🎙 Episode 2: From Self-Destruction to Self-Regulation

I didn’t always cope in healthy ways.

For a long time, what I called “coping” was actually self-destruction in disguise — self-harm, substance use, chaos, and emotional explosions that scared other people… and sometimes scared me too.

When you don’t know how to regulate your brain, you reach for whatever numbs it.

In this episode, I talk honestly about what those years looked like — and what changed after getting clean and coming out of psychosis. Recovery didn’t magically fix my bipolar brain. I had to learn tools. Skills most people aren’t taught.

In this episode I break down:

• How I retrained my brain to challenge negative thought patterns • The 4-4-8 breathing technique and how it activates your nervous system’s “rest and digest” mode • What the vagus nerve actually does — and why long exhales calm racing thoughts • Body scan meditation and progressive muscle relaxation (and how they shift activity away from the amygdala) • How sound baths and slow frequencies can move your brain out of over stimulation • Why cooking and even Call of Duty became healthy grounding tools instead of escapes

Self-destruction feels powerful in the moment. Regulation feels boring.

But boring is stable. And stable is freedom.

If you’re still in the chaos phase, you’re not broken. You just may not have been taught the tools yet.

This episode is about learning them.