Freedom from Attachment

Go ahead, buy that car. You’re worth it. Your well-earned promotion will finally show people you have arrived. How do you measure your worth? Is it by what other people label as important, or what you feel inside? Will chasing money, fame and success make you feel worthy and valued? Of course not. Some of the most successful people in the world have an enormous sense of lack, believing more accola...

As a self-proclaimed late bloomer, it took Treva Brandon Scharf longer than most to find her direction in life. After attending multiple colleges, Treva moved from Beverly Hills to New York, then back to LA, racking up a string of relationships she was never fully committed to. It wasn’t until she hit her 40s that she realized she forgot to get married and have kids (oops). Join Treva as she share...

The same dance happens all the time in unhealthy relationships between an anxious and an avoidant. The anxious struggles with self-value so they perform: see me, pay attention to me! This neediness causes the avoidant to run. But then, when the avoidant is away, they miss their anxious partner. They want to feel that “closeness” again so the avoidant returns and the whole cycle goes on repeat with...

Let me set the scene: You’re dating someone and feel this incredible connection. Maybe you sleep together. Then, seemingly out of nowhere they say, “I adore you but I can’t give you what you want and hope we can hang out as friends.” Gut punch. It’s incredibly painful, especially when you thought things were going well. But what’s even more painful? Going along with it. You’re afraid that if you l...

As a kid, Suzanne wanted to be famous. So it’s fitting that today she lights up whenever she’s on stage, inspiring people to reach their highest potential. But, of course, there was a dark area in between. When she had her heart broken at age 16, a wall went up that wouldn’t come down for many years. Instead of feeling her emotions, Suzanne waited for the clock to strike 5pm every day so she could...

Growing up, did you have to people-please and perform to earn your spot on Santa’s “nice” list? For many of us, we learned that gifts had to be earned, and there wasn’t much room for a good person who screwed up sometimes (i.e. a regular ol’ human). We were labeled as either good or bad, worthy or unworthy. For a jolly fellow, there sure were a lot of strings attached. And we got the pleasure of c...

You don’t trust your partner. He/she is lying and cheating… or you’re afraid they are. Maybe you have an ex who cheated on you so you are hyper-aware of certain behavior. Like if you see your partner acting flirty with someone, which sends you into that crazy, anxious paranoid mode. This reaction, however, is more a reflection of your negative beliefs and how you don’t trust YOURSELF. You don’t tr...

“I love failing and I don’t think it should be a dirty word.” —Lola Berry Lola Berry is one of those rare birds who runs towards what scares her and embraces failure, believing there is always something to learn. With every fail, fall, and drop, she builds her resilience and stands a little bit taller. As a kid, she wanted to be an actress, and today she is chasing that dream in Los Angeles. Born...

When something doesn’t go your way in a relationship, or you don’t get what you want, insecurities can get triggered: I’m unlovable, I’m never a priority, this always happens to me, etc. And that can turn into desperation for what you’re not getting. You NEED it so you try to strategize how to get it... yet a feeling of powerlessness remains. In this week’s podcast we’ll look at what fuels this de...

Are you still stuck on a relationship that ended months, maybe even years ago? You’re still carrying this longing inside of you, always wondering what life would have been like if they had stayed. A part of you is still waiting for them to come back, to give you some kind of closure for the sacrifices you made. Looking back on your memories, you think you still love them. It may feel like love, bu...

Jen is a mom of six with a PhD in human development and family studies. Growing up in Iowa to farmer parents, Jen was often in charge of her younger brothers—even cooking meals by age 8. She kept the house running and constantly questioned whether her bedroom was clean enough. This, unsurprisingly, led to perfectionism and over-achieving (ahem, PhD and six kids!), so by her mid 30s she was massive...

Avoidants avoid—that’s what they do! And when they try to avoid pain, they remain stuck in a state of struggle (although they don’t know they’re in struggle). If you are an avoidant, your emotions are often left unbothered and undisturbed. You may go through life believing you’re happy because you have numbed the pain. But if a crisis hits and your emotions are out of control, you compartmentalize...

