The Overwhelmed Brain | Stress | Anxiety | Relationship | Critical Thinking | Emotional Intelligence | Emotional Abuse

The path to empowerment sometimes involves massive, scary steps that might just change you... for the better. What it takes is courage. Where can you find the courage? It's closer than you think. 

Are you walking around with unresolved feelings from your past? There are many opportunities that come our way that give us a chance to move forward without being weighed down by our past. 

What do you do when there's bickering and nitpicking and you never seem make progress because there's always some unresolved issue or drama that needs to unfold for some reason? 

When you know for a fact it's impossible to get out of the situation you're in, something might come along and push you so far that you find the impossible just might be possible after all. 

The perfect night... almost. I read a reddit post where a user outlines a scenario where his best laid plans didn't pan out as he hoped, but he almost got everything right. That is, until his wife felt disappointed and unhappy by a single error that changed everything. 

Our inner critic can be our own worst enemy. Knowing where that voice comes from and if what it's saying is actually true can mean the difference between your happiness and your sanity - hopefully you get to keep both! 

The person who has been a toxic presence in my and my family's life has died. It's not necessarily a normal episode, but hopefully you'll gain something from it as I share the story and the lessons. 

Some people seem to be stuck in a cycle of promises and no follow-through. When is enough enough? Some people use delay after delay to get away with never having to follow through with anything. Those people usually never change. 

What do you do when you ask a friend if they would like to be closer, but they say no? The ramifications on the friendship can be anywhere from nothing to complete disaster. Is there a way back to being friends after such an awkward event?

Some decisions have a long-lasting effect. Sometimes that effect is positive; Sometimes it's not. . When you decide to get into or out of something, it's vital you don't set yourself up for failure and regret. 

When you're holding on to that little bit of anger or upset about or toward someone else, maybe someone who is not even in your life anymore, it can decrease the quality of your happiness, maybe even diminishing it to a mere sliver of what it could be.  

Do we have to carry the weight of our past negative experiences into our future? Staying in control and letting go of it have the very same effect. I get into more detail about that in this episode about choice. 

"Go ahead, have a great time! Wait, are you leaving without me? What about my needs? No, I mean go ahead and have fun. I'll be good! Hey, don't feel bad about leaving me alone, I'll be fine. Oh, you don't feel bad? Why are you leaving me alone? How can you do this to me?" Need I say more? 

How you define love will be what you get from it. If you don't have a definition for love, you may get stuck with something that appears to be love, but is really something else altogether. If you are 100% happy with the people you love in your life, skip this episode.  

People who care about you should lift you up, not kick you when you're down. If someone keeps dragging you lower, trusting their words is like giving a vampire the keys to the blood bank.     

Arguing isn't fun, but if it's going to happen, it should at least be productive. But what if it's never productive and you never get anything resolved? That's the question I tackle today. 

There are some life lessons that we have to force ourselves to go through in order to make our circumstances better. Those lessons can feel like a massive leap over a bottomless chasm. But the rewards for such a leap can mean the difference between living a full life or one restricted by fear and uncertainty. 

If you find that you define yourself in a negative way based on someone else's perception of you, you must listen to this episode. Is what they're saying about you really true? If you think that, we need to address that right away.

What are your rights in a relationship with someone who is mistreating you or acting badly? Is it okay to get back at them and reciprocate with similar or worse behavior? What's fair in relationship warfare? Good question!

If you find your mind feels like an overstuffed closet, and your actual closet is also overstuffed, I'll try to help you balance the mental and physical clutter in this episode. It's a special episode that strays away from the norm, but hey, out of eleven years of doing this show, one off the beaten path isn't going to hurt.