We've all had a dental horror story or two, and after sharing ours in a recent episode, we figured it was time to bring in an actual expert. This week we're joined by Dr. Zakary Yermolenko, a general dentist, Army Reserve major, and owner of Vernon Valley Dentistry in New Jersey, who somehow also finds time to coach his five-year-old's soccer team.

Dr. Zak has a lot to say about what we're getting wrong, what we're finally getting right, and why "I don't have any pain" is not the green light we think it is. He also drops a few things we genuinely had never heard before, which, honestly, is exactly why we're here.

Here's some of what we cover:

• Why no pain absolutely does not mean no problem (he compares it to high blood pressure, and it lands)
• The gold standard for home care, and why an electric toothbrush might actually be worth it
• What tooth resorption is, and why Jan had a surprise diagnosis on a tooth that already had a root canal and crown
• How diet, stress, and even sleep apnea can show up in your mouth before anywhere else
• The concept of "premedication" before dental work, and why it matters if you've had any kind of joint replacement or surgery
• Why dental anxiety is so common, and what a trauma-informed dentist actually looks like
• What to look for when choosing a new dentist, beyond just Google reviews
• How the mouth is the most sensitive part of the body (look up "homunculus" and prepare to be fascinated)

Dr. Zak's whole approach is built around prevention, communication, and actually listening to his patients. He doesn't want to do more work than necessary; he wants you to not need it. That philosophy came through in everything he said, and we think it's a really refreshing way to think about dental care and honestly, about healthcare in general.

If you've been putting off going to the dentist or feel like nobody ever really explained any of this to you, this episode is going to feel very overdue.

About Dr. Zakary Yermolenko

Dr. Zakary Yermolenko is a general dentist and owner of a family practice known as Vernon Valley Dentistry. He is a Major in the US Army Reserve, where he serves as a general dentist as well. He is married with two children, and the family has two dogs, two cats, and ten chickens. He enjoys watching, playing, and coaching soccer.

Dr. Zak's Website

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*Information shared on this podcast is not medical advice. If you have a concern about your physical or mental health, please seek support from a proessional.

This week we got into something we know almost everyone has struggled with: what it actually takes to walk away from a long-term relationship.

We both share our personal experiences of leaving long relationships, including the whys, the good and bad things, and the parts we felt less than proud of.

Here's what we dig into:

• Why "just cut it off and let go" is terrible advice when you've shared half your life with someone
• The difference between leaving because you're afraid to be alone and leaving because you've outgrown the relationship
• How addiction becomes a person's "first love," and why their choices were never about your worth
• The myth that you have to be fully healed before you're allowed to be in a relationship
• Why staying together "for the kids" usually backfires (they absorb everything, every time)
• Jan playing devil's advocate on marriage and commitment, and Patti the self-described commitment-aphobe meeting her halfway
• The reframe that helped Patti most: what if this is as good as it gets, and you stopped waiting for permission to be okay anyway

The throughline is simple and a little maddening: love is not something you have, it's something you keep doing. And if you're struggling, get help. There is zero shame in it.

Find resources mentioned in this episode here.

Learn more about this podcast here.

Submit your 90-second lesson/experience here.

Apply to be a guest here.

Stay updated on new episodes here.

*Information shared on this podcast is not medical advice. If you have a concern about your physical or mental health, please seek support from a proessional.

In this episode, we're joined by Stephanie Baker, a licensed trauma counselor, Army veteran, and EMDR therapist who knows firsthand that birth doesn't always go according to plan. What started as a near-perfect pregnancy took a sharp turn, and what followed was a crash course in things nobody had prepared her for.

Jan also pulls back the curtain on her own birth story, one she rarely shares. Let's just say it involved more than one emergency, more than one surgery, and a phone call from her mother that was... a lot.

We laugh. We wince. We say "oh my God" a lot. Because sometimes that's the only appropriate response.

Here's what we covered:

• The warning signs during pregnancy that are easy to dismiss as normal
• The grief of losing the birth experience you planned for, and why that grief is valid
• Why guilt and shame sneak in even when none of it was your fault
• The isolation that can come after a complicated birth, and why community matters more than most people realize
• How to choose your birth team and actually feel safe with them
• Doulas, breastfeeding pressure, and asking for help without feeling like a burden
• The generational thread of moms who carried their own birth losses without ever having words for them

Birth is wild, unpredictable, and body-hijacking, and someone really should have warned us. That's why we're here.

About Stephanie: Stephanie Baker is a licensed trauma counselor and coach out of Mason, Ohio, who runs her own practice called Change Heals, where she helps clients untangle the kind of pain most of us were taught to just power through. She's a Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor, EMDR-trained, an Army veteran who served in Iraq, and she's a certified trainer and a member of the leadership group at the Healing Our Core Issues Institute.

If you've read Gifts from a Challenging Childhood, you've actually already met a piece of her work — one of her original techniques is in there, in the 2025 edition. So she's not just teaching the model. She's helping shape it.

Stephanie is the therapist a lot of us wish we'd had earlier. She's deeply relational — human first, clinician second — and she shows up in the room as a real person, not a role. What she does so beautifully is help clients understand themselves in ways they were never given permission to before. The patterns, the protective parts, the why underneath the behavior — she helps her clients see all of it with curiosity instead of shame. She works with people healing developmental trauma — the stuff our mothers definitely forgot to mention- and she does it with humor, heart, and zero pretense.

Stephanie’s Links:
Stephanie’s Website
Intensive Workshops
Stephanie’s Instagram

Find resources mentioned in this episode here.

Learn more about this podcast here.

Submit your 90-second lesson/experience here.

Apply to be a guest here.

Stay updated on new episodes here.

*Information shared on this podcast is not medical advice. If you have a concern about your physical or mental health, please seek support from a proessional.