Honestly, it's kind of appropriate this episode is coming two weeks into January. I'm not too great with the whole "resolution" thing exclusively on January 1st.

We can place a lot of pressure on starting over in the New Year. But what actually creates sustainable change in our lives? Sure, temporal landmarks help. But new beginnings are psychologically complex.

A new beginnings doesn't mean rejecting your past self. It's about integrating it.

Chapters

00:00 The Psychology of New Beginnings

03:41 Understanding Narrative Identity

08:54 Common Pitfalls of New Beginnings

12:40 Sustainable Change and Agency

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Yoga is a state of being. People are drawn to the practice for deeply personal reasons, often carrying grief, trauma, or a sense that something in their life is no longer working.

At its core, yoga is a practice of confrontation: with suffering, with illusion, and with the identities we cling to in order to feel safe. In everything I just said, I’m talking about yoga. Western yoga, on the other hand, is it’s own beast. Western yoga culture has developed into something else entirely.

In this episode of Hint of Trauma, I’m joined by Keith Partington and Sydney Richter, founders of Weaponize Yoga, to examine how a practice oriented toward self-knowledge became embedded in a commercial system that often reinforces avoidance rather than transformation.

We discuss identity, suffering, and the importance of community in yoga, while also looking at Keith and Sydney's vision for a new approach to yoga that emphasizes personal transformation and liberation from societal constructs.

Weaponize Yoga IG: https://www.instagram.com/weaponizeyoga/Weaponize Yoga

Substack: https://weaponizeyoga.substack.com/

Aubrey's IG: https://www.instagram.com/aubrey__aust/

Hint of Trauma IG: https://www.instagram.com/hintoftrauma/

Website: www.aubreyaust.com

No, you're not just crazy.

We're told that the right relationship makes us feel calm and at complete peace. Well, psychoanalytic frameworks have some hot takes on that.

Here, we'll explore the complexities of love through a psychoanalytic lens, discussing how love can destabilize our sense of self and the implications of visibility and recognition in intimate relationships. Drawing on theories from Freud, Lacan, and others, we'll the relational nature of identity and the ethical dimensions of love.

Maybe love is not a solution to our vulnerabilities but a way to navigate them together.

Chapters

00:00 The Nature of Love and Insanity

03:16 Psychoanalysis and the Formation of Self

07:21 Visibility and Recognition in Love

11:47 The Ethics of Love and Visibility

16:01 Transitional Spaces in Love

19:10 Living with Vulnerability in Love

Work with me 1-1: https://www.aubreyaust.com/work-with-me

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aubrey__aust/

Hint of Trauma Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hintoftrauma/

What happens when we don't have meaning in our lives? Today, we sit down with Ali Kapadia, founder of Net Project, to delve into the meaning crisis affecting modern society by exploring how technology intersects with human flourishing. They discuss the importance of relationships, the relevance of Maslow's hierarchy in the digital age, and the need for individuals to find fulfillment in their lives.

Ali shares insights from his research and the mission of the Net Project, which aims to create a world where the meaning crisis is addressed through community and agency.

You can find The Net Project here: https://www.netproject.org/

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to the Meaning Crisis

06:44 Ali's Journey and the Birth of Net Project

06:57 Understanding the Meaning Crisis

10:40 Maslow's Hierarchy and Modern Digital Life

16:55 The Importance of Meaningful Relationships

21:40 Creating Fulfillment in Everyday Moments

22:03 Key Insights from Research on Fulfillment

27:43 Envisioning a World Without the Meaning Crisis

Aubrey's Website

Aubrey's Instagram

Hint of Trauma Instagram

What is eroticism?

Today, we are joined by Xixi Wang, a queer painter and tattoo artist whose work explores eroticism not as spectacle, but as sensation. Through line, gesture, and skin, Xixi's art asks us to reconsider what makes something feel erotic and intimate.

This is a conversation about eroticism as aliveness, not performance.

Xixi's Tattoo Booking Link

Xixi's Art Instagram

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'Tis the season to feel utterly emotionally exhausted.

The holidays can bring up a lot for people. They activate everything: memory, longing, old roles, old wounds, and the body’s earliest survival strategies.

So how do we return to the present self in those moments?

Drawing from somatic psychology, attachment theory, and relational neuroscience, this episode explores how returning to old environments activates implicit memory, survival patterns, and younger versions of the self.

