Oh, middle school. That dreaded time of adolescence when awkward is the side dish served with every entree. **RECORD SCRATCH** Hold up. What if we looked it again? Reconsidered the potential these precious years hold, rather than just grin (or grimace) and bear it? Yes, these years can be hard, but there’s so much more that’s worth exploring.

In this episode, I talk with my friend Michelle Icard, author of several books on middle school parenting, including her most recent, “14 Talks by Age 14.”

Listen, Michelle doesn’t call herself the “Middle School Maven,” but I think it’s a perfect fit. She’s SO in tune with this stage of development, the importance of letting kids “earn their own wisdom,” and why as parents we should be tuning in (strategically) right as our kids want to completely tune us out.

Please listen if you have middle schoolers. Listen if you will have middle schoolers or already had them. And send this to your friends who are navigating these sometimes rocky years so they know there are resources out there to help.

You can listen on my website, iTunes or Spotify!

Michelle’s unsolicited lift is her friend and author Rosie Molinary, who recently published the second edition of her book, “Beautiful You, A Daily Guide to Self-Acceptance.” Go check her out!

“So often our body image issues stop us from being present.”

What is your body image keeping you from? Swimming freely? Smiling at strangers? (Once these masks are off.) Wearing a tank top when it’s flipping hot out? Being present in the moment with your friends and family and not obsessing about the cellulite dimples on your thigh? I loved this conversation with Shanel. It was encouraging and convicting. I now weight what I did at my heaviest while pregnant. And it’s…weird? I’m just wrestling with it. I harbor negative thoughts about my own body, which ultimately spills onto how I think about and treat others.

Body positivity is perhaps a trendy term thrown around but it’s more than skin deep. It’s soul deep. How to embrace and celebrate the body you’re in SO you can be your healthiest self, not waiting until you’re a certain size or weight or whatever.

It’s something I’m working on. And I’m grateful to Shanel for sharing her wisdom. Shanel’s unsolicited lift is model Lexi Eleni Placourakis, who unknowingly served as a role model for Shanel in her body positivity journey. Her photos are fierce! Check her out: https://www.instagram.com/lexieleni/

And check Shanel out here! https://www.instagram.com/shanelwhitley/

Imagine. Imagine living in your car. In a Walgreen’s parking lot. Then getting washed up in a McDonald’s bathroom. For months on end. Imagine.

Now imagine this happening to you as a child. Imagine having to hide your homelessness from your teachers, for fear you’ll be taken away from your mother. Imagine.

Joseph Shepard doesn’t have to imagine it. He lived it.

But his story and his struggle has helped him reimagine what life might look like for him. What life might look like for others like him, if he used his voice and his testimony to help and heal.

This conversation with Joseph was enlightening and inspiring. He’s got some stuff to say. And everyone should listen.

To choose love in the face of hatred, fear, oppression, obstacles and hard times isn’t required of us. It isn’t. We have the free will to choose love. That’s what makes it love. And that’s what makes it the bravest damn thing.