The Healing Pod: Navigating Anxiety and Mental Health Together

49. Trying to Find Our Window of Tolerance

Episode 49 Welcome to the Healing Pod!  Apologize for Jess being dark/having off audio. It is what it is.  Today we are talking about the window of tolerance. This is the optimal space that we function in, where we are energized enough to engage and not so overwhelmed as to fly off the handle at anything that is in our path. Avoiding the zombie phase and the rage phase is a struggle we all face.  And full disclosure, the two of us are having another set of weeks where we are stressing the edges of our window of tolerance and trying to maintain functioning truly and not just by stealing energy from tomorrow. We want to know our edges and our boundaries, so we can keep ourself in the optimal area for working on hard things, and so we can increase our window of tolerance and skills in self-regulation to make life easier for us. So listen to us ramble through our attempts to find our window and make it open a tiny little bit wider.  If you want to give us something to talk about, or join in a podcast episode, feel free to post on any of our social media or submit an anonymous story here: https://forms.gle/77KgEmvVpLYBMAHt6 As always, thank you to the wonderful Dr. Miki Anderson for our intro and outtro music. She can be found under Pax Minerva on Apple Music and is all around a wonderful human being.  And thank you to Dr. Keith Christie of Journey Together and Mia Karpack for helping us get our socials up and going! https://journeytogetherpc.com/ [https://journeytogetherpc.com/] Stay tuned for episodes featuring some of his top notch clinicians! Come join us and chat, complain, or send in what mental health you would like to hear us ramble about!  Find us on Facebook, TikTok, and instagram at The Healing Pod  We are online at https://www.PeasInTheHealingPod.com [https://www.PeasInTheHealingPod.com]   You can email us any questions, suggestions, comments, or memes at PeasInTheHealingPod@gmail.com [PeasInTheHealingPod@gmail.com]   If you want to hunt down the bits and bobbles that have been cut out of our episode, join us for another live recording, or just to buy us a cup of coffee, come join us at https://www.patreon.com/TheHealingPod [https://www.patreon.com/TheHealingPod]

48. Coping Skills VS. Healing and Growth in Mental Health

Episode 48 Welcome to the Healing Pod!  Today we are touch on the difference between hiding in coping skills and opening up to potential healing and growth.  Coping skills are for regulation. They get us through the tough moments. If we keep running from discomfort though and never use new skills to challenge that which we could not do before, there is no growth.  We need closure, we need autonomy, we need to be able to live life, not to slowly isolate it down in order not to face things that are hard, because even then the hard things find a way through.  If you want to give us something to talk about, or join in a podcast episode, feel free to post on any of our social media or submit an anonymous story here: https://forms.gle/77KgEmvVpLYBMAHt6 As always, thank you to the wonderful Dr. Miki Anderson for our intro and outtro music. She can be found under Pax Minerva on Apple Music and is all around a wonderful human being.  And thank you to Dr. Keith Christie of Journey Together and Mia Karpack for helping us get our socials up and going! https://journeytogetherpc.com/ [https://journeytogetherpc.com/] Stay tuned for episodes featuring some of his top notch clinicians! Come join us and chat, complain, or send in what mental health you would like to hear us ramble about!  Find us on Facebook, TikTok, and instagram at The Healing Pod  We are online at https://www.PeasInTheHealingPod.com [https://www.PeasInTheHealingPod.com]   You can email us any questions, suggestions, comments, or memes at PeasInTheHealingPod@gmail.com [PeasInTheHealingPod@gmail.com]   If you want to hunt down the bits and bobbles that have been cut out of our episode, join us for another live recording, or just to buy us a cup of coffee, come join us at https://www.patreon.com/TheHealingPod [https://www.patreon.com/TheHealingPod]

47. Exploring Therapeutic Alliance in Mental Health Treatment

Episode 47 Welcome to the Healing Pod!  Today we are joined by Zico Alame from Journey Together PC! Zico wanted to talk about the importance and impact of a healthy therapeutic alliance on progress in therapy.  Having a healthy relationship lets you work on the hard things, learn how to navigate ruptures and identify actual read flags and harmful behavior, and practice the skills that you want to take into the world to use in their ongoing relationships.  We explore what goes into a healthy relationship in therapy, what to look for, and that it is ok to walk away from a therapist (or a client..or a person) who we just do not fit well with.  The podcast Very Bad Therapy has finished updating but it is well worth listening to if you are concerned that you are being a bad therapist (which all of us should be checking) or  if you’re a client and feeling uncomfortable in your therapeutic relationship. Or if you just like drama.  And there totally are studies on how using electroconvulsive therapy (ECT…old school One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest brain shocks that are actually still used in several places these days) as well as just administering electric shock or other aversives (including spraying with a water bottle like a cat) to alleviate self injurious behaviors in individuals with lower cognitive functioning  (feel free to raise all the red flags about this…..there are several. I feel grosser having looked up the studies, and only am slightly relieved by the fact that many I saw were older). If you want to give us something to talk about, or join in a podcast episode, feel free to post on any of our social media or submit an anonymous story here: https://forms.gle/77KgEmvVpLYBMAHt6 As always, thank you to the wonderful Dr. Miki Anderson for our intro and outtro music. She can be found under Pax Minerva on Apple Music and is all around a wonderful human being.  And thank you to Dr. Keith Christie of Journey Together and Mia Karpack for helping us get our socials up and going! https://journeytogetherpc.com/ [https://journeytogetherpc.com/] Stay tuned for episodes featuring some of his top notch clinicians! Come join us and chat, complain, or send in what mental health you would like to hear us ramble about!  Find us on Facebook, TikTok, and instagram at The Healing Pod  We are online at https://www.PeasInTheHealingPod.com [https://www.PeasInTheHealingPod.com]   You can email us any questions, suggestions, comments, or memes at PeasInTheHealingPod@gmail.com [PeasInTheHealingPod@gmail.com]   If you want to hunt down the bits and bobbles that have been cut out of our episode, join us for another live recording, or just to buy us a cup of coffee, come join us at https://www.patreon.com/TheHealingPod [https://www.patreon.com/TheHealingPod]

