#50 When the Nest Empties: Holding Your Grief and Their Freedom at the Same Time

#50 When the Nest Empties: Holding Your Grief and Their Freedom at the Same Time

When your child steps into the world, the cultural script tells you to be proud, celebrate them, and let them go. And you do, genuinely, but grief sits right alongside that pride, and for most women there is simply no sanctioned place to put it. In this episode, I explore why grief is a clinically valid and entirely expected part of the empty nest transition, how suppression shows up in behaviour, why this shift hits harder for women navigating perimenopause at the same time. And what it actually looks like to hold your pride and your pain together - without making it your child's to carry. This is not a conversation about coping. It's a conversation about understanding what is actually happening, and approaching yourself with the same quality of attention you gave to your children for all those years. Learn more about the ⁠⁠⁠HEAL Method⁠⁠⁠ [https://www.healforlifeprograms.com] Follow me on ⁠⁠⁠Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/my.holistic.therapist/]

#49 Part 2 Raised by a Narcissist: What the Internet Isn't Telling You

In part one of this series, we covered a lot of clinical ground - what narcissism actually is, where it comes from, the four Ds, what happens to a child's developing sense of self inside a narcissistic family system, and the arrested individuation that so often results. And I ended by saying that children who grow up with a narcissistic parent are drawn toward narcissistic relationships in adult life, because the narcissist behaviour is familiar. That is where I want to pick up today, because familiar is one of the most important words in this work, and it is worth examining properly. And then I want to move into what the therapeutic work actually looks like, because that is ultimately where recovery and hope lie. Learn more about the ⁠⁠HEAL Method⁠⁠ [https://www.healforlifeprograms.com] Follow me on ⁠⁠Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/my.holistic.therapist/]

#48 Part 1 Raised by a Narcissist: What the Internet Isn't Telling You

There is more content about narcissism online than ever before, and yet some of the most important clinical pieces are consistently missing from the conversation. In this first episode of a two-part series, I cut through the noise, offering a grounded and nuanced account of what Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) actually is, where it comes from, and what it does to the children who grow up inside it. I explore the diagnostic picture, the developmental roots of NPD, the four-stage relational cycle narcissists move through, and the profound impact on a child's emerging sense of self, including what happens when individuation is blocked at the critical adolescent window. If you have ever found yourself confused about a parent, questioning your own perceptions, or drawn to relationships that feel familiar but leave you depleted, this episode may help you make sense of why. Learn more about the ⁠HEAL Method⁠ [https://www.healforlifeprograms.com] Follow me on ⁠Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/my.holistic.therapist/]

#47 Why the Next Resource Won't Fix It - And What You Need To Do Instead

This week I'm talking about something that consistently changes the results women get in their health - and it's probably not what you're expecting. The women I work with arrive having tried a lot. Supplements, breathwork, sleep protocols, elimination diets. Each one taken up with real intention. And yet the symptoms persist - the anxiety, the insomnia, the gut issues. We are a holistic whole. Treating symptoms in isolation, without accounting for the full ecosystem you are living inside, will only ever produce partial and temporary results. And when the nervous system has been running in survival mode for years, the doing, the researching, the collecting of new resources becomes an expression of the dysregulation - not a solution to it. This episode is the conversation about why the next resource probably won't fix it, and what actually needs to happen instead. Learn more about the HEAL Method [https://www.healforlifeprograms.com] Follow me on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/my.holistic.therapist/]

#46 Part 3 The Regulated Woman: Myth Busting Hacks

This is the final episode of the Regulated Woman mini-series with Dr. Carrie Rigoni. We've covered the physical symptoms of stress and trauma, we've gone deep on the vagus nerve - and in this episode, Carrie and I turn the clinical framework onto the wellness industry itself. We work through some of the most widely circulated interventions you'll see on social media - breathwork, meditation, high-intensity exercise, supplements, tracking devices, and give you an honest picture of what the evidence actually shows, and more importantly, what it doesn't. The problem isn't the tools themselves. It's the way they're being sold, who they're being sold to, and what happens when someone with a sensitive or dysregulated nervous system applies them without clinical guidance. Carrie and I have both seen this in our practices, people who have tried every modality on the list and still don't feel well, or worse, feel less well than before they started. We get into why that happens and what it actually tells you about your nervous system. If you've ever found yourself chasing the next thing, rigidly locked into a wellness routine, or wondering why something that works for everyone else isn't working for you, this conversation is the clinical answer to that question. Dr. Carrie Rigoni Website [https://www.drcarrierigoni.com.au/services] and Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/drcarrierigoni/?hl=en] Working with Alex Website [https://www.healforlifeprograms.com]