Free Therapy with Ben & Kevin

This week is about relationships, how to know if someone is actually right for you, and whether you're being too picky or holding out for what you really want.

Our guest is Beverly Teller, Ben's mom, a longtime therapist, and one of the most requested guests we've had on the show. She's also been giving Kevin “free therapy” around the dinner table for years.

We get into what makes a relationship right for you, what you should and shouldn't compromise on, and how to tell the difference between having standards and protecting yourself from getting hurt. Kevin opens up about what he was looking for in a partner, the pressure he put on himself to become “good enough,” and what dating taught him about himself.

We also talk about healthy conflict, why relationships don't need to be free of disagreement, and how to know when you're fighting to be right instead of trying to understand each other.

If you've ever wondered whether you're settling, asking for too much, or just afraid to take the risk, this episode is for you.

New episodes every Thursday. Follow on the iHeart app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts and on Instagram at @freetherapy.

And as a reminder, we are not therapists, and while this may feel like therapy, it's not. So if you're struggling, please reach out to a mental health professional who can help.

0:00 Intro to Ben's mom
10:30 Are you in the right relationship?
17:32 Am I being too picky?
23:02 What should I look for in a partner?
32:15 What is holding Kevin back?
44:56 Secret to a lasting marriage

45:30 Why commitment can feel scary

 

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This week is about what happens when you finally stop trying to be okay with what happened to you.

Ben sits down with his former therapist, Jessica Serber, who helped him work through years of grief and anger after surviving cancer three times before the age of 24. For a long time, Ben thought healing meant moving on, staying positive, and building a life that had nothing to do with cancer. What he eventually learned was almost the opposite: he couldn’t move through the pain until he let himself actually feel it.

They talk about the anger Ben didn’t think he was allowed to have, the parts of his life he felt cancer had taken from him, and how finally telling the truth about those feelings changed his relationship with the experience. They also get into what healing actually looks like when the thing that happened to you never completely goes away, and how to show up for someone you love when there’s nothing you can say to make things better.

We’ve been best friends since college. We lived in the same house while Ben was going through chemotherapy and still barely talked about what was actually happening. Years later, sitting down with Jess brought us back to conversations we didn’t know how to have then.

If you’ve been carrying pain, anger, grief, or something you’ve convinced yourself you should be “over” by now, this episode is for you.

You can’t heal what you won’t let yourself feel.

New episodes every Thursday. Follow on the iHeart app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts, and on Instagram at @freetherapy.

And as a reminder, we are not therapists, and while this may feel like therapy, it’s not. If you’re struggling, please reach out to a mental health professional who can help.

 

0:00 Reuniting with his old therapist
10:00 Allowed to feel his anger
17:51 Seeing his cancer as trophies
28:09 What to say when someone's struggling
35:28 Getting uncomfortable to heal
42:24 Grief camp and giving back

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This week, Sandra Kushnir is talking about values, why living out of sync with them quietly chips away at your self-esteem, and how to figure out what yours even are.

Our guest is Sandra Kushnir, LMFT, a therapist and the founder of Meridian Counseling, and she gets into where values actually come from, why they matter so much for your mental health, and how to find yours underneath all the noise telling you what you 'should' want.

We have both spent way too long measuring our worth against people online and against a version of success we never really chose. Recording this sent us back to values work we had done years ago and mostly forgotten, and it turned out we had drifted further from ours than we wanted to admit.

If you have everything you were told to want, and still feel a little off, this one is for you.

New episodes every Thursday. Follow on the iHeart app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts and on Instagram at @freetherapy.

And as a reminder, we are not therapists, and while this may feel like therapy, it's not. So if you're struggling, please reach out to a mental health professional who can help.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week's episode is about sex, women's biggest complaints about men in the bedroom and what men get wrong about sex. 

Rachel Overvoll is a sex expert trained at the Kinsey Institute, and this was on of our most fun episodes we've recorded yet. 

We get into the biggest turn-offs women won't say to your face, what pleasure means for two people, and why guys have it all wrong in the bedroom. She makes the case that the best sex happens when both people are being a little selfish, and completely dismantles the myths most men have been carrying since they were teenagers.

If you've ever wondered whether you're actually good in bed, or you just want to be better for your partner, this one's for you.

New episodes every week. Follow on the iHeart app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts and on Instagram at @freetherapy.

And as a reminder, we are not therapists, and while this may feel like therapy, it's not. So if you're struggling, please reach out to a mental health professional who can help.

00:00:00 – Intro
00:03:34 – Every Guy Experiences The Same Thing
00:12:28 – Mandatory Book To Read For Men
00:19:42 – Women's Biggest Complaints in The Bedroom
00:28:29 – Penis Size Myth
00:32:31 – What Women Wish Men Knew About Sex

43:08 -- Conversation About Porn

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This week's episode is about male friendships, why it's so hard for guys to make real friends as adults, and why men opening up to each other is so tough.

Our guest is Seth Menachem, a therapist here in LA who runs the Menachem Psychotherapy Group. By the time we were done, we felt like we had made a new best friend.

We went deep into into why so many men are lonelier than ever and one small move that can shift an entire friend group. If you've got buddies, but no one you can call at 2am, or are looking to go deeper in your friend circle, this one's for you.

