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

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.

Some people can be draining, especially if they play the victim after they've done bad behavior and expect you to empathize with them. Some people are very, very good at doing that. I talk about those people today.

Our childhood coping mechanisms shape our adult relationships. Sometimes the old fears keep us from moving into new, better territory, keeping us stuck where we are. 

Some problems won't go away until you walk away from them. But walking away can be hard... sometimes impossible. And sometimes it involves sacrifice. And is walking away the only answer? 

Sometimes emotional and sexual expectations can be challenging to balance in a long-term relationship... but do they have to be? Or is intimacy just difficult with certain people who seem entitled to receive it instead of trying to build it from the ground up?     

You know the type: They do nothing and you do everything. In this episode, I share the struggle of a woman who has a rocky relationship with her adult daughter who moved back in with her. I share a lot of thoughts and lessons we can learn what we can do, if anything, when the other person in your life is making things unnecessarily harder.

When you live with your romantic partner... And their relatives... And your partner doesn't seem to want that to change... What are your choices? Very hard question! I thought I'd tackle that today.