Boomers love secrets!

I said it. Maybe you flinched reading that—maybe you’re nodding along, feeling it deep in your bones, the way “don’t tell anyone” was as common in your house as “finish your peas.” This episode is for every person who grew up in a family where “put on a smile” was mandatory, pain was packed neatly away, and no news—good or bad—ever left the front door until it was passé.

I’m Lauren Howard (L2). Here’s the deal: I was raised by a Greatest Generation dad and a very boomer mom. Our home? “Curated” was not an Instagram aesthetic, it was a lifestyle. Major life events? Hush-hush. Fights? Don’t you dare let the neighbors know. Moving across the country? Tell no one—not even the kids, until a for-sale sign is basically in your face.

Fast forward to adulthood, and I’m the one who “shouldn’t tell,” but thirty seconds later I’m blasting my life out to the internet. It’s a push-pull dance between inherited silence and radical honesty—a lifelong project of untangling which secrets keep us safe and which just keep us isolated.

WHY LISTEN?

• If you're part of the cycle of "boomer secrets" and want to break the shame around pain and joy.
• If generational expectations shape your willingness to be open about your struggles, and you want to over come them.
• If embracing your whole self, not just the curated parts would improve your life.

Click play. Let’s un-curate, together.

Mentioned in this episode:

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Breakups Aren’t Just for Lovers: Why Losing Neurodivergent Friends Hurts So Damn Much

We don’t talk enough about the heartbreak of losing neurodivergent friends. For many of us, those friendships feel deeper than family. And when they end, the grief can be worse than any romantic breakup.

This Different Not Broken episode dives into the messy, under-discussed reality of neurodivergent friendships: why they click so intensely, why they sometimes vanish without warning, and why the grief lingers for years.

I'm doin' it. I'm getting real and raw, sharing my own story of losing a best friend—the late-night phone calls that suddenly stopped, the milestones missed, the ache that outlasted every past relationship breakup.

Why listen?

• If you’ve ever lost a neurodivergent friend and felt like no one understood how deep it cut.
• If you’ve wondered why friendship grief can feel sharper than heartbreak.
• If you’re tired of being told to “get over it.”
• Or if you just want to feel seen.

Because friendship breakups aren’t just side notes—they’re real grief.

And for neurodivergent friends, that loss can shake your world.

Hit play for a necessary, validating reminder: you’re not broken for hurting this bad.

Mentioned in this episode:

Build Your Better course

Build your better course - https://stan.store/elletwo/p/build-your-better

Nine years.

That’s how long it’s been since my dad died.

Nine years of breathing around a space that never refills.

Nine years of being a parent without my favorite example of maternal energy.

Nine years of mothering, leading, starting a business, and still, on some days, needing to remind myself that “different” is just that—different, not broken.

Welcome to an episode that will mess with your pause button.

It’s about love, loss, empathy, and the complicated math of moving forward when someone who powered your entire operating system just isn’t here anymore.

(Spoiler alert: Siri has nothing on my dad’s emotional support iPhone.)

This is the story I didn’t know if I’d ever share with a mic.

I’ve written about this.

I’ve skirted around it in essays, offered tiny slices in speeches, and let it simmer in my private thoughts. But speaking it out loud? That’s a whole other layer of irreverence and vulnerability.

Qualities my dad basically trademarked.

Mentioned in this episode:

Build Your Better course

Build your better course - https://stan.store/elletwo/p/build-your-better