This Feels Familiar with Minaa B.

Introducing my second book, Siblinghood: Resolve Conflict, Heal Resentment, and Find Peace in Your Sibling Relationships, on sale March 9, 2027! 🥳 Whether your siblings are biological, adopted, step-, or half-siblings, Siblinghood guides you through our most influential yet least examined family bonds: adult sibling relationships. As the youngest of 13 in a blended family, I experienced firs...

In this episode, Minaa B. explores emotional intimacy—what it is, why it's essential in all relationships, and the signs you're struggling with it. Sources cited in this episode: Gottman & Silver (2015) - Research on open and honest communication in couples and relationship satisfaction Laurenceau et al. - Research on couples with high emotional closeness and relationship satisfaction Karremans et...

In this episode, Minaa B. explores catastrophic thinking—the anxious brain's tendency to jump from small triggers straight to worst-case outcomes—and how this pattern sabotages both mental health and relationships. Resources Website: minaab.com Newsletter:  ⁠⁠⁠Subscribe here Order my book: Owning Our Struggles⁠⁠⁠ Stay Connected! ⁠Instagram LinkedIn⁠  Facebook⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad...

In this episode, Minaa B. addresses one of the hardest things about adulthood: making and sustaining friendships. She shares research on adult loneliness and how friendships naturally decline without proximity and intentional effort. Minaa explores the barriers to friendship, then breaks down concrete steps for making friends. SOURCES CITED IN THIS EPISODE American Perspectives Survey (2021) - Dat...

In this episode, Minaa B. explores the crucial difference between being nice and being kind—and why this distinction is transforming how people show up in their relationships. She breaks down how niceness prioritizes others' comfort over your own well-being, while kindness involves telling the truth and setting boundaries. Resources Website: minaab.com Newsletter:  ⁠⁠⁠Subscribe here Order my...

In this episode, Minaa B. examines what unhealthy relationships actually look like—and why people normalize them. She breaks down six key signs of unhealthy relationships and explores why people don't recognize these patterns. The episode covers romantic relationships, friendships, family dynamics, and sibling relationships—recognizing that relationship quality is one of the biggest predictors of...

In this episode, Minaa B. explores how childhood wounds—specifically emotional neglect and abandonment—show up in your dating patterns and sabotage your relationships. She also examines the often-overlooked role of sibling dynamics in shaping these wounds, including golden child/scapegoat patterns that compound feelings of unworthiness. Minaa breaks down how these wounds manifest in dating and off...

In this episode, Minaa B. addresses a question she hears constantly in therapy: "What else can I do to make this relationship work?" She explores the signs that you've already done enough, examines why we keep trying, and guides listeners through the painful shift from "How do I fix this?" to "Can I make peace with this relationship being what it is?" Resources Website: minaab.com Newsletter:  ⁠⁠⁠...

In this episode, Minaa B. addresses the persistent feeling of not being enough that many people carry from childhood emotional neglect. She explores what emotional neglect teaches about worth—that love is conditional, needs are too much, and you're fundamentally lacking—and why this wound is so hard to heal. Resources Work with me: Book a 1:1 therapy consultation. Website: minaab.com Newsletter: ...

In this episode, Minaa B. explores a pattern she's seeing: people using morally charged, shame-based language to control others' behavior instead of exercising their own agency through boundaries. She examines how terms like "invasive," "rude," and "offensive" are used to police normal communication behaviors rather than to develop assertiveness and boundaries. Minaa breaks down where your agency...

In this episode, Minaa B. reframes imposter syndrome as a scarcity blueprint—a relational pattern learned in childhood, not a personal failing. She explores the roots of chronic self-doubt through the first dimension of The Siblinghood Theory: Competition and Scarcity. Minaa examines how growing up competing with siblings and peers for limited love, attention, and recognition creates a blueprint o...

In this episode, Minaa B. explores sibling codependency—when closeness crosses into enmeshment and siblings can't function independently. She defines what sibling codependency looks like, why it develops and gives special attention to twins who are often expected to be a single unit rather than two separate people. Minaa then breaks down the crucial distinction between codependency and healthy clo...

