Jodie Patterson on Staying Curious When Your Kids (and Your Identity) Are Changing

This fall, my youngest, my last one, leaves for college. Twenty-one years of being a mom, and I’m standing at the edge of a chapter I don’t know how to close. When my son left two years ago, I was a wreck. Shame that I was “too attached,” fear of who I am when mothering isn’t my daily identity, questions about my marriage, my life, my self.

So when Jodie Patterson agreed to come back on the podcast, the timing felt like more than coincidence.

This is Jodie’s third time on Cracking Open: she was episode 2, back before I knew what I was doing, and episode 65. She’s a friend, and a voice this podcast keeps coming back to. And this time, I felt how much we’ve both shifted since we last talked.

Jodie Patterson is an award-winning, globally recognized author, activist, beauty explorer, and mother of five. She was the first Black person to chair the Human Rights Campaign Board, our nation’s largest LGBT organization, and speaks widely on identity, gender, race, and radical parenting. Her memoir, The Bold World, was called “marvelous” by Alice Walker, and her children’s book, Born Ready, was gifted to every public school in Kansas. She also co-founded two beauty companies, works with Mount Sinai Hospital on health disparities and transgender medicine, and has been recognized by the United Nations as a Champion of Change.

Here’s what we got into.

✨Slow down internally, then respond from your highest self

The night before we recorded, one of Jodie’s adult children texted asking her to back off on the weekly check-ins. Her first instinct was hurt. Instead of firing back, she put the phone down, cried a little, and responded from a steadier place: “I’ll slow down, I’m a phone call away, and when you shift, I’ll shift with you.” One of the best examples of parenting adult children I’ve heard on this show.

✨Mothering as an internal revolution

We box ourselves in as much as the world boxes us in, and the deepest revolution is internal. Raising five kids across different relationships, cultures, and identities has taught Jodie that gender, faith, and family are far more fluid than she was raised to believe.

✨Two years without a lover

After a family near-death experience, Jodie stopped dating entirely for two years, not from lack of desire, but because energy is finite. She described it like moving houses and finally seeing what’s been under the carpet for years. What she found is the foundation for how she’s dating now, at 55, with a clarity she didn’t have before.

✨Healing versus fixing

Jodie’s daily practice isn’t about optimizing; it’s about healing what’s underneath instead of numbing it:

• Stretching before she’s even out of bed
• Ten minutes on a vibration plate
• Weight training and an hour walking her dogs
• Whole foods, less caffeine
• Plant medicine and clinical ketamine therapy, used intentionally and under care

✨Hustle down, flow up

I shared the phrase my solopreneur friends coined: hustle down, flow up, and Jodie lit up. Less ambition to write the next book or chair the next board. More interest in what makes her feel alive: alone time, surfing for the first time in Costa Rica, tree hugging.

✨Humility, earned

Jodie said something I won’t forget: she’s had to earn her children’s respect and companionship, the same way she’d earn it with anyone she loves. That humility has softened her — while her boundaries have only gotten clearer.

I came into this episode carrying so much about my own transition twenty-one years of identity wrapped up in being someone’s mom. Talking to Jodie didn’t hand me answers, but it did something better: she gave me permission to be me again. If you’re standing at your own edge of letting go, I hope this conversation gives you that same permission.

Jodie, thank you for trusting me with this conversation again. Listen to the full episode wherever you get your podcasts, and if you missed Jodie’s first appearance, go back to episode 65.

🌱 Purchase Jodie’s book The Bold World here, and Born Ready here. Follow Jodie on Instagram.

Love,
Molly

🌱 Please consider supporting the Cracking Open podcast on Patreon.

RESOURCES & LINKS:

Molly Carroll:

Website | Instagram| Facebook

Now accepting new therapy clients!
If you’re feeling stuck, navigating change, or craving more purpose and peace, I’d love to support you. Learn more or schedule a session here.