The Deep Resilience Podcast

Our attention is under siege! These days there are so many things fighting for our attention that it can be a challenge to decide what to focus on. We are constantly bombarded by “mental junk food” while scrolling on our phones, flicking through magazines or surfing the internet. Like actual junk food, consumption of too much “mental junk food” can be damaging to our minds. On episode 24 of Mental...

Do you ever have unhelpful thoughts gnawing away at your mood and self-esteem?  In this episode of Mentally Stronger, I discuss how mindfulness can help you prevent negative thoughts, worries, self-doubts and resentments from becoming repeated patterns.  For many of us, it’s the greatest threat to our mental strength, but if we have the tools, we’ll find the resolve and strength to beat...

Should you try to get rid of your negative thoughts? It’s a question I get asked a lot when I'm teaching retreats and courses, so I wanted to explore the idea of thought suppression more closely. When we try to get rid of negative thoughts, many of us will naturally try to suppress them. But you may have realised by now that this rarely works. In this episode of Mentally Stronger, I explain what t...

We all encounter challenging dilemmas in our lives. They’re those moments when we feel like we’re at a crossroad and don’t know which way to turn. Do I stay or do I leave? Do I buy or do I save? Do I take this path or that path? It can be a real struggle to figure out how to approach these dilemmas without feeling stressed, frustrated or confused. In fact, when we worry too much about these dilemm...

Have you heard of the term ‘paper tigers’? It’s used to describe something or someone that claims to be powerful and threatening but, in actuality, is ineffectual and unable to withstand challenges. If we take this into the context of our emotions, many fear-invoking thoughts are ‘paper tigers’. They appear threatening on the surface but, as we think about them more or as time goes on, we realise...

As we go about daily life, a lot of our behaviour is compelled by a deep desire to be seen as successful, attractive and admirable.   Maybe, we even want to be seen as better than others. Prettier, more intelligent, more successful or better at something. We all want to feel special.   But what it all boils down to is…we just want to be accepted. We just want to be loved. ...

At times, it can be a challenge to be true to ourselves. But developing trust in yourself and your own wisdom is key to greater mental strength. Absorbing advice, teachings and guidance from peers and leaders can, of course, be positive and help us learn. But it’s important to know when this gets too much and stops us from trusting what our own instincts, intuitions and feelings are trying to tell...

In our culture, we are repeatedly told that it’s bad to feel ‘negative’ emotions. When we feel emotions like fear, sadness, anger, and shame, we often believe we need to brush them under the carpet, suppress them or push on through. But, in fact, all emotions we feel serve an important purpose in our lives. In this episode of Mentally Stronger, I explore the idea that emotions are our allies – not...

Some of us are going through life, unaware of how negative patterns affect us. Some of us are the total opposite, breezing through, effortlessly practicing helpful mental strength skills and cultivating lasting happiness.  All of us are somewhere on the path toward becoming mentally stronger, and all of us have the potential to reach that satisfying state of greater mental strength.  In...

How can we cultivate a life of great meaning and fulfilment?  Much of our lives are in pursuit of material goals and achievements like salary, job title, educational achievements and so on. While these things are great goals to have, if we want to find more meaning in our lives, we must not only pursue our “resume virtues,” but also focus on “eulogy virtues” as well.  In this episode of...

Positivity is a wonderful thing. But there are times when it can go too far.   Toxic positivity is a term used to describe an unhealthy fixation with positive thinking styles and pleasant emotional states.   Someone caught up in toxic positivity may try to be happy all the time, put positive spins on negative experiences, and even encourage others to remain positive in tragic a...

We often think of language as a vehicle for expressing ourselves to others. But we also speak to ourselves all the time in our minds.  What we don’t often realise is the significant impact of the words we choose to use. These words make a huge impression on our moods, other people’s moods and even our health. In this episode of Mentally Stronger, I look at how changing our language, both with...

