Tripping Over Myself the podcast

Why is quitting so much harder when the day finally arrives? In this episode, I reflect on quitting smoking, leaving alcohol behind, and why the hardest battle is often with the stories we tell ourselves. Sometimes the greatest victory isn’t quitting a habit—it’s choosing yourself, one day at a time.

Asking for help doesn’t take away from what you’ve accomplished. For years, I let pride and embarrassment keep me from asking for help when I needed it. Even recently, I found myself feeling guilty for getting help with my writing. In this Sticky Note, I talk about why asking for help isn’t cheating or weakness. Sometimes, it’s the reason you get to move on with life. Take care of yourself, and I’...

How do we end up living a life we never intended to create? In this week’s 3-Minute Sticky Note, I reflect on how we can slowly drift into fear, addiction, and other people’s expectations without even realizing it. Sometimes the most important question we can ask ourselves isn’t, “How did I get here?” but, “When did I stop choosing my own direction?”

How often do we mistake anxiety for protection? In this week’s 3-Minute Sticky Note, I explore how anxiety can become an escape plan we quietly depend on—and why true calm isn’t something we perform, but something we learn to trust. Sometimes the battles that steal our peace are the ones that never happen at all.

Episode 31 – The Silent Losers When addiction enters a family, it rarely hurts just one person. In this episode, I reflect on the hidden pain carried by parents, spouses, family, and friends who continue to love someone caught in addiction. Looking back at my own life, I finally understood that what I saw as rescue wasn’t weakness—it was love. Sometimes, though, the strongest love is the kind that...

Sunday Sticky Note — The Weight We Carry Some burdens are too heavy to carry alone. This Sunday Sticky Note is a reminder that strength isn’t found in staying silent—it’s found in knowing when to let someone walk beside you. Thanks for listening.

Episode 30 – Don’t Squeeze the Life Out of Today It’s easy to spend our lives replaying yesterday or worrying about tomorrow. But neither one is a place we can actually live. In this short episode, I reflect on why our greatest accomplishments and our deepest losses should guide us—not anchor us. Sometimes the best thing we can do is loosen our grip on the past and the future, and let today become...

Sunday Sticky Note — Problems That Were Never Yours Sometimes the heaviest burdens we carry don’t belong to us. This short reflection is about learning to let go of worries that were never ours to hold in the first place. Thanks for listening.

Episode 29 – The Quiet We Keep Interrupting A quiet mind can feel unfamiliar, but maybe that’s because we’ve spent so much time filling every empty space with thought. In this episode, Gerard explores why calmness often appears when we stop building stories and start leaving a little room for silence.

When self-doubt creeps in, our first instinct is often to keep pushing. But sometimes the wisest thing we can do is pause. In this Sunday Sticky Note, I share why taking a breath between steps isn’t giving up—it’s giving your mind the space to settle so your wisdom can lead the way again.

Episode 28 – When Anxiety Writes the Script What if the stories causing the most fear never actually happen? In this week’s 3-Minute Sticky Note, I reflect on how anxiety can quietly take over the pen, writing fictional endings before life has a chance to unfold. For years, I believed those stories were reality. Looking back, I can see they were often nothing more than fear disguised as certainty....

Some nights, self-doubt gets louder than our own wisdom. Tonight’s Sunday Sticky Note is a reminder that uncertainty isn’t always telling us the truth. Take care of yourself.

Episode 27 – The Most Important Relationship You’ll Ever Have The relationship you have with yourself shapes every part of your life. It influences your confidence, your fears, the choices you make, and the future you believe is possible. In this week’s 3-Minute Sticky Note, I reflect on how my relationship with myself was damaged early in life, how alcohol and anxiety slowly replaced self-respect...

When life finally becomes quiet, why do we feel the need to fill every empty space with another thought? In this Sunday Sticky Note, I explore how our minds become crowded—not because of what’s happening around us, but because of what we continue to build within us. Sometimes the greatest gift we can give ourselves is a little open space between our ears.

Episode 26 – When Admitting You Have a Problem Becomes the Problem Sometimes the hardest part of recovery isn’t asking for help. It’s admitting to yourself that you need it. In this week’s 3-Minute Sticky Note, I talk about the quiet conversation we have with ourselves before anyone else knows something is wrong. Whether it’s alcohol, anxiety, or another struggle, real change often begins with one...

We spend so much of our lives filling every quiet moment with another thought, another worry, or another story. But what if the most valuable space in your mind is the one you never build on? In today’s Sunday Sticky Note, I share why not every thought deserves your attention—and why leaving a few vacant lots between your ears might be where peace begins.

For years I envied calm people. I thought they had something I was missing. In this episode, I talk about the trap of comparing our inside to someone else’s outside, and how real peace isn’t borrowed from other people—it’s discovered within ourselves. That would be enough to make me click.

Welcome to Sunday’s Short Sticky Note. Each Sunday, I’ll share a short message pulled from my experiences with addiction, anxiety, recovery, and life. These aren’t long episodes or deep dives—just a few minutes of reflection and a simple idea to carry into the week ahead. One thought. One lesson. One sticky note. Take care of yourself, enjoy your week, and I’ll talk to you soon.

We all carry different versions of ourselves — the anxious one, the guilty one, the angry one, the calm one. The thoughts you binge on decide which version shows up. This episode is about noticing the mental loops we feed and choosing which version of ourselves gets the microphone.

For years, I believed there was something fundamentally wrong with me because of my anxiety. I avoided people, made excuses, and hardened myself against the very things I wanted most — connection, friendship, and life itself. In this episode, I share how fearful thinking kept me stuck and the realization that helped me see that I wasn’t broken after all. If you’ve ever wondered, “What’s wrong with...

Perspective: Walking Into the Uncomfortable Loss has a way of stripping away the noise and leaving only the truth of what actually matters. I recently lost a dear friend—someone who believed in me long before the books or this podcast existed. Her passing shifted my perspective in a hurry. It reminded me that we can’t control who listens or who understands us; we can only control the act of showin...

Before your week starts, a reminder for anyone who has spent too much time fighting themselves. For years, I thought staying silent, avoiding people, and handling everything on my own was the safest way to live. Looking back, I realize anxiety slowly became part of my identity—not because it was who I was, but because it was how I learned to survive. In this short Sunday bonus episode, I share a m...

The Spotlight Effect: Why Nobody Actually Cares (And Why That’s Good News) Do you ever feel like the world is a giant jury and you’re the one on trial? In this episode, Gerard dives into the "invisible committee" we all carry in our heads. From the paralyzing fear that stopping to re-tie a shoelace while jogging will become "headline news," to the panic of an emergency bathroom break in the bushes...

A short Sunday bonus from one of the earliest episodes of the podcast about anxiety, overthinking, and mistaking silence for healing. Sometimes alcohol wasn’t about getting drunk — it was about trying to find relief from the noise inside my own mind.

We only get to live today once. There’s no fast‑forward button on life, and there’s no rewind either. In this episode, I talk about what happens when we keep replaying painful moments, rolling them around until they turn into anxiety. I share how I used to let alcohol do my thinking for me, and what it took to finally reclaim my own thoughts. Bitterness, jealousy, resentment — those are thoughts w...