46. The Red Flags of Projection: Reacting to an Internet Tale of Failed Connection

Episode 46 Welcome to the Healing Pod!  “This guy is a whole ass train wreck” Today we found an anonymous post on one of my Therapy Support boards and we react. There is no username to attach this to but if you recognize the story, give us a shout. Unrequited love, red flags, projection, manic-pixie-dream-girl, profound questions along the lines of “You still play guitar…” the never ending search for mental health and healthy relationships…This interaction gets you feeling for times when we’ve been on both sides of these interactions.  If all you love of someone is your image of who you want them to be, you are not really loving the person.  And if you're wondering what my face was doing the entire time Jess was reading, head over to the youtube channel to find out! Jess and I therapeutically explore the concerns in this interaction and point out some of the considerations behind this projected connection and where to start unpacking the experience from either side in order to progress from here. Mainly this includes recommendations of paper spray and get ye to therapy.  Also if you got this far, I’m the shark ;) If you want to give us something to talk about, or join in a podcast episode, feel free to post on any of our social media or submit an anonymous story here: https://forms.gle/77KgEmvVpLYBMAHt6 As always, thank you to the wonderful Dr. Miki Anderson for our intro and outtro music. She can be found under Pax Minerva on Apple Music and is all around a wonderful human being.  And thank you to Dr. Keith Christie of Journey Together and Mia Karpack for helping us get our socials up and going! https://journeytogetherpc.com/ [https://journeytogetherpc.com/] Stay tuned for episodes featuring some of his top notch clinicians! Come join us and chat, complain, or send in what mental health you would like to hear us ramble about!  Find us on Facebook, TikTok, and instagram at The Healing Pod  We are online at https://www.PeasInTheHealingPod.com [https://www.PeasInTheHealingPod.com]   You can email us any questions, suggestions, comments, or memes at PeasInTheHealingPod@gmail.com [PeasInTheHealingPod@gmail.com]   If you want to hunt down the bits and bobbles that have been cut out of our episode, join us for another live recording, or just to buy us a cup of coffee, come join us at https://www.patreon.com/TheHealingPod [https://www.patreon.com/TheHealingPod]

45. Intro to the World of Polyamory

Episode 45 Welcome to the Healing Pod!  First off an apology for this one, Jess’ internet was not cooperating and it nerfed her vocals very badly on all copies of her recording. So rather than being sensible people and rescheduling everything with our guest we pushed through anyway.  Today we’re talking with Miki! The wonderful person who created our intro and outro music who is out about her poly status in the world so seemed a good person to talk about. Honestly I would love top dive deeper with the attachment theories of it all and so maybe we’ll do another one down the line. But we talk some general information, some of Miki’s experiences, and some of our own understanding and questions regarding just how does one relationship when you decided to throw away the manual. Some vocab: Ethical Nonmonogomay: A relationship style where you ethically (clear consent from ALL parties) engage in whatever you and your partners consider to be nonmonogomous behaviors. Included in this is polyamory (many loves, meaning maintaining or being open to multiple relationships and whatever you determine to be a relationship) and open marriages (a little more flexible, like swinging or just open to flings, less of an emphasis on establishing additional relationships). Much like the bi/pan/omni sexual debate, these labels are very largely open to individual interpretation and the way one party acts out their label may not match how another interprets the label.  If you want to give us something to talk about, or join in the podcast, feel free to post on any of our social media or submit an anonymous story here: https://forms.gle/77KgEmvVpLYBMAHt6 As always, thank you to the wonderful Dr. Miki Anderson for our intro and outtro music. She can be found under Pax Minerva on Apple Music and is all around a wonderful human being.  And thank you to Dr. Keith Christie of Journey Together and Mia Karpack for helping us get our socials up and going! https://journeytogetherpc.com/ Come join us and chat, complain, or send in what mental health you would like to hear us ramble about!  Find us on Facebook, TikTok, and instagram at The Healing Pod  We are online at https://www.PeasInTheHealingPod.com [https://www.PeasInTheHealingPod.com]   You can email us any questions, suggestions, comments, or memes at PeasInTheHealingPod@gmail.com [PeasInTheHealingPod@gmail.com]   If you want to hunt down the bits and bobbles that have been cut out of our episode, join us for another live recording, or just to buy us a cup of coffee, come join us at https://www.patreon.com/TheHealingPod [https://www.patreon.com/TheHealingPod]