The week my voice cracked, my marriage shifted, and my future self took the wheel

My voice tapped out this week, but my life turned the volume way up. Episode 39 brings you right into the messy middle of healing, courage, relationship truth, and the moment your future self grabs your shoulders and says, “Babe, rise.”

This week delivered a trifecta: a sick voice, a sick heart, and a clarity streak that felt like lightning under the skin. I crossed 500 podcast downloads, way ahead of the pace I expected, and it showed me something huge—steady devotion builds something powerful even when life feels sideways.

I pushed through a week where my marriage felt like a moving target and a long pattern cracked open. A conversation shifted the landscape of my home, my rooms, my sense of safety, and my sense of self. I share how subtle emotional cycles sneak in, how old wounds repeat until you crack them wide open, and how choosing yourself becomes an act of courage that shakes every foundation around you.

“If I want to look like the version of sixty that I picture in my head, I need to do that because that woman takes no shit and is loving and has integrity.”

This is the heartbeat of the episode. The future-self mirror. The boundary drawn. The moment you say yes to the woman you are growing into instead of the patterns you are shedding.

From there, the episode explores the emotional work of growing up in midlife, reclaiming personal safety, and learning how to rescue yourself when your old survival strategies fall apart. I walk you through moving into a separate room, facing the reality of a partner at a crossroads, and choosing emotional maturity over reaction. It is raw, real, and full of that fiery truth that makes “Just Jax” what it is.

You will hear about motherhood, accountability, the long road of healing with my sons, and the way past versions of ourselves cling to old patterns until someone finally says, “This ends here.” I share how my home became my first real place of safety, how fear of losing it pushed old wounds to the surface, and how I am building a stronger foundation for the life I want next.

There is grief, humor, truth, conflict, and the kind of emotional clarity that hits harder when your voice sounds like gravel in a blender. This episode is a bridge between the life that shaped me and the life that will carry me forward.

Episodes drop every Tuesday. If my voice sounds rough, listen anyway. The truth in this one carries enough fire for both of us.

This week carries a different gravity. My body is dragging through a second round of sickness, my spirit is dragging through the loss of a woman who shaped my life in quiet, powerful ways, and my heart is doing that icy-blue thing it does when grief shows up in a form I still struggle to understand.

My friend Diane passed this week, and the universe delivered one of those brutal lessons about timing. I planned to visit her twice. Sickness hit twice. I held back to protect her health, and then she slipped away before I could sit beside her one more time.

Here is the quote that pulled the truth out of my chest:

“The tears are for watching her blossom and become part of a fantastic team because she was one of the reasons I was a successful lead and person basically, and I wish I could have told her that in person.”

This episode explores what happens when love sits in the body in a way that looks different from the world’s rulebook.
It covers:

• The flu-shot chaos, the timing that missed the mark, and the frustration that still simmers

• The sacredness of being invited past the Seattle Freeze and into her circle

• The role Diane played in shaping my leadership, confidence, and compassion

• The strange flavor of gratitude-grief that hits harder than tears

• The harsh truth of past relationships that shut my heart down

• The upgrades, glitches, and emotional rewiring that shaped who I am today

• The shift happening inside my home, my energy, and my creative space

• The legacy I choose to build with my sons

• The permission to embrace difference instead of trying to cure it

Grief has many shades. Mine sits in the deeper blue tones — quiet, reflective, grateful, steady — and this episode gives voice to that experience without shame, without apology, and without shrinking from the truth.

If you have ever felt “different” in the way you process love, loss, or attachment, this episode shows you have a place here. Difference deserves celebration. Difference creates connection. Difference builds tribes.

Connect with me on Instagram or Facebook, email me at justjackspodcast@gmail.com, and explore my loser, forthwith, and shift merch or my kick-ass cursive curriculum at crackthecursivecode.com.

Love you.
Jax out.

Cursive curriculum stress, fake trophies, grandma drama, and estranged kids—this Just Jax conversation walks through self forgiveness, breaking generational cycles, and sealing the leaks in your ship so other people’s stories stop steering your life.

This week, my soul took a full-body hit.
A scammy “award,” a panic spiral over Crack the Cursive Code, a hard conversation with my son, and a cycle-breaking face-off with my mother all lined up to test one thing: my worth.

I walk through the tangled guilt, the Latin-teaching years, the homeschool grind, the mom wounds, the curriculum chaos, and the moment a magazine dangled a trophy with a $5K price tag.
The universe loves a plot twist.

And right when the storm felt the loudest, my truth cut through:

This is the hinge of the episode.
The place where my past stops steering the wheel.
The place where worth shifts from external approval to internal authority.

From here, we dive into the ship-and-holes metaphor: how other people pour water into your life only when they find a belief you already carry.
We explore fire-rock wounds, anchor energy, generational patterns, survival mode parenting, and the quiet power of welding your hull from the inside out.

If you are a fellow chain breaker, this episode hits your soul squarely.
This is for anyone healing from old programming, navigating estranged kids, wrestling with parental identity, or rebuilding self worth after years of emotional debris.

Inside this episode:

• worthiness wounds that flare when success brushes your door

• the emotional cost of creating something huge without a cheer squad

• why fake trophies shake you harder than real rejection

• the mother wound and its echoes through adulthood

• how adult kids carry their own unhealed holes

• fire-rock souls lighting up only where you still hold pain

• the ship metaphor that changes everything about self protection

• choosing grace without sacrificing yourself to the firing range

Direct Jax quotes inside this episode:

• “I am a good person that just made some mistakes.”

• “I have strengthened the hull of my ship.”

Your ship can sail again.
Mine sure is.

If you want the L.O.S.E.R. ,shift-work, Forthwith tees, and my kick-ass cursive curriculum:
crackthecursivecode.com

Love you.
Jax out.