Most of us have periods in our lives where it feels like everything is a shit show. You feel like the universe is conspiring against you and no one is on your team. Even when people do try to help by offering advice, it annoys the crap out of you. Then, on top of it all, you feel wrong in your feelings because you think you should be able to rise above it. Society says to buck up and be positive! When life happens and you start going down the rabbit hole, it’s ok to stay there for a moment, but ...
Oct 19, 2021•37 min
Majo Molfino is the daughter of immigrants who grew up as a “good girl,” getting good grades and following the rules. After graduating from college, she got a grown-up cubicle job as one is expected to do, but something immediately felt off. She looked at herself in the mirror and felt like she was wearing a costume. For the first time Majo questioned what she was put on this planet to do. And the only answer she had at the time was: not this. A year into her job she finally quit, moved to Calif...
Oct 13, 2021•40 min
Loyalty. What does that mean to you? And where did you learn it? As a kid, if you were around adults (particularly your caregivers) who lied, cheated, and/or treated others as disposable, you may have never learned what loyalty really is. As a result, you may have spent your adult life looking for greener pastures, or trying to determine when to cut bait because you don’t know how long the relationship will last and you’d rather leave before you REALLY get hurt. This doesn’t just happen with int...
Oct 12, 2021•38 min
How do you communicate with an avoidant? And how do you determine if they are a narcissist, pathological liar, or have some other “malady”? I get questions like this a lot. People want strategies for dealing with partners they are quick to label. Here is the short answer: There is no special language for communicating with avoidants, and it is not your job to diagnose people. If you don’t believe you can have what you want (e.g. a healthy relationship), you’ll turn to manipulation. And yes, comm...
Oct 05, 2021•20 min
You can’t take it anymore. You are stuck in a toxic relationship and you want the pain to stop. You want out. But instead of taking some sort of action… you do nothing. Resistance kicks in and your whole body says, “nope!” So you stay in your own personal hell, afraid of losing what you have, even though what you have is so far away from what you want. Why? Because it’s familiar. Because breadcrumbs of love and attention are better than nothing. But is “nothing” really the only alternative? This...
Sep 28, 2021•24 min
Megan Huber grew up in a small, rural North Carolina town with a teacher for a mom. The classroom was what she knew, so when she graduated from college with no clue about what she wanted to do, she accepted her mom’s offer to pay for a Master’s degree in teaching. That landed her as a teacher in her hometown high school right alongside her mom. Although teaching resonated with her on some level, it wasn’t until much later that Megan realized she was living her mom’s vision for her life—not her o...
Sep 22, 2021•58 min
Passive aggressiveness is an indirect resistance to the demands of others, and an avoidance of direct confrontation (i.e., procrastinating, pouting, gossiping, etc.). Let’s say you hire someone and they don’t work out, but instead of having a difficult conversation about their performance, you make yourself unavailable. You don’t reply to emails and are always busy when they call. Maybe you even throw menial tasks their way—all to get them to quit. People complain all the time about passive aggr...
Sep 21, 2021•23 min
Do you need to be needed by someone, believing you’re the only one who understands them? “Let me help! Call anytime… I’m always here for you.” You over-volunteer to the point of making yourself feel small and insignificant, and believe it’s the only way to keep people in your life. There is a scorecard in your head as you wait for recognition or reciprocity that never comes. And at the same time, you resent them for only contacting you when they need something. You feel angry and used, yet you d...
Sep 14, 2021•24 min
Yes, there is good in all of us. But that doesn’t mean you should ignore red flags in a relationship because you want to see the good in people. And it certainly doesn’t mean it’s your job to make those red flags go away; to shine that diamond in the rough! When you tell yourself what an amazing person you are for seeing the good in someone, that’s your ego talking. It’s the false part of yourself seeing the false part of others. And it’s totally rooted in insecure attachment. Emotionally health...
Sep 07, 2021•26 min
You wish you could be calm, cool and collected. Other people seem to do it—they can pull off being mysterious while your facial expressions always give you away. You feel like the weird emotional one, trying to tame whatever is brewing inside while everyone else stays calmly in control. You’re afraid if anyone knew how you really felt, they would judge you. But following the rules of what other people deem as “acceptable” will leave you disconnected from yourself and your life. If you want to be...
Aug 31, 2021•23 min
How much time do you spend complaining about problems and/or fixing them? You finally join the country club, but you can never get the tee-time you want, the food is bland and all the members are annoying. Or you criticize your co-worker for doing a project “wrong,” then take it over and do it yourself because no one can measure up to you. This, my friends, is classic avoidance. When your focus is on problems outside of you, it lets you off the hook to address what’s happening INSIDE of you. Whe...
Aug 24, 2021•40 min
“Entrepreneurship and starting your own business is just one big personal development game.” Scout Sobel is a trailblazer in the media industry. She is the founder of Scout’s Agency, the co-host of Okay Sis Podcast, and the host of SCOUT Podcast. But growing up, she suffered from emotional paralysis, experiencing her first bout of anxiety in kindergarten. A depressive episode in high school led to therapy intervention, followed by paranoia in college. When she was eventually diagnosed with bipol...
Aug 19, 2021•37 min
It’s hard to be grateful for misfortune, and the suffering that results. It’s much easier to wallow in “Why me? Poor me!” than to look for the gift. The truth is, you can find gratitude in every situation. It’s being thankful for some aspect of every situation rather than only focusing on the negative. When you surrender to reality and look for the blessing, you arrive at gratitude. It’s expansive and helps you see yourself more clearly. Let’s say you lose your job. You can dwell on the situatio...
Aug 17, 2021•17 min
You consider yourself a strong person. When a challenge presents itself, you tackle it head-on. People come to you for answers because you always seem to have them. You pick others up when they fall. You’re reliable and trustworthy. But to be that pillar of strength, you push your emotions aside because you can’t be someone else’s hero if they see a crack in your armor. And therein lies the problem. We have been brought up to believe that giving is strong and receiving is weak. But that’s backwa...
Aug 10, 2021•33 min
Born of a spiritual-seeking mother and knowledge-seeking father, Laurie Gerber grew up fascinated by the human experience and what makes people tick. She became an educational consultant who matched students with tutors, but realized she was less interested in helping students achieve academic success than she was in helping them deal with their suffering. To better define her goals and excel in her career, Laurie started working with a coach. That’s when she realized how much of her entire life...
Aug 04, 2021•43 min
What happened to your dreams? Did you give up on them? Or are you still waiting for them to happen, hoping that “someday” is right around the corner? Maybe what you wanted did show up, but it didn’t fulfill you. The thing about dreams is, they don’t always show up how and when you expect them to, and they don’t just fall in your lap. They require a combination of surrender and action. But not just any action; it has to be intentional, emotional action. Empty action, which is numb and devoid of e...
Aug 03, 2021•29 min
Do you get exceptionally angry when a restaurant server gets your order wrong, or when plans change at the last minute, or when customer service won’t fix your problem? We’re not talking mild frustration (those situations can be annoying!), but rather deep seated anger that is triggered into an explosion. Perhaps you yell at the other person, blaming them for what you’re unhappy with. Or maybe you’re one of those people who smiles on the outside while seething on the inside. Where does this ange...
Jul 27, 2021•29 min
You have probably heard some version of “what you think, you create.” Meaning your thoughts create your reality. If your love life feels like a train wreck (or any part of your life, really), this can be a scary idea. Are you creating the situation you don’t want by ruminating on negative thoughts? By constantly thinking there are no “good ones” out there, are you actually making it true? Well… yes and no. Thoughts play a role, but they are not the only factor. Trying to simply stop the thoughts...
Jul 20, 2021•29 min
Kristina Mand-Lakhiani was born in the Soviet Union where entrepreneurship was punishable by law and everyone was given the same “manual” for success. By the age of 40 she had an Instagrammable life with a husband, son and daughter, yet she became annoyed when people asked about her children or husband, as if she herself wasn’t important. Guilt followed because she had a great life and “shouldn’t feel that way,” a belief she finally started to question and explore. It took courage for Kristina t...
Jul 14, 2021•53 min
You sure do have your act together. You look great, take care of yourself and project an air of confidence. Success has always been an important focus, and “slowing down” isn’t in your vocabulary. People may admire you and compliment your achievements, but there’s just one tiny little problem—you feel like an imposter. You’re afraid of people getting close to you because if they do, they might see behind the curtain and realize you’re way more of a mess than they thought. As a result, your perso...
Jul 13, 2021•26 min
Do you surround yourself with cool, successful or impressive people to feel like you embody those qualities by association? How many of those friends do you stay in touch with and make plans to get together while they put forth little-to-no effort? When you don’t feel valued, one way to fill that emptiness is to work hard at relationships that would probably fall apart without your effort. Your pattern of trying to prove your worth exhausts you, and any feelings of worthiness are temporary. Unfo...
Jul 06, 2021•28 min
Did you grow up feeling you were too much, not enough, too nice, too cold, too sensitive, too shy, too annoying, too inquisitive or too ANYTHING? Basically, instead of being loved for your whole self, did you feel like you were simply tolerated? Maybe you wondered, throughout your life, if people even liked being around you because those too much/not enough beliefs were always with you. So, to move from tolerance to love, you worked hard to prove yourself worthy of someone else’s company. And di...
Jun 29, 2021•28 min
You attract people exactly where you are. If you’re unavailable, you will attract someone who is unavailable. To attract open, you must BE open. People who are attracted to emotionally unavailable people are attached to UNREALISTIC outcomes, and their idea of a good partner is narrow—as in they need to fit the perfect picture. Maybe you want to meet someone so you don’t spend the holidays alone, providing a very limited opening for what you will accept. Even people who have done work on themselv...
Jun 22, 2021•38 min
Guy Finley is a best-selling author of more than 45 books and audios on self-realization, including his newest release, “Relationship Magic: Waking Up Together” which explores the purpose of relationships. His journey began when he was 12 or 13 years old, upon hearing a voice whose message formed the path of his entire life. Since then he has experienced a series of blows to who he was and who he thought he would be. In our riveting conversation, Guy shares his views on suffering, letting go, tr...
Jun 16, 2021•45 min
People think “selfish” is a dirty word, so there’s a lot of fear around it. They’ve had it beat into them that being selfish is bad, which leads to people-pleasing. When you succumb to people-pleasing, you’re constantly at the mercy of the rest of the world to validate you. You think if you don’t give to someone else or do what they want, you’re being selfish. And being selfish makes you feel guilty! You become so focused on not wanting to be selfish you walk on eggshells, over-doing to avoid th...
Jun 15, 2021•18 min
If you can’t live without someone, and are knee-deep in soulmate territory where you need them to “complete” you, you are very likely stuck in attachment. You have a picture in your head of what you want your life to be and how you want to feel, so you’re trying to fit them into it, regardless of how things really are. So you push and pull, trying to mold them into what you want. Perhaps you cherry pick the good moments to convince yourself they’re the one. But where are their feelings in all of...
Jun 08, 2021•25 min
How often do you look for the enemy in your life? Whether it’s a partner who can’t commit, a condescending boss or an entitled rich person, labeling them as the bad guy can make you feel better about yourself. After all, if they are the bad guy, that makes you the good guy, right? And when you’re the good guy, you don’t need to do anything differently; the responsibility to change or be different is all on them. But people and situations are not inherently good or bad—it is only your perception....
Jun 01, 2021•30 min
You may think boundaries are set for the benefit of others, and get angry when they aren’t followed. But you probably go against your own boundaries all the time without realizing it. People take their cues from how you treat yourself, so if you’re upset about putting in extra effort despite expressing your need for help and you keep doing it, look at how you continue to pick up the slack. If your partner is constantly making plans with you at the last minute, despite you asking him/her to plan ...
May 24, 2021•20 min
Go ahead, buy that car. You’re worth it. Your well-earned promotion will finally show people you have arrived. How do you measure your worth? Is it by what other people label as important, or what you feel inside? Will chasing money, fame and success make you feel worthy and valued? Of course not. Some of the most successful people in the world have an enormous sense of lack, believing more accolades will eventually fill them up. Intellectually you know fulfillment doesn’t work this way, yet you...
May 18, 2021•37 min
Your partner is a narcissist or an avoidant or emotionally unavailable… or some other label you have assigned to him/her. You’ve read up about how to deal with people like that, and have taken it upon yourself to fix them. You want to show them how they can be better, so you as a couple can be better. But why is it their responsibility to change? What about your role? Beating them up for your relationship problems won’t solve the issues between you. So what’s the answer? Start with compassion. S...
May 11, 2021•35 min
