The Overwhelmed Brain

When you dread that phone call or personal visit with family that you hope goes well but never does, it's important to learn how to establish boundaries. You don't want to spend most of your time in anxiety waiting for the next family reunion. Toxic family can make life hard. Not being able to avoid toxic family can make it even worse. Hopefully this episode gives you some tools that help you surv...

We can get so good at convincing ourselves how broken or terrible we are sometimes. In fact, some of us go through life thinking that there must be something wrong with us because why else is our life turning out as it is? This is a deep episode that covers a lot, so be prepared to be empowered to learn just how not broken you are.

Challenges are inevitable. They are impossible to avoid. And when you manage to avoid them, do you really learn what you need to in order to get through the next one? You can spend your whole life avoiding challenges, but will you ever feel liberated from the stress and anxiety of life if you do so? I tackle those questions in today's episode.

Is it possible to argue with love and respect for the other person? What if they can't but you can? If you ever feel small or are made to feel inferior after an argument with a loved one, it's time to learn what to do when it goes too far.

What happens when you can imagine what would make you happy, but you can't have it in the real world? Sometimes you have to tolerate the bad to get to the good, and sometimes you just have to get away from the bad altogether.

Sometimes you don't have a coach or therapist around to walk you through the challenges. When you are experiencing a negative emotion, there are questions you can ask yourself to reach a new level of processing and healing. The work of Byron Katie plays a role in this episode as I talk about "The Four Questions" from her writing on "The Work".

If you can't ever seem to win an argument with a certain person in your life, or you feel like you can never get closure on an issue because that person keeps turning it back on you, this episode will give you some tools to use next time you feel like you're losing your power.

When your boss is a jerk, do you still go to work? Most people do, but then what? You continue to accept your boss's bad behavior and just pretend you're not affected? This episodes provides great communication tips not just for your superiors, but for anyone in your life that might just be very difficult to deal with. Free career resources at theoverwhelmedbrain.com/career/

Several major components need to exist in a relationship in order for jealousy to take control. When there's jealousy between you and your partner, there is almost always a decrease in love and connection, and an increase in unhappiness and anxiety. It's time to put jealousy to rest once and for all.

When you have issues with sex in your relationship, and you don't discuss it with your partner, your relationship suffers. Or if you do discuss it and you can't reach a resolution, you will feel it throughout your time together and never be as happy as you could be. Also in this episode, I read an email from someone who disagreed with my advice.

The key to long-lasting happiness and fulfillment is about ten percent luck and ninety percent of what I talk about in today's episode. If you struggle in your relationships, your job, or life in general, you may be sabotaging your own path to success. Start making decisions based on what's most important to you instead of from a fear of the consequences and you'll end up with a vastly different r...

Relating to other people is the majority of how our life is spent, so what do you do when you can't relate? I cover a lot of topics in this episode, from trying to not upset the balance of a difficult relationship to learning how to not compromise yourself when it comes to creating balance in any relationship. Welcome to the grab bag email episode.

What can you do when you really want to change a person or a bad situation but can't? What if you know someone is awful to be around and unhealthy for you, but you can't get them out of your life? In this episode, I give you five steps you can take to learn what it takes become just a bit happier even when impossible people and things are in the picture.

How big of a leap do you have to take to create real change in your life? Is every step a leap of faith that causes you to carry around fear and stress all the time? Can you take baby steps to heal and grow into the person you want to be, creating the life you want? I explore that in this episode.

Guilt should be a temporary emotion yet so many people hold on to it for far too long. In today's episode, guilt takes center stage, but I spend time talking about how to make the right life choices when it comes to allowing or not allowing the challenges at home interfere with your professional life. I end the show talking about a very effective anti-anxiety technique that I use when I need a qui...

It can be so hard to stop replaying fears or trauma from the past or anxiety about the future, but if there was a an alternative to obessively replaying the same negative throught over and over again, would you try it? What if it was ridiculous? What if it was effective? Only one way to find out.

Sometimes you have people in your life who regard you and your feelings as unimportant and below theirs. When you agree with their assessment that you are less important or inferior in some way and don't deserve to be treated with respect and kindness, you start to disintegrate your worth and self-esteem.

What do you do when someone you believe cares about you doesn't stand up in your defense? What if there's a wrong they don't right and you are stuck taking the fall? The subject of today's episode is all about what we expect from others and perhaps, what we shouldn't.

When your thoughts make you feel bad because you believe you shouldn't have them, you might repress them and stuff them back where they came from. However, doing this may be exactly what keeps those negative, intrusive thoughts alive.

You can lose your confidence, energy, and mental and emotional strength when you allow certain unhealthy elements into your life. In this episode, I'll share the important principles that, when practiced, allow you to keep your power and be more fulfilled overall.

One way you can experience inner conflict is when you feel undecided in what to do next. Sometimes we can feel split: A part of us wants to do one thing while another part of us wants to do another. What if those two parts of our mind could work things out? That's what this episode is about.

Making decisions that are right for you involve some scary moments. Some of them are giant leaps of faith with no view of the landing. When you make these leaps, you reach a new level inside you that shows others that you care about yourself enough to take risks for your own empowerment. This is an important episode if you find yourself in a rut of negativity.

Being bullied when you were younger can create unresourceful behaviors and unnecessary fears when you're older. In order to get past these fears, you may have to do some work on yourself.

How do you enable the bad behavior of other people? What actions are you taking that are causing certain people in your life to show up in a way that is toxic or unhealthy? It's very difficult to end codependent relationships, especially when you don't even realize you're in one. This is an important episode if you just can't seem to shake the unhealthy behavior of those close to you.

Passive aggressive behavior is a way to convey anger and upset to someone indirectly. It takes the form of comments that are meant to hurt, but hard to spot as hurtful. They are forms of poisonous communication that can erode love and connection. This episode will give you some tools to deal with passive aggressive behavior and general negativity.