Infants on Thrones

Glenn Ostlund's Psychology Today Profile

A listener reaches out after an unexpected conversation with a former bishop leaves her shaken, tearful, and wondering why old wounds still hurt. In this episode, we explore religious trauma through the lenses of Samskara, Polyvagal Theory, and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). Why does the body react long after the mind has moved on? What happens when old emotional grooves are triggered? And how can we cultivate peace, boundaries, and self-trust without needing to prove our experience to anyone?

Glenn Ostlund's Psychology Today Profile

A message from an old friend became an unexpected mirror. After a New Moon ritual, Glenn received a warning that he had opened demonic portals through witchcraft and that only repentance could save him. Rather than debating theology, this episode explores certainty, folklore, nervous systems, cult dynamics, spiritual identity, and the stories we use to make sense of reality. What happens when two people who once admired each other find themselves living inside entirely different worlds?

Glenn Ostlund's Psychology Today Profile

A binaural meditation examining anger through the lens of neuroscience and polyvagal theory.

Glenn Ostlund's Psychology Today Profile

After watching Episode 8 first thing when I woke up this morning, I had to sit down and record my reflections -- set against a backdrop of a binaural audio soundscape intentionally designed to calm and soothe the nervous system (if you will allow that, Carol).

Glenn Ostlund's Psychology Today Profile

In this binaural audio meditation, I offer reflections on Pluribus—not as claims about authorial intent, but as a personal response to what the story evokes in me. I don’t presume to know the intentions of Vince Gilligan, the creative team, or what Rhea Seehorn is aiming to convey. Listening to the show’s official podcast, you can hear the care, curiosity, and shared joy behind their process—a kind of pluribus, a many-as-one collaboration that I deeply respect. My reflections exist alongside that work, not over it.

Using Carol Sterka’s resistance to the Joining as a case study, this episode explores perception as a “controlled hallucination,” shaped by memory, identity, and threat. The soundscape itself is intentionally open-ended: binaural beats move gently between theta and delta in a Fibonacci-inspired rhythm, forming a kaleidoscope of sound rather than a lesson.

This podcast also gives me space to explore ideas I often hold quietly in therapy—ways of seeing people, trauma, and meaning that belong to reflection rather than intervention. I create these episodes for my own regulation and practice, trusting each listener will take from it exactly what their nervous system needs.