What does it take to walk away from one of the most powerful jobs in television? Monica sits down with legendary showrunner Krista Vernoff, a creative force behind Grey's Anatomy,Station 19, and Shameless, for a profoundly honest conversation about the real price of female success and the wakeup moment that demanded she start to reclaim her life from burnout. Krista pulls back the curtain on the makings of her remarkable career, from her unconventional "hippie artist" upbringing that taught her to break the rules, to the intense pressures of "having it all." She shares how shaping the behaviors and dialogue of the characters in her TV shows can impact social change and how she's used writing as a powerful healing modality to process her own grief and life experiences.

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This week on Reclaiming, Monica welcomes writer-director-actor Lake Bell for an honest and funny conversation about voice, vulnerability, and the art of world-building—both on screen and in life. Lake charts her trajectory from an indie filmmaker who literally wrote herself a voice of authority in her Sundance-winning film In a World..., to starring in the subversive HBO hit The Chair Company. She speaks with candor about how navigating her daughter's epilepsy transformed her into a fierce and creative advocate for neurodiversity (and a children's book author!). Lake explains the hard, intentional work of conscious uncoupling from her ex-husband and unexpected joy in building a loving 'two-house family' for their two kids. Along the way, Monica and Lake connect on the tools it takes to reframe our personal narratives and discover a shared admiration for a well built car/for good looking cars.

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This week on Reclaiming, Monica welcomes actor, author, and creator Dylan Mulvaney for a deeply candid and surprisingly joyful conversation about identity, art, and the radical act of choosing joy in the face of public hate. Dylan retraces her path from a musical theater kid with a secret to documenting her transition for a billion people in her viral "Days of Girlhood" tik tok series. She reflects on surviving the “beergate” controversy, and how that traumatic moment of becoming a political symbol pushed her not to retreat, but to reclaim her story on her own terms—first through a spiritual ayahuasca journey, and then on stage in her one-woman show. Along the way, Monica and Dylan find profound common ground on the dizzying experience of surviving a global scandal, the specific pain of being turned into a caricature by the media, and the quiet, determined work it takes to piece your narrative back together. Expect laugh-out-loud moments about the absurdity of fame, a shared belief in humor as the ultimate survival tool, and even some breaking out into song mid podcast.

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