Light and Shadow: the podcast

31. Mapping healing: [step five] setbacks & comebacks

Throughout the healing journey, we will all face discouragement. We may feel like we're fighting a war on all fronts and not see the way out. We may think that everything we try still ultimately leads to failure, leaving us feeling powerless over changing our lives. What we don't realize is that healing stands on multiple moving parts. A house isn't built on one stick, or branch - it's built on multiple items bonded together, and just because you have one of those items doesn't mean you're failing or it's the wrong one, it's simply that there's still more items we need to bond together and integrate to get to the finished picture. In this episode, I talk about how to deal with despair when it comes knocking, helping you see from a new perspective rather than the one that got you into despair in the first place.

30. Mapping healing: [step four] renewing & rebuilding

While interrupting the cycle teaches specific skillsets at the nervous system, thought, feeling, body sensation, urge/impulse, and behavioral levels, renewing and rebuilding is all about making those skills become an integral part of your daily routine to not just choose healed responses, but to live a completely healed life. In this episode, I talk about how interjecting these practices work to re-program your earlier childhood development, allowing you to rewire your brain and body toward health and holistic wellness rather than living in the dysfunction of your past. This episode is all about the integration of previous episodes and how they fit into your daily life to bring about maximum growth and sustainable change.

29. Mapping healing: [step three] interrupting the cycle

This is the rehab episode! Therapy and treatment centers are not always accessible to the general public - especially those who truly need the help, so I've decided to bring rehab to you. In this episode, I've compiled everything I've learned from psychological facilities, therapists, self-help books, counselors, and my own life experiences over the past 12 years to tell you what really works when trying to break the cycle of addiction or toxic cycles. Even if you don't specifically struggle with a life impairing problem, this episode will help you break just any bad habit because it gets to the root of the issue rather than trying to fight it at the branch level. After a decade long battle with an eating disorder, I can assure you, I touch on every level of the journey, so you can learn and heal much faster than I could.

28. Confidence: principles in knowing, loving & showing up for yourself - your guide to building inner strength & living the life you truly desire in alignment with your most authentic self

In a society that runs from emotions, you might find it surprising that building healthy self-confidence grows from an almost entirely emotional base. In this episode, I go through what confidence truly is, where it comes from, and how to grow it in your own life. I talk about how far-reaching the effects of confidence really are, not just in your life, but the lives of almost everyone you encounter. In my honest opinion, true and stable self-worth/confidence is the new generational wealth, and I just want to see everyone cash in and live their best lives.

27. Neuroscience basics & protocols

"Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life, and you will call it fate." - Jung In order to master your mind, you've got to read the manual on how it works. In this episode, I synthesize everything I've learned about neuroscience as it pertains to mental health. I explore the dopamine cycle and how it relates to mental health struggles and addiction, as well as offer insights on how to heal and leverage the dopamine cycle. I also discuss how childhood dopamine wiring affects our brain, body, and behavior in adulthood, and just because something was wired as "safe" or "good" in childhood, doesn't mean its optimal for adulthood. Using various Huberman podcasts as a framework and guide, I provide a succinct version of all his protocols that relate to mental health. By putting together these protocols with complementary mindsets, my hope is to bring you a synergetic dose of healing at the brain and body level.