Mental Health & Addiction Podcast: Mind Matters by Gordon Bruin

Harness the magic woven into words, for they shape reality—this is the essence of "spelling." Bruce Lee once warned against self-deprecation, even in jest; our bodies can't discern sarcasm from sincerity. Words are a force, capable of conjuring joy and resilience within us. Embrace affirmations as your inner mantra: "Yes, I can!" Let this be your battle cry against li...

This morning, as I thumbed through an old notebook filled with musings from the last couple of years, my thoughts turned to a theme that's been prominent in recent therapy sessions: change. The concept of "decision" intrigued me, derived from "incise," which means cutting away all but one path. I reflected on a couple I'm counseling who are trapped in a cycle of constan...

Yesterday, I sat with a client entangled in a high-stress legal battle, struggling to anchor himself amidst life's tumultuous waves through the simple act of breathing. Despite his external success, he found himself adrift in anxiety's grasp, unable to still his mind long enough to engage in our prescribed box breathing exercises—a technique where breath is drawn, held, and released...

I wanna start this morning's podcast with a reminder of some of the things that I've talked about before as it relates to the mindset of those who seem to be the most successful at navigating through the challenges of life. The stormy seas of life, all of us face obstacles daily, whether it's anxiety, depression, feelings of isolation. And I was reading a study recently that that state...

Well, here I am beginning of another week. It's Monday morning. It's actually 4:27 AM. This is a typical morning for me. I'm sitting in the parking lot of the gym that I come to, and it's doesn't open till 5. Not a soul in the parking lot sitting here by myself, not one other car. On my drive in, I think, it's about a 20:20 minute drive to the gym. I don't know. Maybe s...

At the crack of dawn, 4:03 AM to be precise, I'm en route to my temple of iron—the gym. It's a sacred ritual for me, one that doesn't require an alarm anymore; my body knows when it's time to rise and grind. The stillness before sunrise is where I thrive, especially from 5 to 8 AM. That’s when I dive into a symphony of physical exertion—cycling, swimming, lifting...

I wanna introduce you to the concept of dailies. Dailies are small and simple things that you do on a consistent basis based on the values that you set for yourself, and you get out of the arena of going, do I really wanna do this or not? For example, exercise. Every single morning, well, 6 days a week, I wake up about 4 o'clock. I'm not I'm not a total advocate that just because I wak...

In today's podcast, I just I just came across some notes that I jotted down. I have notebooks all over the place where sometimes I write thoughts and feelings, and I'm reflecting on some of the experiences I've been through as a mental health therapist. In one of my stops along the way in my professional career, I worked at a psychiatric hospital. Let me pull back the curtain a little...

I love a story that was told by Carol Dweck in her book Mindset. Anyway, it's a fantastic book. I'd recommend it. I read it a number of years ago. And, anyway, I come back to it over and over again. But she talks about the power of just going to work on things. And she tells us a little story. George Danzig was a graduate student in math at Berkeley. One day as usual he rushed in late to d...

In today's podcast, wanna talk about the importance of just getting engaged in your life, confronting whatever it is you need to be confronting right now. No matter how difficult, no matter how challenging, you have the power within you to do incredible things. I was listening to a podcast by, William McRaven. He was he's the guy that did your make the bed speech, University of Texas that...

In today's podcast, I would like to introduce you to a certain way of thinking that has been extremely helpful in overcoming very challenging situations. And it it's it's a concept called the Stockdale paradox. Jim Stockdale was a military pilot who was shot down in the Vietnam War in 1967. He was the highest ranking military official who stayed in a prison that that had the name of th...

In today's podcast, I want to address the issue of addiction, kind of explaining how an addiction develops, what an addiction is, and then what to do about it. So as we grow in life, we come across many different experiences. Experiences that hit a certain part of the brain in the limbic system called the nucleus accumbens. That's where the highest concentration of dopamine receptor sites...

