Generation Xhausted: Recent Episodes
Valerie Hamaker; LPC, NCC, CPT, SATP
Join Therapist Valerie Hamaker as she goes to the next level in tackling issues that so many of us deal with in midlife: exhaustion, regret, stagnation, and disappointment. In her podcast she connects these painful realities with powerful reasons for why we all feel this way. Most importantly, Valerie’s personability and warm presentation style will walk you through how YOU can claim passion, purpose, meaning and personal authority in your own life in areas such as marriage, parenting, employment, spirituality, and anywhere else where burnout rears its head.
In this second episode of this two part series, Valerie brings on special guest and fellow therapist Jessica Ginther to talk about the value of the Internal Family Systems model of therapy as a model for helping people come to know themselves better. In this series Valerie and Jessica talk about how all human beings […]
Join Valerie and Nathan in this deepening of the topic of FLOW as the state of heightened enjoyment, unselfconsciousness, concentration, and peace that is evidence that one is living a life that is alive, awake and thriving. FLOW is the opposite of burnout and if you want to heal from your struggle with all areas […]
Join Val and Nathan as they talk about how work often is the setting where stress arises and our own insecurities, eccentricities, and blindspots show up in often uncomfortable and potentially enlightening ways. In this episode they use the personality assessment tool the Enneagram to talk about how we each might be able to self-diagnose […]
Some people hate their work and this is stressful. Some people like their work but are marinating in stress just the same for a variety of reasons. Join therapist Valerie Hamaker as she breaks down chronic stress and its impact on the body and how to work through your own stress to prevent illness, premature […]
Oh please don’t miss this episode everyone! This will be an hour of pure gold where I gathered 8 individuals and together we each “rep our enneagram number” and discuss a myriad of topics like “what is your defining feature within your number?”, “what is your greatest vulnerability?”, “which relationship has been impacted the most […]
In this episode, Valerie is guest of therapist Geoff Steurer, host of the podcast “From Crisis to Connection” and they talk about how Val’s view of burnout is extremely timely and very unique. From Val’s perspective, burnout comes from a lost relationship with ones one inner divine, a part of each of us that is […]
Join Valerie and Nathan this week as they break down the phenomena of “The Magical Other”…the desire each of us has to find the right person [or job, church, community…choose your favorite quick fix solution]. which will make all of our troubles go away. And how this NEVER works and actually poisons the potential of […]
Join Val and Nathan as they riff about Nathan’s favorite book that saved him from crisis when none of the supposedly air tight solutions worked. The book taught him that when we have learned about how to find happiness is dead wrong.
What a lot of responses we got from last week’s episode on burnout and institutional religion! So much so, we decided to respond to a few topics that many listeners addressed! In this episode Valerie addresses why managing struggles with religion, belief, and belonging are SO overwhelming to our brains and bodies and they both […]
Join me and my husband, Nathan as we break down professional burnout, or maybe better understood as a full-blown crisis in his profession as an eye surgeon and together walk through not only the events that brought up the crisis, but the realizations, learning, growth, and huge blessings of self-discovery that have grown out of […]
Join Valerie and colleague Dr. Todd Frye in a continuation of their conversation about parenting, love, shame resilience, and how Valerie’s family grew enormously from their experience working with their daughter through her eating disorder. Want to feel like being a messy, imperfect family is normal and even the best path to learning all that […]
Join Valerie in this follow up conversation with former client Becca, who shared her journey through postpartum depression and other young motherhood struggles (see last episode) in this follow up conversation a few years after terminating therapy. Becca shares long term benefits of working closely with a therapist in transitioning into motherhood.
Join Valerie and former client Becca as they process her journey into motherhood with typical obstacles like postpartum depression, potty-training stress, and managing high expectations of self as mom and the little.
In this full interview, meet Isaac and Julie as they share their experiences with Valerie as their therapist learning that sex addiction is not about what we think its about. In their therapy, this couple learns to thrive and know that together they can accomplish all things.
