Episodes

As 2020 draws to a close, I’ve been reflecting on all the wild things that have happened this year! One fun twist to this unprecedented year happened just a couple weeks ago. My editor posted a video to TikTok where he reacts to my description of how unhealed childhood trauma manifests. That video has now been viewed 241 THOUSAND times, and it’s brought new listenership to the podcast! How wild is that?! Over a thousand people have also made side-by-side reactions to this video. The put-a-finge...

Technology surrounds us. Everyone has to have a phone so parents can keep track of their children, video game systems are everywhere - and with the pandemic, tablets and computers now play a major role in our kids’ education. Many parents are confused as to what the correct amount of screen time is for their children. Well, I’m here to demystify that for you, because I asked all the experts and pediatricians and made polls in parenting groups and asked a bunch of you. Guess what transcendent tr...

I recently cleaned out my closet. I donated and threw out years’ worth of buildup. All those clothes, personal effects, and trinkets that were causing me stress are (for the time being) under control! And WOW, it feels great. Life can be like that too. We get buried under tasks and appointments and literal physical stuff just like in my closet. If we don’t know how to get out from under the pile, it’s scary. Now, I like to think of life as a school, an opportunity for me to become the best “me”...

If you’ve ever felt the need to yell at your child over what your rational mind knows is something totally inconsequential, if you’ve had strong urges to “fix” something you dislike about your partner, or if you often feel like you didn’t get the childhood or the parents you needed to be successful, your mind is trying to heal wounds from your past in the now. We begin our lives as children, and our brains are little blank slates. We observe the way our parents interact with each other and with...

We all have people in our lives, whether acquaintances, friends, or family, who (usually unwittingly) drain our batteries. One person is overbearing, one family member takes everything personally, somebody else wants to call you five times a week, or maybe even five times a day! It’s rough stuff! So, on my social media I asked you all what you find difficult about setting boundaries. Unsurprisingly, most people said the hardest part is that you don’t want to hurt the other person’s feelings. Th...

In the 1960s, Martin Seligman, PhD, and Steven Maier, PhD, made an important discovery during psychological experiments with animals. A behavior they called “learned helplessness” manifests when an animal (or a person) continuously faces a negative, seemingly uncontrollable situation, and stops trying to change their circumstances even when they have the ability to do so. The prefrontal cortex, the “evolved brain,” is responsible for reason and rational decision-making, and it relays instructio...

In this episode, I’ll dive into the concept of the “inner child” that resides within each of us. A child is living their life in realtime, but within every adult resides a little version of themselves, a child with specific unmet emotional needs in need of healing. Nicole LePera talks about three steps to healing your inner child: ACKNOWLEDGE your inner child’s pain and trauma, USE your triggers as a guide to your emotional childhood, and ASK your inner child what they need from you to heal. Fi...

I’d like to talk about bids. No, I’m not talking about an auction! I’m talking about a frequent occurrence in your interpersonal relationships! The Gottman Institute defines a bid as “any attempt from one partner to another for attention, affirmation, affection, or any other positive connection.” Bids can be as simple as eye contact or a smile, but can also take the form of asking for advice or help, or may even manifest by the bidder overtly asking for attention. Gottman Institute also says: “...

I get a lot of emails from people who are drained and frazzled, exhausted and overwhelmed, feeling anything but capable of taking on life. People can feel like they’re trying to run on a treadmill that’s going too fast for them. And I get it! I have those moments sometimes — not nearly as often as I used to, but I still have them! The question is: how do we get up to speed on the treadmill? I’ve noticed in my own life that when I feel the drain, I’m either not devoting myself enough or devoting...

In finance, the term ROI or return on investment refers to the gains you make after putting money into your chosen investment form. In a similar fashion, you will see “gains” of a different kind as you “invest” in your family members. In this episode, I’ll talk a bit about Gary Chapman’s Five Love Languages paradigm. In my relationship with David, it took me awhile to realize that my love language (words of affirmation) was not his love language (acts of service). Thankfully, we have been patie...

As parents, we often project predictions of negative behaviors onto our children, then look for evidence of that behavior. Our discontent with a perceived lack in our children is confirmation bias — a self-fulfilling prophecy. Here's how to break free of that toxic mindset.

My mom used her label maker to slap labels on containers for coupons, cosmetics, and more. It's fine to label physical containers. But are we sometimes overzealous in putting labels on our children, these precious containers of beautiful spirits?