Drawing on decades of research in neuroplasticity, psychology, trauma, behavior, clinical experience with clients, and their own personal journeys of recovering from chronic illness and pain, Jennifer and Karden teach readers how to learn and ‘speak’ the language of the nervous system. Following a simple yet powerful approach called A I R, readers are guided through three stages of regulation: Awareness: Listening to the messages in your body through breath, action, sensations, emotions, and language. Interruption: stopping the unhelpful patterns in your nervous system and modifying the responses to achieve regulation Redesign: rewiring the habits that have been keeping you stuck in order to settle and heal your nervous system, mind and body. Our Sponsors: * Check out Happy Mammoth and use my code SELFWORK for a great deal: https://happymammoth.com Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Emotional manipulation can be hard to figure out. But when you do, it's also hard to know what to do about it. So today, I’m going to use two such questions from listeners to give you some ideas. First is from a mom who took care of her granddaughter a lot early on – and now feels that her daughter and her relationship has become toxic and the daughter is withholding her child from her. Second is from a woman who has “lots” kids with a man she’s been married to for many years. But she also writes that he's intensely enmeshed with his parents, choosing to spend much time with them over her, their kids, and/or her parents. And then blames her for not supporting him. What she seems to be describing is not having any true trust or shared goals with her husband. Here are three helpful questions to ask yourself is you're the victim of emotional manipulation: How do you figure out you’re being manipulated? What are you afraid will happen if you confront the manipulation? . If you choose to act, what’s a healthy way to move forward? Our Sponsors: * Check out Happy Mammoth and use my code SELFWORK for a great deal: https://happymammoth.com * Check out Midi Health: https://trymidi.com/selfwork Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Today we’re going to focus on the feeling that you're not important - a feeling likely created by how you were parented. How does this happen? Your parents' careers came first. The parents themselves came first for one another, only caring for the child as a secondhand and almost bothersome activity. Your being wasn’t celebrated – instead what you could achieve got some notice, as long as you continued to be successful. Your parent was overly self-involved because of their own trauma or mental illness – and never was it explained to you what was truly going on – so you believed you weren’t enough. At its worst, the dynamic of not feeling that you're important is rejection. At the best, it can feel like conditional love. And in between, the now adult child could feel a deep sense of emptiness and insecurity that they may seek to fill up in a myriad of ways. Our Sponsors: * Check out Happy Mammoth and use my code SELFWORK for a great deal: https://happymammoth.com * Check out Midi Health: https://trymidi.com/selfwork Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Today on SelfWork, we’re focusing on self-doubt and how to grow from failure. Or what you’re calling failure. But labeling something as a failure can be used in several different ways , can’t it? It can be motivating, or it can stop you in your tracks. It can cause tremendous embarrassment, even shame, or you can use it to grow. What you tell yourself about failure has such a strong impact on whether it leads you into depression, even apathy, or whether you take that failure in stride and integrate it – make it a part of your learning and keeping on keeping on. Our Sponsors: * Check out Happy Mammoth and use my code SELFWORK for a great deal: https://happymammoth.com * Check out Midi Health: https://trymidi.com/selfwork * Check out TruDiagnostic and use my code SELFWORK for a great deal: https://www.trudiagnostic.com Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

One of the hardest tasks we take on as humans is raising children. Many of us do a pretty good job of raising children. But many of us don't. Sadly, our kids are often left to become adults themselves and bear the scars of our anger, our addictions, or our neglect. And if they don't do something differently than we did, they can perpetuate the problem. Raising children poorly can then be passed on. It's called transgenerational trauma. And it's very real. Hunter Clarke-Fields didn't want to do that. And she tells us how she recognized that her anger with her children was something she needed to change, and how mindfulness and meditation helped her do that. Our Sponsors: * Check out Happy Mammoth and use my code SELFWORK for a great deal: https://happymammoth.com * Check out Midi Health: https://trymidi.com/selfwork * Check out TruDiagnostic and use my code SELFWORK for a great deal: https://www.trudiagnostic.com Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Some common questions that I'll cover are: Is it ever “too late” to grieve? Does your grief mean that your faith isn’t strong enough or that you are failing? Is there a right way to grieve? Is there a right way to respond to someone’s grief? Do you ever get over grief? What’s the relationship between grief and shame? Our Sponsors: * Check out Happy Mammoth and use my code SELFWORK for a great deal: https://happymammoth.com * Check out Midi Health: https://trymidi.com/selfwork * Check out TruDiagnostic and use my code SELFWORK for a great deal: https://www.trudiagnostic.com Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

My guest on SelfWork today is a career expert - Laura Gassner Otting - I've already been influenced by her new book WonderHell in quite a wonderful way! Our Sponsors: * Check out Happy Mammoth and use my code SELFWORK for a great deal: https://happymammoth.com * Check out Midi Health: https://trymidi.com/selfwork * Check out TruDiagnostic and use my code SELFWORK for a great deal: https://www.trudiagnostic.com Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Today we're going to talk about the fairly sticky subject of the difference between expectations, demands, and boundaries. In this "second time around" episode, Christine Mathias, Dr. Margaret's communication manager, lets us in to how her younger self struggled with setting good boundaries - and why this particular episode meant a lot to her. Our Sponsors: * Check out Happy Mammoth and use my code SELFWORK for a great deal: https://happymammoth.com * Check out Midi Health: https://trymidi.com/selfwork * Check out TruDiagnostic and use my code SELFWORK for a great deal: https://www.trudiagnostic.com Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