In this episode, Minaa B. challenges the narrative that only eldest daughters are parentified by giving voice to middle and younger children who were forced to become the "functional eldest" in their families. She explores five key reasons why middle and younger children end up carrying adult responsibilities and how parentification fundamentally distorts sibling relationships by creating resentme...

In this episode, Minaa B. explores how parental favoritism fundamentally damages sibling relationships through the lens of The Siblinghood Theory. She breaks down what favoritism actually looks like and examines the specific burdens carried by favored and unfavored children. She then explores how favoritism destroys the sibling bond and offers concrete strategies for working through favoritism wit...

In this episode, Minaa B. explores why siblings drift apart in adulthood—a question she's asked constantly as a therapist specializing in sibling relationships. Drawing from research on sibling dynamics, she breaks down the complex factors that create distance: childhood closeness that was really just proximity, personality and temperament differences, the impact of mental illness and addiction, p...

In this episode, Minaa B. explores why it’s so easy to carry old relational wounds into new relationships—and how those unresolved patterns can quietly shape the way you connect, communicate, and respond to conflict. If you’ve ever felt like your reactions in relationships are bigger than the moment, struggled to trust even when someone shows up consistently, or noticed yourself repeating the same...

In this episode, Minaa B. breaks down why rejection while dating can feel so much deeper than it “should”—and why it often has less to do with the moment and more to do with your relational history. If you’ve ever found yourself overanalyzing what went wrong, questioning your worth, or feeling like rejection hits harder than expected, this conversation will help you understand why. Through the len...

In this episode, Minaa B. explores the situationship you know you're in—not the confusing kind, but the one where you're fully aware it's not going anywhere, and you're stuck anyway. With warmth and zero judgment, she breaks down why you stay even when you know better: the need for connection over loneliness, the fear of conflict and rupture, scarcity thinking around relationships, and the real em...

In this episode, Minaa B. challenges the idea that self-love is enough to stop you from choosing the wrong person. She breaks down why relationship choices are driven by unconscious patterns, not just self-worth—exploring how your brain seeks familiarity over health, how early sibling and peer dynamics create blueprints for attraction, and how external pressure (the financial and social cost of be...

In this episode, Minaa B. speaks directly to the friend who struggles with envy—the one whose chest tightens when someone shares good news, who can't quite bring themselves to celebrate a peer's success. She explores how sibling dynamics and peer relationships taught us that success is limited, and why your friend's win can feel like your failure. Minaa breaks down where envy comes from, why adult...

In this episode, Minaa B. tackles the polarizing discourse around family estrangement—is it a trend or survival? She breaks down what estrangement really is, why people choose it, and what's missing from the social media conversation: the grief, the ambivalence, the cost, and the complexity that a 60-second video can't capture. Drawing on concepts like little t traumas and "death by a thousand pap...

In this episode, Minaa B. explores what it means to have an emotionally immature sibling and why it feels different from dealing with an emotionally immature parent. She breaks down what emotional immaturity actually looks like—the defensiveness, the manipulation, the inability to take responsibility—and examines why some siblings develop emotional maturity while others stay stuck. Using The Sibli...

In this episode, Minaa B. unpacks the silent treatment—not as someone needing space, but as a power move rooted in manipulation. she explores why people use silence as a weapon, how it shows up across sibling relationships, friendships, romantic partnerships, and workplace dynamics, and the psychological toll it takes on the person being shut out.  Minaa offers practical strategies for recognizing...

Do you ever have that weird feeling that says, "I've been in this situation before?" The same conflict. The same feeling that no matter what you do, the pattern repeats. That familiar feeling isn't a coincidence–it's a pattern. And This Feels Familiar can help you change it. Your patterns aren't personal failures—they're relational. They were shaped by early experiences with siblings, peers, and f...

In this episode, Minaa B. explores why so many people feel trapped in the roles they were assigned growing up—the responsible one, the peacekeeper, the funny one, the invisible one. Drawing from The Siblinghood Theory's Role Rigidity dimension, she breaks down how sibling and peer dynamics create fixed identities that follow us into adulthood, showing up in friendships, romantic relationships, and...