I was reminded this morning of a favorite passage from a book that's had a profound impact on millions of people throughout the years. The book is called The Road Less Traveled by m Scott Peck. And he says this. And the reason why I'm reading these these first couple of paragraphs, I just relate it to what I'm experiencing in life right now with not only myself, but all the clients tha...

In this morning's podcast, I just want to talk about the reality of the continual process of facing challenges in our life. The true problems in life, we need to accept that they're never really gonna be solved completely. They're not meant to be solved. So imagine if, everything were completely perfect in our lives, that we achieved everything we wanted to achieve, and we received eve...

In today's podcast, I'm discussing Judith Herman's seminal work "Trauma and Recovery," which I highly recommend for anyone interested in understanding or healing from trauma. Herman outlines three key stages of recovery: establishing safety, remembrance and mourning, and reconnection with everyday life. These stages resonate with the fundamental human needs for understanding,...

In this podcast, I wanna talk about how important it is to strive to find individuals in the world, in your circle of relationships that are safe to talk to? Why is it that we keep some of our deepest challenges secret and that we're not willing to openly talk about them? No. It's fear of criticism, fear of judgment, and yet carrying burdens around, the deep emotional burdens, just carryin...

In today's podcast, I would like to share a couple of examples or experiences that I've had, doing EMDR therapy with individuals who are struggling with PTSD. They're trauma survivors. So if you haven't Heard of EMDR? EMDR stands for eye movement desensitization and reprocessing. And to understand how, EMDR works, it is a process of trying to reach the subconscious part of the brai...

What is the right thing to do? That would be a good question. As you're pondering the things that you're giving your attention to. We have choice in what we choose to attend to. But unless we become more mindful and intentional, Our attention will be stolen. There are forces. They're just our energies out there that are very, very powerful in grabbing attention based on based on how th...

To begin this podcast, I wanna read a couple of paragraphs from 2 books that I have found to be very helpful. One of them is called The Virus of the Mind by Richard Brody. Subtitle is The New Science of the Mean, and the other one is a book called Indistractable by Nir Eyal. And it follows the things that we've been talking about as it relates to our attention is the most important commodity t...

In this podcast, want to continue the the train of thought, life is a matter of attention, plugging energy leaks, learning to set boundaries around yourself, healthy boundaries, as as to the individuals that you're giving your time and attention to and, really, what is going on in your mind. Remember William James saying, my life is what I choose to attend to. Also, I want you to think, of the...

One of the themes that has seemed to be constant with, those individuals that I'm working with in the therapeutic setting is this feeling of exhaustion, being overwhelmed, having too many seems vying for their attention. It's like sources are are striving to grab attention. For attention is is the commodity that the people are after, if you really think about it. All advertising, all marke...

Aristotle believed that excellence is a deliberate choice, not luck. It's about high intention, effort, and smart execution. As we watch sports like football, where the Philadelphia Eagles outperform while the Buffalo Bills struggle this season, it prompts us to question our human obsession with excellence and fear of failure. Excellence seems embedded in our nature; we celebrate A's over...

In today's podcast, I wanna talk about the importance of slowing down and being present. I recently read a statistic that said that people spend about 50% of their waking hours thinking about doing something other than what they are doing. In other words, mind wandering. Imagine half of our lives are spent kind of spacing out. So think about like, for example, when you're when you're d...

In this podcast, I want to focus on the concept of small and simple changes in a person's life that result in tremendous outcomes. And I want to begin this podcast by relating to an experience I had just yesterday. My son-in-law is building a house, I mean, from from ground up. He's a construction manager. That's where his gifts lie. His Skill wise. It's absolutely phenomenal what...

In this podcast, I wanna talk about how the environment really impacts us as human beings. Our living situation, those whom we associate with, just encourage you to pay attention to that as I discuss a couple of ideas today. Going back to 1971, as the Vietnam War was heading into its 16th year, There were a couple of congressmen, Robert Steele and Morgan Murphy, that made a discovery that stunned...