In this episode of "Agony Aunties," we’re responding to a listener's question about maintaining a relationship with their son's ex-girlfriend. While it’s understandable to want to maintain a connection with someone that you personally don’t have any issues with, and while we don’t know all of the ins and outs of the situation, what arises in us is the importance to be aware of the complexity of such dynamics post-breakup, to consider the son's feelings, and to be aware of the the potential for confusion on the ex's part.
We’ll be expanding on these ideas in the episode, so give it a listen, and if you have any questions of your own, please send them in to jsamuelpod@gmail.com. 
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Agony Aunties: The ex factor

Bestselling author and psychotherapist, Julia Samuel, invites us into her therapy room as she talks to both known and unknown voices about some of life’s biggest challenges.

Therapy Works is full of therapeutic conversations which may contain difficult emotions but those that can paradoxically bring light, in all its form.

Listeners will hear what the guests have learnt, failed to learn and how they have grown through their experience. At the end of each episode, Julia reflects on her session with her two psychotherapist daughters who will share their thoughts on the conversation. You’ll quickly discover that not all therapists agree on everything!

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Mental Health

In this week’s episode of Agony Aunties, a listener is asking us for healthy ways to move forward after the early death of a brother, who died from addiction, and whose death caused major challenges for the entire family. Let’s begin by saying that there are no quick and easy ways to answer this in a video. This is a profound, life changing challenge, and we really encourage seeking individual therapy, and to explore how the addiction impacted everyone’s relationships, as well as discussing these difficult topics with children to help them understand and process their feelings. 
We’d also like to emphasise self-compassion here, to cope with shame and self-judgment, as there is a major stigma around dying early from addiction, and processing it is not going to be easy. We also go on to suggest that connecting with groups and others who have gone through similar losses can aid in the healing process. Thank you to whoever sent this question in. We’re so sorry to hear about the challenges you’re going through, and we’re really happy that you reached out to speak about it. We hope this helped, in some small way.
﻿Thank you for submitting your questions, and for giving us a chance to help provide some advice. If you have a question, please DM me at @juliasamuelmbe or email jsamuelpod@gmail.com.﻿
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Agony Aunties: Losing someone to addiction

For this week’s episode of Therapy Works, we’re having a special talk about Mental Health Awareness Week, which - this year - is focusing on the theme of movement and its significance in mental health. We have a lot to say on the subject, including some of the language we want to share around Mental Health awareness, and how people are identifying with different states of mental health. If describing the state of our mental health is difficult to verbalise, writing can reveal to us the parts that we keep hidden and unvocalised.
On the theme of movement, we’ll talk about how it can unlock one of the most powerful medicines, as well as making sure we explore our relationship with movement overall. If we’re avoiding it, why is that? And if we’re exercising in order to avoid something else that we’re trying not to feel, that’s something to bring awareness to as well. Also we all find excuses to not do any movement, but it doesn’t have to be high intensity exercise, it can be as small as little walks to break up the day or as Sophie says a little boogie when doing the washing up!

Resources:
To learn more about Mental Health Awareness Week, check out - https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/our-work/public-engagement/mental-health-awareness-week
Otherwise, if you’re in London and want to dance, here’s Pineapple Studios - https://www.pineapple.uk.com
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Movement is Medicine: Mental Health Awareness Week Special

For this week’s episode of Agony Aunties, we’re answering a question from someone struggling after a recent breakup and full of fear of relapsing into a previous nervous breakdown. 
If we go through a really challenging ordeal post breakup, it would make sense that we’d be afraid of how we will be in the future, if another breakup occurs. What’s important to note is that we’re all different people now than we were before. And so, how you’ll process a future challenge isn’t the same way you’ve handled a past challenge. With that being said, we’d also like to acknowledge grief as a natural process, which often involves the full spectrum of emotions. For future challenges, we recommend practicing self-care in many forms, such as seeking therapy, journaling, and spending time with loved ones who provide positive reflections of ourselves. We’ll talk about all of this and more in this week’s episode. 
Thank you for submitting your questions, and for giving us a chance to help provide some advice. If you have a question, please DM me at @juliasamuelmbe or email jsamuelpod@gmail.com.﻿
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Agony Aunties: Post-breakup anxiety

As we’re preparing for Season 6 of the Therapy Works podcast, I wanted to share a special episode here where I spoke with Rahul Jandial, famous Neuroscientist, speaker, author, and friend. Rahul is a dual-trained neurosurgeon and neurobiologist, and the author of “This is Why You Dream” which is what we spend most of our time discussing. 
We get in depth about how dreams reflect our waking life, the interconnectedness of dreams, creativity, and the human brain. Rahul shares insights on the science of dreaming, its effects on problem-solving and creativity, and the impact of dreams across various stages of life including the significance of erotic dreams and nightmares. 
The conversation also touches on the exploration of the dreaming brain's activities, the interpretation of dreams, and the profound relationship between dreaming and death. This conversation was so delightful to have. Being able to talk for so long about the importance of dreaming was utterly fascinating for me, and I hope you find it fascinating as well. 
Apologies for the audio quality, as we faced considerable technical difficulties. If you’re interested in the topic of dreaming, I know you’re going to love Rahul’s new book “This is Why You Dream,” which you can find here:- https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/454635/this-is-why-you-dream-by-jandial-rahul/9781529909449

This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com/therapyworks today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp.com/therapyworks.

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BONUS: Rahul Jandial on why we dream

For this week’s Agony Aunties episode, we were asked how to handle mood swings. And to answer that, as usual in these episodes, we have a few different angles to approach. The first thing we suggest is to bring awareness to the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems within us, and to ground our approach towards mood regulation in the physical. If our bodies and nervous systems are dysregulated, we can experience a range of affective states, both positive and negative, and so finding ways to regulate ourselves first - be it through rest, diet, or exercise - is one approach to settle the body and to manage these mood swings. 
We also recommend a sense of self-compassion here, as there are negative connotations to mood swings, and we hope that you don’t adopt any self-blaming language while trying to regulate your nervous system, but to approach your needs with a sense of softness and care. And, as always, we thank you for your questions here and for your prompts to these conversations. We really enjoy exploring these topics with you, so do please keep sending in your questions, and we’ll do our best to answer as many of them as we can. 
Please email your questions to jsamuelpod@gmail.com or DM Julia on her Instagram @juliasamuelmbe.
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Agony Aunties: The ex factor

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