The Overwhelmed Brain

What do you do when you face a challenge you believe you're prepared for, but you fail instead? The feelings of failure can be debilitating, especially when you've spent a lot of time and energy working on self-improvement. It can feel like you've taken 10 steps backwards. "Learning" comes with the challenge of applying what you've learned, so expect challenges to be just more than you think you'r...

Can you commit to a decision? How do you know if you're making the right decision? Follow your heart is great advice… if you even know what's in your heart. Segment 1 of this episode is all about making the decisions that work in your life without going down too many paths of failure. You have to make decisions to learn how to make good decisions, but sometimes that first decision is the hardest t...

In crisis, is there anything you can do to bring you into a calmer, more peaceful place? Actually, not usually. In fact, you may have to experience the full impact of the crisis before any calm or comfort can be had. However, you may be able to prepare for crisis so it doesn't completely debilitate you. It involves creating a belief system or philosophy that serves you during this most crucial tim...

A career can take up over half your life, so why would you settle for one that makes you miserable? I've settled a lot over the years and I got so burnt out. I didn't realize there was a formula to finding something I'd like and that might even pay well, if not more than I've ever made. Scott Barlow with Happen To Your Career joins me to talk about what it takes to be happy in a career and even ma...

Are you walking around with an undertone of fear, anxiety, panic, or nervousness? What do you feel when nothing in general is happening in your life? What's your balance point or "homeostatic state"? When an uncomfortable or sad cloud follows you around all the time, it's hard to enjoy life. Especially because all the decisions you make are based on a foundation of this uncomfortableness. Many of...

Sexual and physical abuse survivors develop an abused mindset which they take into relationships. This mindset sets them up to be strung along and tolerate bad behavior. Often, former abuse victims end up with abusers in intimate relationships. Abusers of all kinds can play serious head games, including giving off a lot of mixed signals. Abuse survivors and even many non-survivors can have high to...

When obsessive and intrusive thoughts won't go away, what can you do? You might feel better knowing that won't mean a thing in a 100 years, but if resolving them isn't that easy for you, then let me take you through a series of steps that break them apart and repackage them in a way that might just help you deal with yours. In this segment, I'll ask you what's wrong with having obsessive thoughts,...

When is a bad thing a good thing? When is a good thing bad? How attached are you to outcomes? I tell a quick Zen Buddhist parable that might make you think twice about the stressors in the world today, especially with the heated political climate and growing fears of what might happen next. Not everything is as it appears. When you think there's no way out - life opens a door. The door is good for...

Judging others is a sign of something you're struggling with or haven't healed from internally. It is anger, sadness, or some other bad feeling that you haven't yet processed that is coming out and being directed at other people. You can say, "What they're doing is wrong!" but how is it wrong to you? Is it a belief or value you hold to be true, or is it something deeper like some other emotional w...

Is love enough? Will it overcome anything that happens in your life? Financial struggles, family problems, arguments, abuse and more... will your faith in love be enough to get you through the tough times? I read a letter from a young man who wonders if love is enough to get through anything. To add a bit of challenge on top of that, what if that love is only one-sided? In the second segment, I re...

Racial sensitivity is prevalent in the first segment of the show as I read a letter from a woman who was slightly offended at my use of stereotypical language in the last episode. Lots to discuss here. I go over that and more on ways to communicate with people that help develop and keep rapport. In segment two, I talk about how separating in your relationship can be highly beneficial and can lead...

What's in a dream? Are there literal interpretations or is there deeper meaning that isn't often explored? As always on this show, I go where others rarely do and look at dreams as a representation of emotions. What emotions are present in your dream? Are they revealing ones that might not yet be resolved? Dreams can be a great way to not only discover what they are, but even resolve them if you'r...

Friendships are created and can last a lifetime, but they can also disintegrate, never to be rekindled. What makes a friendship? How do you know if your friends are truly the ones that will be there with you and for you through all the good and bad times? In segment 2, I talk about the warning signs and paying attention to patterns of your suspicions about your partner's behavior, especially if th...

Tune in to every other New Year's podcast if you want to hear about resolutions. I'd rather talk about something you can think about the entire year when it comes to improving your life. Today's episode is all about compatibility and how you can look at any problem in life and narrow it down to a compatibility issue. Sometimes taking out the emotional part of the equation can be helpful if you wan...

Jealousy is a multi-faceted beast that can motivate you to say or do things that you may not normally say or do. It involves many emotions and can run (and ruin) your life if you don't address the real reasons you get jealous. Sometimes a fantasy is created in your head and you become jealous based on what may not even exist. Other times, there is hard data to prove that what you're jealous about...

The emotional healing journey consists of many ups and downs. A listener asks me how I managed to get through my journey and what I can share with others on what to expect. Whether you're starting your healing journey from scratch or still on a hot path of learning, healing and growing, there's always more to learn. I talk about what it takes to honor your boundaries in a healthy way (instead of w...

What do you do when your partner wants to spend more time away from home than with you? Is that a sign that there's something wrong in the relationship? Is there a more serious issue, perhaps they don't feel safe with you? In the first segment, I read a letter from a man who missed his fiance'. She would go out drinking with friends and family and he would be home alone trying not to be offended o...

Toxic relationships - friends, family, coworkers, and more. What can you do if you can't get away from them? Do you even know how to get away from them? How can you continue the relationship when you have no choice but to be with a toxic person? This episode gets into toxic people, including what one reviewer said about my show: Stay Away! I read that review on the air, and also read a couple lett...

There's a spiritual or philosophical correlation between an event that happened to you in your past and what is happening to you today. You may not recognize the significance of your behavior today, but when you are able to make the connection between present behavior and prior emotional events, it's like plugging a lamp into a socket and watching the light fill the room. The circuit between the p...

Giving can feel so good, but receiving can too so why do so many people have trouble receiving? Do you reject gifts or other offers? If so, why would you take the honor to give away from the giver? If you've not thought about it like that before, this segment is for you. In segment two, I read a letter from a woman who feels like she's wasted three years of her life with her emotionally abusive bo...

What is acceptable to you and what is not? What is considered self-sustaining and what is selfish? I read an email from someone who's in constant battle in his mind, unsure if he's honoring his personal boundaries or just being completely self serving. He also gets into a debate in his mind and over analyzes to the point of indecision. There's a way to decide, and it involves the question: What wh...

Sexual abuse should not be taboo. Survivors carry the shame, pain, and guilt when the reality is that the perpetrators should be the one carrying those things. The pain of past abuse is real and it doesn't go away without acceptance, letting it come up, processing (in many ways), healing (in many more ways), and finally releasing. This episode is focused on what to do to begin healing and where to...

What you say isn't always what they hear. What they understand isn't always what you conveyed. Who is responsible for the communication, you? Them? Both? Neither? It's time to explore this topic. On Ask Paul part 1, I read a message from someone who got out of a manipulative, abusive relationship with a malignant narcissist. It was a crazy time for her and she is healing, but she shares a lesson f...

With General Anxiety Disorder, is there a chance of getting free of the consistent feelings of anxiety and panic? Is there a remote chance of feeling better or even making it go away completely? Maybe... Also, I get a letter from a girl whose boyfriend gets jealous so she gets angry which causes him to insult her which causes her to react, and so on... is there a solution? I talk a little on jealo...

Can you laugh at criticism? Do you believe in yourself enough so that when someone calls you anything less than you really are, you can shrug it off without those sometimes hard to avoid feelings? When you get to a place inside where you are proud of yourself no matter what, then you'll find yourself genuinely laughing instead of reacting when someone is being critical of you. Children can seem to...