What are the seven steps to work through disappointment? Here they are! 1) Grieve first. 2) Start getting perspective right off the bat. 3) Consider and acknowledge what your own part was or is in creating the disappointment. That's utilizing your internal locus control. 4) Acknowledge what you couldn't control, utilizing your external locus control. 5) Build back your energy, enthusiasm by choosing to do things that will bring you pleasure. And those dopamine receptors will love that. 6) Look for the windows that are opening as that door closes. Again, you might need friends to do that. 7) Reassess your disappointment. Take time in the next two or three months or even six months to look back and say, “All right, how do I perceive that disappointment now?" Our Sponsors: * Check out Happy Mammoth and use my code SELFWORK for a great deal: https://happymammoth.com * Check out Midi Health: https://trymidi.com/selfwork * Check out TruDiagnostic and use my code SELFWORK for a great deal: https://www.trudiagnostic.com Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

How are you supposed to live a normal life when "home" was chaos? That's the topic of today's SelfWork. and it's triggered by a very frank email from a listener whose kept his chaos secret for many years. We can tend to keep secret the fact that home was chaos – you can fear being judged for it, even though you didn’t cause it. Please heed a trigger warning; the story is hard to hear. And if there was significant trauma in your own childhood, then please listen carefully. Our Sponsors: * Check out Happy Mammoth and use my code SELFWORK for a great deal: https://happymammoth.com * Check out Midi Health: https://trymidi.com/selfwork * Check out TruDiagnostic and use my code SELFWORK for a great deal: https://www.trudiagnostic.com Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

But today we’re going to focus on our remaining need as humans to have a sense of belonging and community - and to combat the loneliness epidemic that's the reality of so many. One of those things is finding or creating what's termed a "third space." We'll focus on how to do that today on SelfWork. Our Sponsors: * Check out Happy Mammoth and use my code SELFWORK for a great deal: https://happymammoth.com * Check out Midi Health: https://trymidi.com/selfwork * Check out TruDiagnostic and use my code SELFWORK for a great deal: https://www.trudiagnostic.com Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Why is it so hard to treat eating disorders? We're going to find out today in this interview with Johanna Kandel, founder and director of the National Alliance for Eating Disorders. Our Sponsors: * Check out Happy Mammoth and use my code SELFWORK for a great deal: https://happymammoth.com * Check out Midi Health: https://trymidi.com/selfwork Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Today the focus is on doctors and depression, with Dr. Pamela Buchanan as my guest, in a second episode in the "Careers That Kill" series, discussing medical providers, the pandemic, and depression. Our Sponsors: * Check out Happy Mammoth and use my code SELFWORK for a great deal: https://happymammoth.com * Check out Midi Health: https://trymidi.com/selfwork Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

In this episode of SelfWork, I’m thinking aloud a bit with you … if what we’re experiencing is a new kind of depression – one that’s mixed in with anxiety and fatigue. What’s it called? Optimism fatigue. It may not be diagnosable, but as I’ve considered my own situation, I realize that I’m having to dig a little deeper to find comfort that I can offer to others. It’s not that I can’t find it. But it’s harder. There’s a big difference between false enthusiasm and true optimism or hope. And I’ll hope that what I’ve learned from research and then, adding in my own two bits, will guide you in your own quest for emotional balance – and even optimism. Our Sponsors: * Check out Happy Mammoth and use my code SELFWORK for a great deal: https://happymammoth.com * Check out Midi Health: https://trymidi.com/selfwork Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

What was your "job" in your family? Most of us love to take tests like the Enneagram or the Myers/Briggs to find out what the test might have to say about our personality style or our strengths and vulnerabilities. But something you might also gravitate to – in thinking about what’s called your family of origin – or the family you grew up in – is talking about the roles each of the children played in the family - or what was your "job" in your family. The six most commonly agreed upon roles are called Hero, Scapegoat, Lost Child, Mascot, Caretaker/Enabler and Golden Child – and we’ll go through all of these in detail! Our Sponsors: * Check out Happy Mammoth and use my code SELFWORK for a great deal: https://happymammoth.com * Check out Midi Health: https://trymidi.com/selfwork Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

It’s often a very moving moment when you leave therapy. Here’s someone that you’ve trusted and confided in for weeks or months – or sometimes even years. And it’s time to walk out of their office and do without that resource. As I like to say, it’s my job to do myself out of a job. And I celebrate with people I’ve worked with when they leave to hopefully use the skills learned, and enjoy the feelings of having worked through whatever pain or trauma had been plaguing them. But there are other good reasons to stop therapy - and we'll talk about seven of them. Our Sponsors: * Check out Happy Mammoth and use my code SELFWORK for a great deal: https://happymammoth.com * Check out Midi Health: https://trymidi.com/selfwork Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

The focus today is on what I call "the shame and self-blame game." One listener told me recently that she wondered for a long time - “Did I allow my abuse?” How many of you feel to blame for your own abuse? And does that very shame and self-blame make it even more important to keep what happened secret? You bet it can. Our Sponsors: * Check out Happy Mammoth and use my code SELFWORK for a great deal: https://happymammoth.com * Check out Midi Health: https://trymidi.com/selfwork Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

We’re talking about sexual abuse today – to be more specific, the horrors of marital rape. Please if you have any kind of history of abuse which many of you I’m sure do – please listen cautiously as the facts of the case could be highly triggering for you. For international abuse hotlines please look in the show notes. You may have heard about the French woman, Gisèle Pelicot, who was the victim of multiple rapes – by multiple men including her husband – while drugged. This occurred over several years. All men were found guilty. Our Sponsors: * Check out Happy Mammoth and use my code SELFWORK for a great deal: https://happymammoth.com * Check out Midi Health: https://trymidi.com/selfwork Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

You Only Die Once, written by positive psychologist Jodi Wellman, has this very important message - being aware of your last moment can help you live this one more fully. Our Sponsors: * Check out Happy Mammoth and use my code SELFWORK for a great deal: https://happymammoth.com * Check out Midi Health: https://trymidi.com/selfwork Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands