As a sign of vulnerability, trust, and the safe space of therapy, Sarah allows herself to cry in session and feel the loss of her cousin. She connects this with the loss of her dad nearly a decade ago. Doug helps her stay with the feelings and express what is coming up for her in these initial stages of grief. Doug Friedman Meredith Levy YMB Webpage Join Us on Social Media: YMB The Facebook Group YMB on Instagram YMB on TikTok...
Mar 24, 2022•1 hr 11 min•Season 2Ep. 92
Drew is feeling lukewarm, anhedonia, and meh rather than being in the high highs or the low lows. He’s understanding what it’s like being somewhere in the middle and not being at 0 or at 100. Drew recognizes that he used to need a partner or his parents to validate his experience. Now he's experiencing being alone and not lonely. He’s embracing having an experience on his own then sharing that with others - as long as he's not misunderstood... Doug Friedman Meredith Levy YMB Webpage Join Us on S...
Mar 17, 2022•1 hr 3 min•Season 1Ep. 91
Doug and his mom open with a discussion about multiple personality disorder and her previous work in therapy with clients coming out of cults. In the session, Sarah acknowledges never allowing herself to fully feel the anger she’s held onto from her own upbringing in a cult. She is able to drop her protective armor in this session and show trust in herself, her therapist, and the process. Sarah is learning what it means to metaphorically put the oxygen mask on herself first. Doug Friedman Meredi...
Mar 10, 2022•1 hr 22 min•Season 2Ep. 90
Doug helps Drew go deeper to explore the concept of a safety net by processing his all-in, all-out mentality. Drew goes to an emotional place when they talk about feeling abandoned, betrayed, and neglected by the inconsistency of his parents not being there for him. Doug Friedman Meredith Levy YMB Webpage Join Us on Social Media: YMB The Facebook Group YMB on Instagram YMB on TikTok...
Mar 07, 2022•56 min•Season 1Ep. 89
For this episode, we check in with Drew, the client from Season 1. Drew wants to be doing more to do less, as he copes with the stress of his recent heart attack. Drew processes his parents not showing up to support him the way he needs and wants them. Speaking of which, Doug is supported on the breakdown by a special guest therapist – his mom! Doug Friedman YMB Webpage Join Us on Social Media: YMB The Facebook Group YMB on Instagram YMB on TikTok...
Feb 24, 2022•1 hr 20 min•Season 1Ep. 88
Drew explores the idea of his parents as a safety net without dependence or co-dependence in their relationship. Doug and Drew look at the concept of allowing someone to do something supportive for you, rather than depending entirely on somebody that could let you down. Mer digs into whether Drew's girlfriend is really his girlfriend or not. Doug Friedman Meredith Levy YMB Webpage Join Us on Social Media: YMB The Facebook Group YMB on Instagram YMB on TikTok...
Feb 21, 2022•1 hr 3 min•Season 1Ep. 87
Drew comes in with a high level of anxiety after going to the emergency room for a heart event. Doug helps Drew process the anxiety in the session. Drew is able to bring his level of anxiety down over the course of the session. Doug and Drew explore getting support from his “family of choice” while processing the disappointment he feels from his family of origin. Doug Friedman Meredith Levy YMB Webpage Join Us on Social Media: YMB The Facebook Group YMB on Instagram YMB on TikTok...
Feb 14, 2022•1 hr 2 min•Season 1Ep. 86
Sarah describes taking herself through worst-case scenarios to prepare herself for a situation, so she can avoid the shock and broken heart that might otherwise overwhelm her. That protective mechanism once served her, but now creates a disconnect from her actual emotional experience of life. Doug helps Sarah reconnect to her emotional self after seeing her cousin in the hospital and being triggered by her mom’s reactions. Doug explains how she can use her favorite tv shows and books to experime...
Feb 10, 2022•1 hr 3 min•Season 2Ep. 85
Drew describes what it’s like to go through highs and lows by himself with the support of people around him. Doug and Drew explore what it means to have the validation that comes when we can say "thank you" and "you’re welcome" without qualifying it, dismissing it, or deflecting it. Practice saying, "Thank you." Period. Doug Friedman Meredith Levy YMB Webpage Join Us on Social Media: YMB The Facebook Group YMB on Instagram YMB on TikTok...
Feb 07, 2022•44 min•Season 1Ep. 84
Doug helps Drew acknowledge and process feeling down in the dumps, for seemingly no reason. They talk about the difference between feeling depressed or being in a depressive episode. Drew explains what an “episode” means to him after Doug reads him a portion of a transcript from their session a year ago when he felt something similar. Doug Friedman Meredith Levy YMB Webpage Join Us on Social Media: YMB The Facebook Group YMB on Instagram YMB on TikTok...
Jan 31, 2022•1 hr 2 min•Season 1Ep. 83
Doug helps Sarah process grief in real time after she just learned of a family member’s failing health while in the hospital. Sarah is able to acknowledge having different feelings spiraling at the same time right now. Doug walks with her through some of the stages of grief that are actively coming up in the session - shock, denial, guilt, bargaining, and anger. Doug Friedman Meredith Levy YMB Webpage Join Us on Social Media: YMB The Facebook Group YMB on Instagram YMB on TikTok...
Jan 27, 2022•1 hr 5 min•Season 2Ep. 82
Drew looks at his new 26-year-old life as an adult feeling his independence and confidence growing. He acknowledges that his parents can still be a safety net. While separated from his current girlfriend, he tests himself by having lunch with his ex-girlfriend. Drew is actively building ego strength – he’s applying what he’s been learning in therapy by seeing things externally and making changes internally. Doug Friedman Meredith Levy YMB Webpage Join Us on Social Media: YMB The Facebook Group Y...
Jan 20, 2022•1 hr 6 min•Season 1Ep. 81
Doug helps Sarah acknowledge that she is actively creating new neural pathways by doing things differently from her patterned way of being and doing. Sarah gives herself permission to see the changes in her behavior this past week as growth and progress in her therapeutic journey – it’s not just a fluke! She is seeing in real time how defense mechanisms that were necessary for her survival are no longer necessary in her everyday life at every moment. We’re starting to walk the path of thriving, ...
Jan 20, 2022•1 hr 8 min•Season 2Ep. 80
Drew is allowing himself to be who he really wants to be in his relationships with family, friends, and work – as well as with his girlfriend while they’re separated. He is actively letting go of old ideas and discovering what it’s like to not go "over and above" or "put on the cape" to rescue everyone, everywhere, all the time. It’s the middle way! Doug is joined by his colleague and practice mate, Sasha Brodsky, for the clinical breakdown. They discuss issues of trust, judgement, awareness, an...
Jan 13, 2022•57 min•Season 1Ep. 79
We explore Sarah’s conditioning from her upbringing in the Children of God cult. “Trauma is a radioactive spider that bites.” It can lead you to develop powers of protection and systems of safety for your survival. Then we’ve got to learn what to do with that power because we might not need those defenses and protections in our life anymore at every moment. We also explore the idea of value – especially as it impacts self-worth. Doug Friedman Meredith Levy YMB Webpage Join Us on Social Media: YM...
Jan 13, 2022•1 hr 6 min•Season 2Ep. 78
We explore the “systems of safety” that Sarah developed as a child growing up in a cult to protect herself because no one else did. We can thank those defense mechanisms for doing such a good job of protecting us when a threat was real. We needed them to survive and now we need to say goodbye to them in order to thrive. Doug helps Sarah look deeper into those systems to see two sides of her - one that can be easy going and one that can be “mama bear,” rigid, and take up a righteous quest for jus...
Jan 06, 2022•1 hr 12 min•Season 2Ep. 77
Doug and Drew explore the idea that being solo is not just not about being alone or lonely. Drew is finding his confidence and strength in life outside of a relationship instead of making that one person in his life into the everything of his life. Drew is calibrating “the middle” rather than going all-in or all-out in situations, both in his personal life and his work life. Doug Friedman Meredith Levy YMB Webpage Join Us on Social Media: YMB The Facebook Group YMB on Instagram YMB on TikTok...
Dec 27, 2021•56 min•Season 1Ep. 76
Drew explores what it means to experience life solo rather than go through his separation feeling lonely or alone. He and Doug talk about learning to balance the fairy tale, fantasy world version of love with the reality of what feels healthy and supportive. Doug helps Drew connect the anxiety about not knowing everything that’s going on for someone with people lying or concealing things – historically like his mom using substances. Doug and Meredith discuss balancing highs and lows, and not jus...
Dec 16, 2021•51 min•Season 1Ep. 75
Sarah feels righteous anger about a coworker that was let go. Doug helps her see that it’s a trigger for her own traumatic past when people in power abuse that power and wrong others. When it’s on someone else’s behalf, Sarah has insulation, protection, and deflection from her own wounds, making it easier to take up a quest for justice. She is able to draw the link to her own history of being wronged and abused by people in power in the cult and her previous marriage and jobs. Doug Friedman Mere...
Dec 16, 2021•57 min•Season 2Ep. 74
Drew continues the process of individuation. He sees that sharing his life with his mom is now a function of him being proud of himself, not him looking to her for reassurance and self-worth. Drew acknowledges his own physical body and the sensations that come along with his emotional experiences. Doug helps him understand how regulating his physical body can help him regulate his thoughts and feelings. Drew explores feeling spread thin and starts thinking about where he chooses to put energy no...
Dec 09, 2021•54 min•Season 1Ep. 73
Sarah felt validated and valued at work this week after a triggering annual review last week. Doug and Sarah explore how what she calls nonsense can make perfect sense to others. They break down issues of control and accountability. Sarah unpacks how her vigilance that others follow the rules is conditioning from her childhood in the cult. Doug Friedman Meredith Levy YMB Webpage Join Us on Social Media: YMB The Facebook Group YMB on Instagram YMB on TikTok...
Dec 09, 2021•1 hr 13 min•Season 2Ep. 72
Drew got emotionally triggered after a recent funeral for a friend from back home. Then he made a surprise visit to his parents for his mom’s birthday. Doug fills us in on what we missed in both Drew’s last session (#65) that didn’t get recorded, and a phone call that Drew and Doug had to process some relationship trouble. In the session Drew is able to go into the emotion underneath the recent triggers. Doug Friedman Meredith Levy YMB Webpage Join Us on Social Media: YMB The Facebook Group YMB ...
Dec 02, 2021•51 min•Season 1Ep. 71
Drew learns to trust his gut more. He experiences being the son he wants to be for his parents, rather than the son he thinks they want him to be. He feels whelmed , not overwhelmed, but still needs support from people around him. Drew explores asking for forgiveness rather than asking for permission, and saying “thank you” instead of “I’m sorry.” Doug Friedman Meredith Levy YMB Webpage Join Us on Social Media: YMB The Facebook Group YMB on Instagram YMB on TikTok...
Nov 18, 2021•59 min•Season 1Ep. 70
Sarah got triggered by a review at work which leads to an exploration of deeper issues. Doug helps her express anger and frustration about being powerless and misrepresented, especially when someone of authority is in control. Sarah starts to make the link to repressed emotion from the childhood heartbreak she experienced in the cult. She is able to stay with the emotion in the session and just not intellectualize it. Doug Friedman Meredith Levy YMB Webpage Join Us on Social Media: YMB The Faceb...
Nov 18, 2021•1 hr 9 min•Season 2Ep. 69
Drew feels his self-confidence grow, but acknowledges that his trust issues are still making him want constant reassurance in relationships. As he recovers from Covid, we explore and break down his relationship to smoking weed. Drew celebrates his baby steps and progress in the meta sense – from pronouncing the word “compartmentalize” to breaking codependence. Doug Friedman Meredith Levy YMB Webpage Join Us on Social Media: YMB The Facebook Group YMB on Instagram YMB on TikTok...
Nov 11, 2021•46 min•Season 1Ep. 68
Doug redefines work-life balance: it’s a balance of work, rest, and play that are all under the umbrella of life. Sarah examines “play” in her life. She connects the hyper-vigilance of being ‘mama bear’ for everyone around her to the trauma response that protects her from slowing down or stopping to feel the feelings. Doug uses a folding paper example to show the neural pathways that get embedded in our brains. See the link in these notes to a video clip of him demonstrating it. Mentioned in thi...
Nov 11, 2021•1 hr 6 min•Season 2Ep. 67
Who doesn't love the smell of bacon? Drew manages Covid confusion and experiences letting go and trusting himself. He is slowing down without slowing down and acknowledges, “As a human being, you can only put up with so much.” He draws inspiration from his grandma - and shares a story about her that Mer loves! Doug Friedman Meredith Levy YMB Webpage Join Us on Social Media: YMB The Facebook Group YMB on Instagram YMB on TikTok...
Nov 04, 2021•56 min•Season 1Ep. 66
Doug is on location in New York discovering the quiet, nature side of the city. Sarah and Doug dissect the associations she’s held in her head with being a trauma survivor and with being a victim. Sarah explores some recent triggers and exercises having compassion for the younger version of herself that was traumatized. Doug helps Sarah trace some of her discomfort back to a feeling of powerlessness and a fear of the unknown. Mer breaks down the victim mentality and the fear of unravelling in a ...
Nov 04, 2021•1 hr 7 min•Season 2Ep. 65
Drew continues to work on breaking codependence. He is looking at several relationships in his life, right as we're in the thick of the holiday season. He realizes that "not talking to somebody for a month, doesn't mean they don't love you." It's ok if you don't have someone showing you love right in front of you at all times, it's still there... and he's beginning to feel that that's true. Doug Friedman Meredith Levy YMB Webpage Join Us on Social Media: YMB The Facebook Group YMB on Instagram Y...
Oct 28, 2021•51 min•Season 1Ep. 64
As Sarah talks about a stressful work relationship, Doug slows her down and helps her process being a trauma survivor. They examine how Sarah’s system learned to protect her from complex trauma in the past and how it still affects her current relationships. Doug walks Sarah through examples of interactions to help create new neural pathways and new ways of thinking and interacting. Mentioned in this episode : Doug’s New Album on Spotify Doug Friedman Meredith Levy YMB Webpage Join Us on Social M...
Oct 28, 2021•1 hr 8 min•Season 2Ep. 63
