidwest.org/

Instagram: @bootsonthegroundmidwest

Contact Lili:

Email - inbetweensessionspod@gmail.com Instagram: @inbetweensessionspodcast TikTok: @lilitorrecounseling www.lilitorrecounseling.com - reach out to schedule a free 15-minute consult for therapy!

The conversations on this podcast are meant to support, inspire, and inform, but they’re not a substitute for therapy or medical care. Listening to this show doesn’t create a therapeutic relationship. If something you hear resonates and you’d like more support, consider connecting with a licensed mental health professional in your area.

You can search for a therapist at psychologytoday.com.

Body image work is hard in any cultural moment. But right now? It's a lot. GLP-1 medications are being marketed as a fix for larger bodies. Thin-ideal messaging is back with a vengeance. And the body positivity movement has gotten quieter just when we might need it most.

In this episode, Lili sits down with Kate Aragon, a registered dietitian based in St. Louis, for an honest, grounded conversation about what it actually takes to build a better relationship with your body, and why that work is about so much more than food.

They cover the body image spectrum and why neutrality is a more realistic goal than love, where the inner critic really comes from and what it's trying to protect you from, why weight loss so rarely delivers the happiness or confidence we expect, and how to start shifting the internal dialogue between your mind and your body from adversarial to collaborative. Kate also shares her work developing body image programming for teenagers, and why she sees this generation as one of our best hopes for real change.

Resources Mentioned

Maintenance Phase podcast (episodes on BMI, anti-fat bias, and weight science)

Contact Kate:

Tasty Balance Website - https://thetastybalance.com/about-tasty-balance-dietitians/#kate

Instagram: @tastybalancedietitian

Contact Lili:

Email - inbetweensessionspod@gmail.com Instagram: @inbetweensessionspodcast TikTok: @lilitorrecounseling www.lilitorrecounseling.com - reach out to schedule a free 15-minute consult for therapy!

The conversations on this podcast are meant to support, inspire, and inform, but they’re not a substitute for therapy or medical care. Listening to this show doesn’t create a therapeutic relationship. If something you hear resonates and you’d like more support, consider connecting with a licensed mental health professional in your area.

You can search for a therapist at psychologytoday.com.

You made it to therapy. You're showing up every week. You're having the hard conversations. But are you actually getting everything you could out of it?

In this episode, Lili sits down with Erin Valente, Los Angeles-based Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and trauma specialist, for a conversation about how to use the therapeutic relationship as a training ground for real life. Because the skills you practice in that room (setting limits, navigating discomfort, repairing after conflict, trusting your gut) are the same ones you need everywhere else!

They cover how to know if your therapist is the right fit (and the crucial difference between uncomfortable and wrong), why insight alone doesn't create change and what to do instead, how to distinguish between anxiety and intuition, what rupture and repair in therapy actually looks like, and how to end therapy in a way that's a healing experience in itself. Erin also shares a practical tool for sitting with difficult emotions in your body without getting swept away by the story your brain creates around them.

Erin’s info:

Website - https://www.erinvalentetherapy.com/ Instagram: @erinmvalente

Contact Lili:

Email - inbetweensessionspod@gmail.com Instagram: @inbetweensessionspodcast TikTok: @lilitorrecounseling www.lilitorrecounseling.com - reach out to schedule a free 15-minute consult for therapy!

The conversations on this podcast are meant to support, inspire, and inform, but they’re not a substitute for therapy or medical care. Listening to this show doesn’t create a therapeutic relationship. If something you hear resonates and you’d like more support, consider connecting with a licensed mental health professional in your area.

You can search for a therapist at psychologytoday.com.