In this episode of Unfolded, I trace the road of a body I was never given a map for. From getting my period in third grade, to learning what it meant to be seen and desired, to intimacy, shame, choice, and the unexpected terrain of perimenopause, I look back at the moments that decided what my body meant before I could.

There is humor here, because there has to be. Menstrual belts. Wide World of Sports. Planned Parenthood parking lots. Dry wells. Ladybirds. And eventually a 1965 Corvette Stingray with me behind the wheel wearing a babushka.

But underneath all of it is a question I am still sitting with.

What might have changed if somebody had helped me know my own body before the world started telling me what it meant?

This is No Map for This Body.

Life Thread: Wisdom Integration.

A gentle note: Unfolded is a space for honest conversation, storytelling, and reflection. It is not therapy, crisis counseling, or a substitute for professional mental health support. What you hear here is Lisa processing out loud and sharing her lens on the world. Your story may overlap with hers. That overlap is the point. If you are in crisis, please reach out to the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988.

Unfolded with Lisa Armstrong is a podcast about being deeply seen in every season of becoming. New episodes drop when a girl gets the urge. Follow on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and leave a review if this episode stayed with you. Find Lisa at https://life-threads-stories.kit.com

Unfolded with Lisa Armstrong is a podcast about being deeply seen in every season of becoming. New episodes drop when a girl gets the urge. Follow on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and leave a review if this episode stayed with you. Find Lisa at https://life-threads-stories.kit.com.

It started with a package of cotton drawers in the Health and Beauty aisle at ShopRite.

Not exactly where you expect a revelation to happen. But here we are.

In this episode, Lisa Armstrong traces the full arc of a woman's body through the one thing we never talk about honestly. What we wear underneath. From diapers to cotton to silk to lace to G-strings that had absolutely no business being anywhere near us, and back again to cotton. Each decade a different answer to the same question we forgot to ask ourselves: what actually feels good to me?

Woven through it all is her aunt, who is transitioning. Whose body is being tended to now the same way it was at the very beginning. And what that circle teaches Lisa about her own body, her own comfort, and the long journey of coming home to herself.

This episode is funny. It is tender. It is the one you will want to send to every woman you love.

Life Thread: Caregiving Years and Wisdom Integration.

A gentle note: Unfolded is a space for honest conversation, storytelling, and reflection. It is not therapy, crisis counseling, or a substitute for professional mental health support. What you hear here is Lisa processing out loud and sharing her lens on the world. Your story may overlap with hers. That overlap is the point. If you are in crisis, please reach out to the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988.

Unfolded with Lisa Armstrong is a podcast about being deeply seen in every season of becoming. New episodes drop when a girl gets the urge. Follow on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and leave a review if this episode stayed with you. Find Lisa at https://life-threads-stories.kit.com.

It was a Sunday. My mother, who is ninety years old, asked me to help her bathe.

And if I am honest, it was not the best time.

In this episode, Lisa Armstrong takes us inside one of the most ordinary and sacred moments of caregiving. The irritation that arrived before the love did. The resentment she did not expect. The laughter about gourds and pocketbooks that came out of nowhere. And the moment she looked into her mother's bluish gray eyes and saw something quietly, gently moving away from her.

Caregiving is complicated. Nobody tells you that anger, resentment, love, gratitude, grief, and privilege can all live in the same heart at the same time. This episode holds all of it without apology.

If you are caring for someone you love, this one is for you. And if you never got that chance, you are in this episode too.

Life Thread: Caregiving Years.

A gentle note: Unfolded is a space for honest conversation, storytelling, and reflection. It is not therapy, crisis counseling, or a substitute for professional mental health support. What you hear here is Lisa processing out loud and sharing her lens on the world. Your story may overlap with hers. That overlap is the point. If you are in crisis, please reach out to the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988.

Unfolded with Lisa Armstrong is a podcast about being deeply seen in every season of becoming. New episodes drop when a girl gets the urge. Follow on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and leave a review if this episode stayed with you. Find Lisa at https://life-threads-stories.kit.com.

There was a man in my leadership program. His name was Patrick. One afternoon, he stopped me mid-sentence and said four words.

"You did it again."

I told him I had no idea what he was talking about. And that was the truth. But something in me went still. Because some part of me did know. I just did not have language for it yet.

This is the episode where Lisa Armstrong begins. Not the therapist. Not the coach. Not the woman with the credentials. The woman. The one who spent years managing other people's reactions before she finally understood what she was doing and why.

This is where Unfolded starts. With two words spoken by someone in a room who saw something in Lisa that she was not yet ready to see in herself.

People pleaser.

And sixty years cracked open.

Life Thread: Early Responsibility.

A gentle note: Unfolded is a space for honest conversation, storytelling, and reflection. It is not therapy, crisis counseling, or a substitute for professional mental health support. What you hear here is Lisa processing out loud and sharing her lens on the world. Your story may overlap with hers. That overlap is the point. If you are in crisis, please reach out to the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988.

Unfolded with Lisa Armstrong is a podcast about being deeply seen in every season of becoming. New episodes drop when a girl gets the urge. Follow on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and leave a review if this episode stayed with you. Find Lisa at https://life-threads-stories.kit.com.

It took Lisa Armstrong sixty-one years to get here. Not because she was not ready. Because she did not know this was where her voice had been waiting.

Unfolded is a podcast for the woman who has been invisible in plain sight. The caregiver. The little girl who grew up too fast and never got to go back. The woman who has been so busy holding everyone else together that she forgot, or maybe never knew, what it felt like to be held herself.

Our lives are not a straight line. They are a series of threads. Some chosen. Some handed to us before we were old enough to refuse them. Threads of early responsibility. Of transitions nobody witnessed. Of caregiving that cost more than anyone acknowledged. Of midlife reckonings that arrived quietly and changed everything. Of wisdom that took decades to trust. This show follows those threads. The ones that shaped us. The ones we are still carrying. And the ones we are finally, at whatever age we are finding this, ready to examine in the light.

Lisa Armstrong is a licensed clinical social worker, therapist, coach, storyteller, and witness. She made this show for you. And she made it for herself too.

Sometimes it will be just her, thinking out loud and working things through. Sometimes it will be a guest. Sometimes it will be a room full of women saying the things we never say out loud. Every single time it will be honest. Every single time it will be real.

And she will warn you now. There will be laughter. The kind that catches you off guard somewhere between the exit ramp and the parking lot.

After four decades of standing with individuals in their hardest and most beautiful moments, here is what she knows. When we finally hear our own voice, really hear it, something inside of us wakes up. We remember who we are. We stop hiding. We start telling the truth.

Welcome to Unfolded. She is so glad you are here.

A gentle note: Unfolded is a space for honest conversation, storytelling, and reflection. It is not therapy, crisis counseling, or a substitute for professional mental health support. What you hear here is Lisa processing out loud and sharing her lens on the world. Your story may overlap with hers. That overlap is the point. If you are in crisis, please reach out to the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988.

Unfolded with Lisa Armstrong is a podcast about being deeply seen in every season of becoming. New episodes drop when a girl gets the urge. Follow on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and leave a review if this episode stayed with you. Find Lisa at https://life-threads-stories.kit.com.