When frustrating, aggravating or upsetting things happen in life, do you often find yourself taking it personally? Sometimes we can feel targeted or angered when things don’t go our way or when a person we love doesn’t do what we expect of them. But cultivating self-compassion, curiosity and compassion for other people can help. In this episode of Mentally Stronger, I explore how we can take a ste...

We live in a world where the media defines success. Cash, cars, and expensive clothes are what many of us strive for, and we are told achieving these goals will make us happy and successful. But how much of that is really true? In this episode of Mentally Stronger, I ask: “How are you defining success?” It’s important to remember that we don’t have to buy into the idea that material wealth and ind...

For many of us, we look to external factors to boost our self-worth. We compare ourselves to others and conclude that we are less or more good-looking, wealthy or successful than them. But is our worthiness really in our behaviours and what others think of us? In this episode of Mentally Stronger, I explore the best ways to cultivate true self-worth and look at how, turning the pattern of seeking...

Do you ever catch yourself asking negative questions in your head, like “why is this happening to me?” or even “why am I such an idiot?” It’s no surprise that negative questions like these result in bad feelings. We can end up feeling disempowered, anxious, angry, or depressed. However, I want to share with you a simple but powerful mental strength hack. And that is learning to control the focus o...

It can be so easy to get caught up in stress, anxiety, and unhelpful thoughts and emotions. In times like these, we need to create some mental space, but how? In this episode of Mentally Stronger, I explore a favourite practice of mine called “when in doubt, zoom out.” This practice helps us to zoom out from whatever negativity we’re focusing on at that moment, to see a wider perspective and creat...

Mental strength is not a destination. It’s not a perfection project. It’s a moment-by-moment choice that we make to tap into what’s deepest and truest in us, and to let that flow out of us unimpeded. It’s not about becoming something better. It’s about knowing ourselves more deeply and becoming ourselves more fully. In this episode of Mentally Stronger, I talk about my journey and what led me to w...

It’s natural for us to overthink. We often find ourselves ruminating over things that have happened and overthinking how we dealt with situations. Many of us also worry about things in the future, like difficult conversations we will have to make, stressful presentations, or maybe our health or relationships. But letting go of overthinking can bring us a sense of freedom and peace of mind. It’s a...

Regret, for our hunter-gatherer ancestors, was a handy survival strategy. After living through a run-in with a sabre-toothed tiger or a rival clan, their minds went over and over the scenario in order to learn anything that would give them a better chance of survival next time. However, leap forward a few hundred thousand years and our minds tend to do the same thing around moments of hurt, embarr...

Throughout our lives, we will encounter difficult emotions. They can often catch us off guard and bring about a sense of defeat or disappointment.  At times, we will feel grief, sadness, anger, remorse, anxiety and a host of other emotions. It’s through these times that we need our mental strength the most. As human beings, our first instinct when these unpleasant emotions arrive is to either...

Unfortunately, conflict is one of those things that pops up in our lives, whether we like it or not.  Say someone cuts in front of you in a long queue, or someone shows up an hour late for a meeting without an apology. The list of possible scenarios goes on and on, and they can be seemingly big or small issues. In those moments, it’s natural to jump to a place of anger, among other unpleasant...

It’s sometimes a lot easier to look at the negative side of things. That’s generally the way the human brain is wired. So, those days when the grass seems greener on the other side, or when negative experiences steer you towards a pessimistic train of thought — that’s all totally normal. But just because it’s normal doesn’t mean it’s healthy to stew in a pool of unhealthy thoughts. That’s why this...

Self-doubt is a totally normal part of life. At some point, even the most confident people experience waves of doubt. And some experience it so much that it keeps them from acting on what’s important to them. While some self-doubt can be healthy, toxic self-doubt must be combatted.  In episode one of my brand new podcast, Mentally Stronger, I explore what toxic self-doubt is, why we experienc...

How do you handle the emotional highs and lows life is constantly dishing out? While you'll probably find lots of answers out there, the truth is that tackling these issues starts from a place of mental strength. As someone who has devoted years to understanding what it means to be mentally strong, Melli O’Brien shares doable, evidence-based techniques that’ll fuel the mind on her show Mentally St...