Join Valerie and therapist colleague Jennifer Finlayson-Fife in this marriage counseling case study as they unpack a couple’s complicated story of both emotional and sexual struggle and walk through best ways to help couples with similar struggles . Several issues addressed in this episode including our tendency to want to control our partners in an […]
Join Valerie in this interview that might touch many of us…as we all know or possibly struggle with work/rest balance. In this interview Valerie and former clients Trent and Ashley unpack how Trent was able to overcome his insatiable appetite for achievement by better understanding himself. In a nutshell: when we do not understand our […]
Join Valerie and fellow therapist and expert Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife in a fascinating conversation about women’s sexual health. In this conversation, Valerie and Jennifer talk about how a female world-champion athlete’s childhood experience eventually impacted her sexual relationship with her husband and they unpack steps to eventual healing.
In this episode, client Jeffrey walks us through significant moments in his therapy journey working through depression. He shares how his work in therapy with Valerie translated into his own capacity to relate to himself and to others differently and with more self love and appreciation for his own strengths and capacities.
Join Valerie and her former client Jeffrey as he walks us all through the twists and turns of adolescent depression, which doesn’t necessarily “look like” classic depression.
Join some pretty amazing people, my dear friends Jared and Kendra as they share their own sacred story of healing from Jared’s struggles with addiction and consequent infidelity. Their story will have you amazed and impressed with the power of love, forgiveness, and healing.
Please join me in this incredibly interesting podcast episode with the principal of a large high school who shares a variety of ideas around educational reform that he feels might be finally addressed due to truism that “crisis is often the mother of innovation”. In this dialogue, Jeff and Valerie go deep into the sad […]
Join Valerie in an enlightening conversation with science teacher Dave, who chose to teach adolescents because he loves connecting with others and loves watching them light up as he blows things up. Enter the pandemic and exit all of the reasons why teaching brought him life. What are Dave’s thoughts on the emotional impact of […]
Join Val and college student Lukas as they talk all things Covid 19 and its unique impact on the university student. From dealing with shelter-in-place with difficult roommates to the discouragement of zoom classes, to supporting friends with mental health struggles, Lukas gives us all a peek into life as a college student in Covid […]
In this episode, meet therapist Valerie Hamaker and learn more about her background, passion, and the gift that being a therapist has been to herself, her family, and to the growth of her own soul. Want to become a therapist? Have you considered seeing a therapist and haven’t quite had the courage? Listen to this […]
Join Valerie and co-host Dr. Todd Frye as they unpack the good news and the bad news…which is that parents have a massive impact on the emotional health of their little ones! So the healthier we as caregivers get, the better chance our kiddos have of emotional health.
Deeper Dive Episode. Valerie is joined by co-host Dr. Todd Frye in a discussion of a few key issues brought up in the past several weeks interviews with Jeffrey including a fuller explanation of the attachment theory and some thoughts on faith integration in their clinical work.
Valerie and Jeffrey walk through moments that Jeffrey feels are the most significant experiences in his therapy journey. He shares how the work in therapy with Valerie translated into his own capacity to relate to himself and others differently.
Valerie and Jeffrey walk through several powerful moments in their therapy experience together including Jeffrey's embodied experience of healing through meditation and his experience 'rewiring his brain' through going back to painful childhood experiences with Valerie.
From the silence of childhood to the anger of adolescence, Jeffrey shares how he tries many strategies to work through his feelings of self-hatred and internal isolation. Valerie offers Jeffrey a map into why each of these strategies failed while helping him recognize his tenacity in trying to care for himself.
In this episode Jeffrey continues to share with Valerie his story of becoming overwhelmed with a very stressful current life situation and they begin to unpack early stories that made him vulnerable to emotional overwhelm and shutdown.
Todd and Valerie open this series with a brief discussion on new guest, Jeffrey, who shares his story about working with Valerie around his lifelong struggles with depression.