How to Be Human

We are all guilty of avoiding difficult conversations with friends, finishing our household chores, or taking the initiative to complete a difficult work project that nobody wants to tackle — sounds familiar, right? As humans, we tend to adopt avoidant behaviors and tendencies in order to deal with an uncomfortable, unpleasant, or difficult situation.  Psychologically, avoidance is a coping m...

If you are human, being able to trust another individual is tricky — not to mention, even trusting yourself can be hard at times. However, trust creates psychological safety, encourages questioning and risk-taking, and allows for more stable relationships. It is, therefore, important for us to learn how to rely on our friends, family, or significant other by believing in their integrity and streng...

Shame can be defined as "a feeling of embarrassment or humiliation that arises in relation to the perception of having done something dishonorable and moral or improper". The feeling of shame typically becomes evident when we overanalyze and evaluate ourselves too harshly, often for things that are out of our control. As a result, many of us experience this low-grade feeling of embarrassment that...

Being on the receiving end of someone’s projection of their own insecurities starts at a young age. Maybe your parents wanted you to be the star athlete or social butterfly that they never were. Or perhaps there was someone in your class who bullied you for your weight or hand-me-down clothes. Chances are, those criticisms and worries were core anxieties that others unconsciously projected onto yo...

The past two years of the pandemic have brought to the forefront a lot of issues that have strained or even broken our friendships. As we emerge from months when you may have lost touch with friends and are eager to reconnect, it is important to think strategically about maintaining the level of connection you had before. In today’s episode, we re-examine some of our former friendships, their stre...

In this week’s episode of How to Be Human, we will be taking a deep dive into the topic of insecurities. Many of us — at one point or another in our lives — have struggled with low self-esteem. Its constant presence can influence the way in which we live our lives. It can be caused by various factors such as past traumas, social anxiety, fear of rejection, and loneliness. However, once we realize...

Though it’s one of the greatest privileges in life to have a body, it can also be a difficult and complicated gift, especially for women. Many of us are in a constant battle of trying to understand and be kind to our bodies. In today’s episode, we discuss barriers and fears that hinder our relationship with our bodies, and how we’re working to heal those wounds.  Can you remember a time when...

There’s a difference between making a judgment and being judgemental. The former relies on intuition and the latter stems from a place of criticism. Judgment can be a way to maintain safety, but unhelpful and overly critical comments are usually a manifestation of our own insecurities. Not only that, but it can amplify those feelings of low self-esteem.  As a culture, we've gotten so comforta...

When it comes down to it, pessimism and optimism are protection methods. One lets us relish in negativity and victimhood, and the other leaves us soothed and hopeful. Somewhere between those two extremes exists realism, and the goal is to live in that gray space. Sounds simple, right? In today’s episode, we discuss how that’s not exactly the case.  Women are really tapped into avoiding being...

This week, we’re talking all about knowledge. We start off by comparing our upbringings and how our performances in school shaped how we saw ourselves. For Anna, being the only person in her overachieving family with a learning disability automatically made her ‘the dumb one,’ and Nina skated by with her memorization skills (but don’t ask her to do long division now. That’s why we have calculators...

When Nina’s ex-boyfriend snarkily told her that he and his friends called her “Negative Nina,” she knew she should’ve run far away. Instead, she ignored every signal her mind and body were sending her, and ended up in a hellish apartment lease with “the king of all douchebags,” as she dubbed him. But as the saying goes, hindsight is 20/20, and Nina looks back on that time as a major turning point...

What is the definition of self-expression? According to Lexico, self-expression is “the expression of one’s feelings, thoughts, or ideas, especially in writing, art, music, or dance”. It is an important aspect of mental health because self-expression is an excellent way to find the real version of oneself, become more balanced, and lead a happier life. Reconnecting with your inner child can help y...

What does it mean to be vulnerable and what does it mean to willingly open your heart to others? As Dr. Brené Brown mentions in her TED talk, The Power of Vulnerability, she describes the act of vulnerability as “the willingness to do something where there are no guarantees” or, more narrowly defined, “the willingness to invest in a relationship that may or may not work out”. She notes that by all...

Power is complex and there are many kinds of power. By definition, power is the ability to act or produce an effect. Power is the capacity for being acted upon or undergoing an effect, legal or official capacity or right. Power is the possession of control, authority, or influence over others. Personal power, on the other hand, is the ability to influence people and events with or without formal a...

What does it mean to feel ‘rooted’ or ‘grounded’ in your environment? By definition, according to the Webster-Miriam dictionary, these terms are described as “the feelings of being firmly established and connected to your surroundings”. This meaning, however, varies between individuals; it depends on whether the pieces of your built environment are functioning harmoniously or are in a state of dis...

Feeling is a natural part of experiencing the world, but that doesn’t mean that learning to anticipate and accept our emotions is easy, especially when unexpected situations arise. Although we can’t control when we might experience the burn of anger or sting of sorrow, how we react to our emotions is fully within our personal power. Oftentimes the natural reaction to a feeling is to fix it through...

Life is a varied and wide-ranging experience, and there is no doubt that some journeys are better than others. However, as humans, we rarely take a balanced, clear, and super-informed look at what happens to us all – young and old – when we analyze our actions and behaviors. For example, how do we give ourselves permission to experience more joy? How do our actions and behaviors characterize us in...