New episodes every week. Follow on the iHeart app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts and on Instagram at @freetherapy.

And as a reminder, we are not therapists, and while this may feel like therapy, it's not. So if you're struggling, please reach out to a mental health professional who can help.

00:00:00 – Intro
00:02:31 – Why Men Struggle To Be Vulnerable
00:11:28  – The Secret To Making Friends
00:16:26 –  What To Do When Your Triggered
00:26:30 –  Why Curiosity Is Important

36:30 -- Why Opening Up Is Tougher Than Staying Silent

 

 

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When times are hard, we look for wisdom to get us through those moments. Whether it's an author, a poet, or a world leader, there are lifetimes of experience we can look back on to find a little solace.

This week, no therapist, just Ben & Kevin sitting down to share the wisdom that feels like therapy to them. The quotes, the mantras, and the lines they come back to when everything feels like too much. They shared lines from Steve Jobs, Ram Dass, Brene Brown, Seneca, Young Pueblo & others as well.

If you've ever needed something to hold onto when things get hard, this one's for you. 

New episodes every week. Follow on the iHeart app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts and on Instagram at @freetherapy. And as a reminder, we are not therapists, and while this may feel like therapy, it's not. So if you're struggling, please reach out to a mental health professional who can help.

00:00:00 – Intro
00:06:29 – How to Dance Through Life 
00:09:00  – Trusting That It Will Work Out
00:13:00 – Everyone Wants To Be Loved 
00:22:30 –  What is authenticity

00:29:20 – Sayings Ben Thinks Are Bullshit

 

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This week is about anxiety and rumination, and why trying to get rid of your anxiety is exactly what keeps it going.

Kimberley Quinlan is an amazing therapist who specializes in anxiety and rumination. In this episode she gets into why a thought is not a fact, why avoidance quietly shrinks your entire life, and what she actually does at 3am when her brain won't turn off. It is not what you'd expect!!

We found out during this episode that we've been feeding our anxiety for years without realizing it. She pointed out all the little ways we treat anxious thoughts like they're important, and why attention control is the key to retraining your brain out of the spiral.

If you're the one lying awake at 2am running the same loop, this one is for you.

New episodes every week. Follow on the iHeart app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts and on Instagram at @freetherapy.

And as a reminder, we are not therapists, and while this may feel like therapy, it's not. So if you're struggling, please reach out to a mental health professional who can help.

00:00:00 – Intro
00:02:24 – Why You Can't Get Rid of Anxiety
00:09:32 – A Thought Is Not a Fact
00:15:10 – Why We Ruminate
00:22:12 – Avoidance and Doing It Scared
00:24:55 – The 2AM Spiral 

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Our guest this week is my former therapist, Koorosh Rassekh! We talk about where people-pleasing actually comes from, why it isn't a flaw you need to fix but something that once kept you safe, and the techniques that actually make hard conversations easier.

For most of my life I thought keeping the peace made me a better friend, partner, and person. I'd suppress my needs, avoid the conversations I was dreading, and tell myself I was just being easygoing. But it actually just built quiet resentment and slowly ruined my relationships.

If you say yes when you mean no, or you've been sitting on a conversation for months because you're afraid of how it'll land, this one's for you.

– Kevin

New episodes every week. Follow on the iHeart app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts and on Instagram at @freetherapy.

And as a reminder, we are not therapists, and while this may feel like therapy, it’s not. So if you’re struggling, please reach out to a mental health professional who can help.

0:00  Intro: people-pleasing and conflict avoidance
6:59  Why you're not broken
9:47  Why expressing needs feels impossible
13:16 People-pleasing caught in real time
24:58 How to have hard conversations
41:08 Signs you're people-pleasing, and the cost

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This week is about attachment styles and how to rewrite the one you grew up with. Someone takes three hours to text back and you start spiraling. Or things finally start to get good and you start pulling away for absolutely no reason. It isn't random and it isn't a character flaw. It's your attachment style, and most of us were never taught we had one.

Today, we sit down with German psychologist Jenny Meinen, who studied attachment theory. We get into where these patterns come from, why anxious and avoidant people keep finding each other, and why the work underneath all of it is self-worth. Jenny breaks down what a secure conversation actually sounds like out loud, why the repair after a fight matters more than the fight, and the line Kevin is still trying to live by: their mood is not a threat to me, and I'm not responsible for other people's emotions.

If you've ever needed reassurance you were too embarrassed to ask for, or gone cold the second things got real, this one's for you. You'll probably know your style before the guest even shows up.

Also, a reminder that we are not therapists, and if you are really struggling, to get the support you need <3

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Someone you love is grieving and you have no idea what to say. So you say nothing, and that's the one thing you shouldn't do.

Grief therapist and author Claire Bidwell Smith has sat with thousands of people through loss and written five books on grief. With Father's Day approaching, Ben opens up about losing his dad Mickey three years ago. Claire breaks down how to actually show up for someone who's grieving, why anxiety after loss is something nobody talks about, and how conscious grieving can give you the tools to heal.

If you've ever lost someone you love, or you love someone who has, we think Claire can help.

New episodes every week.

Follow on the iHeart app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts and on Instagram at @freetherapy.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.