We’ll unpack hyper and hypoarousal, fawning, neuroception, somatic boundaries, and evidence-based grounding practices, offering ourselves a compassionate framework for navigating family systems with more regulation, awareness, and self-connection.

Cheers, y'all. We got this.

Find Me on the Internet:

1:1 and Couples Work

Aubrey Aust Instagram

Hint of Trauma Instagram

Website

What would happen if we moved through the world with just a sliver more of creativity and play?

Today I'm joined by Nasimeh Be, a Brooklyn-based coach, artist, and facilitator whose work explores the intersection of creativity, embodiment, and play. Currently a Masters Candidate at Columbia University in Spiritual Psychology, Nasimeh creates workshops, art, and content that help reconnect people to their authenticity, presence, and aliveness.

We're talking Somartia, Nasimeh's latest offering combining movement and creativity, and her research and Columbia. Additionally, we cover why we need creativity more than ever before and wonder what it would be like if Congress members just dabbled in mushrooms. So, we covered all of the essentials.

You can find Nasimeh here for art, coaching, and all of her incredible workshops:

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Aubrey's links:

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Psychoanalytically speaking, to to create a sense of self is to attach.

Not just to people, but to ideas, ideals, desires, and pain. Yeah, even the tough stuff. Because within that, we construct what we consider to be identity. And that's why losing those attachments feels like your heart ripping out of your chest.

In this episode, we explore Judith Butler’s concept of “passionate attachments," or the idea that who we are is shaped by what, and whom, we cannot let go of. Drawing from Freud, Laplanche, Winnicott, Jessica Benjamin, Lacan, and Kristeva, we trace how attachment gives rise to identity, desire, and dependence and how it can both sustain and entrap us.

We’ll talk about:

• How attachment forms the foundation of identity
• Why we cling to what hurts us
• The paradox of freedom and dependence
• How to live consciously within our attachments

We're humans. We're going to trap ourselves. Here's some information to help us trap wisely.

00:00 intro

01:00 object relations theory

02:33 selfhood is entirely based on attachment

03:50 Butler and Psychic Life of Power

04:49 intersubjectivity

05:06 domination and recognition

05:40 what do you orient your life around

06:20 Winnicott and the good enough mother

07:44 Simone de Beauvoir and freedom

10:45 does it feel safer to attach to pain?

11:30 Julia Kristeva and objection

12:19 cutting ties vs understanding what the ties mean

14:25 binding ourselves wisely

When did healing become a full-time job?

Let's explore the rise of therapy culture: how healing became a modern religion, how peace turned into a performance, and why the pursuit of “wholeness” often leaves us more fragmented than before.

Tracing a line from Saint Augustine’s theology of suffering to Freud’s invention of the inner self, from self-help optimism to Instagram therapy, we unpack how our understanding of pain and happiness has evolved and what we might have lost along the way.

With the help of Nietzsche, Foucault, Hannah Arendt, Byung-Chul Han, and bell hooks, we ask:

• When did self-awareness become a moral virtue?

• What happens when introspection replaces participation?

• And what might healing look like if it stopped being a performance and started being a practice?

Find me on the internet:

Website: www.aubreyaust.com

Instagram: @aubrey__aust

Hint of Trauma Instagram: @hintoftrauma

Why is it that the very thing we long for — love, peace, joy — can also feel so unsafe?

Through the lenses of trauma psychology, attachment theory, and philosophy, we unpack how the nervous system learns to associate goodness with risk, and why feeling safe in joy can take time.

Drawing from polyvagal theory, Simone Weil, Byung-Chul Han, Nietzsche, and relational neuroscience, we look at the body’s instinct to protect itself from vulnerability, the brain’s fear of impermanence, and the learned belief that calm must always precede collapse.

We’ll talk about:

• Why the nervous system can mistake joy for danger
• The “window of tolerance” and how we expand it
• How attachment patterns shape our ability to feel good
• The philosophy of joy’s fragility and impermanence
• Practical ways to build a relationship with joy instead of bracing against it

Because sometimes we need to teach ourselves how to stay with joy.

00:00 Intro

01:29 The Nervous System and Joy

03:34 The Psychology of Joy and Fear

04:49 Trauma, Attachment, and the Fear of Good Feelings

07:26 The Fragility of Goodness (Simone Weil, Nietzsche, Byung-Chul Han)

12:05 You can't schedule guaranteed joy. Kind of.

Find me on the internet:
Website: www.aubreyaust.com
Instagram: @aubrey__aust
Hint of Trauma Instagram: @hintoftrauma