“Sending love and light” is just as worthless as “Thoughts and prayers”

The voice and cadence were familiar, but I couldn’t believe the words coming through my headphones.

“So I asked my Inner Voice if I will die from this virus,” Jess Lively said, “and the answer I heard was — ‘No.’ That’s how I knew it was okay for me to travel.”

I hit “pause” on my podcast app and sat stunned for a minute. When did my favorite podcast host turn into such a self-centered monster?

It was March of 2020, and I was listening to an episode of The Lively Show, a podcast that I had enjoyed since its inception in 2014.

Jess Lively had been a part of my life for years, ever since I discovered her minimalist lifestyle blog, Make Under My Life, in the early-oughts. We were both millennials; I found her clever, refreshing, and relatable. Since I began following her blog she went through multiple career transformations, including business coaching and personal development workshops, before launching her podcast The Lively Show in 2014.

The Lively Show began as an interview-format podcast in which Jess had in-depth conversations with guests including Elizabeth Gilbert, Rob Bell, and Alex…