Oh how intoxicating chemistry can be. The high that tells you you’re alive; a combustible mixture of floating and anxiety that makes you believe you can’t live without drinking the other person in. You think you need the fireworks…as if that’s real life. It’s not. Those outsized moments have nothing to do with reality or a healthy relationship. And how often is that high followed up with panic and...

When Marni was a kid, she knew deep down she wasn’t the favorite or the golden child, but she pretended it wasn’t true. As class president and editor of the school paper, overachieving was how she proved her worth. It wasn’t until after her failed marriage that Marni started looking for meaning that wasn’t attached to external achievements. “What are the things you’re pretending not to know that y...

Do you believe trust must be earned? Like your partner showing you their texts to prove he/she is dedicated. Trust isn’t about controlling what another person says or does, and it’s not something to be exchanged, like money. In fact, trust isn’t about other people at all—it’s about you. When you don’t trust yourself to handle a situation, you decide the other person is the problem. Trust occurs wh...

This episode is for all the chronic dieters out there. That used to be me. I was just as attached to dieting as I was to finding the perfect partner. Yes, attached to dieting because attachment usually doesn’t restrict itself to one area of your life. Whether the object of your attachment is a partner or food, they both come from a state of lack; you need something (or someone) to fill you up. If...

Juliette’s life has been peppered with grief and trauma, beginning around age 10 when her brother lit their garage on fire and the family moved from Holland to Texas (without the brother). At 15, she found her mom after having swallowed sleeping pills, then swiftly took her to the hospital. As an adult she experienced several close family deaths, and later uncovered a trauma that she had buried: b...

You attract people exactly where you are. If you’re unavailable, you will attract someone who is unavailable. To attract open, you must BE open. People who are attracted to emotionally unavailable people are attached to UNREALISTIC outcomes, and their idea of a good partner is narrow—as in they need to fit the perfect picture. Maybe you want to meet someone so you don’t spend the holidays alone, p...

A lot of people are afraid of settling, and yet, those same people believe they don’t deserve what they want. They feel broken, hoping someone else will come along to fix them. To anyone who believes they’re broken, I offer this: it’s a lie. You are whole and have so much inside that is valuable. You just can’t see it… yet. When you feel broken, you end up sabotaging everything to prove you are, i...

Dr. Helané Wahbeh is part clinical researcher and part intuitive. When she went to a channeling at her grandparent’s house at the age of 10, she connected with the intuitive side of herself. Named after her great grandmother who was a midwife and healer, Helané’s intrinsic desire to learn about health and healing let her to become a naturopathic physician. After a few years of private practice, so...

“Toxic” gets thrown around a lot lately as though it’s a disease we want to stay away from. “Get that toxic person away from me!” or “I only want positive people in my life.” When parents say something triggering, they’re toxic. When a partner or roommate has a meltdown over dirty dishes in the sink, they’re toxic. This is how we create distance. You are absolutely in charge of who you spend time...

Oh denial, what a comfy, cozy place it can be. Especially when you’re in denial about being attached. It’s easier to dress it up to family and friends so it doesn’t sound as bad as it feels. It’s easier to lie to yourself so you don’t have to deal with disappointment. And maybe, if you deny what’s going on, you won’t have to face all those painful negative feelings, right? Wrong. Hoping and wishin...

“Positive psychology and entrepreneurship are vehicles to activate and strengthen and thrive.” --Niyc Pidgeon Niyc Pidgeon is known as “the girl who made Elon Musk cry” because of her thought-provoking, emotional question to him about the challenges of entrepreneurship. But it was her own challenges that led her to study positive psychology. At a young age, Niyc was bullied in school for being aca...

Codependency can feel like an addiction. You surrender your own feelings to make another person happy, using them as a way to fulfill needs you should be fulfilling yourself. Maybe you can't even remember a time when a relationship didn’t feel like work. You're always sacrificing your own happiness to make someone else happy. But how did you get to this place? How does someone become codependent?...

I want you, and I want you NOW. Have you ever wanted someone so badly that you’ll run down anything that stands in your way? Maybe you think of elaborate ways to hook them, thinking he or she is the answer to your prayers. It’s an urgency caused by the intensity of illusion. Yes, illusion. That’s because this intense feeling disguises itself as love, but it isn’t love. It’s attachment, and unfortu...