Mariska and I rant about the culture wars and how people using the trans female athlete debate in a way that really hurts trans people.  We talk about how to inform well meaning people about when their perspective is hetero-sexist.  

In this show I begin by endorsing Brene Brown's Atlas of the Heart series on HBO Max.  Then I lament how I hesitate to share it more broadly out of fear of being labeled as "woke" or an SJW (social justice warrior), which is a shame as we should embrace being an ally and not be afraid to share it.  Then I dive into the dilemma of mixed signals from friends and how to respond to them.  Mariska chimes in with some passive aggressive paw licking to shame you into rating and reviewing.  

Some friendships are so strong they need a different name.  I have never seen men have one so I associate them most with women.  What happens when one of these fryndships (a non romantic love bond stronger than even a powerful typical friendship) dies.   How does a person learn to open again and can that be a trauma?  

Is good the enemy of great when it comes to relationships?  In this episode I explore some things I encourage clients to think about when they are trying to determine if a relationship can be improved or if we should leave and move on.  The 3 F's of what don't work in change, and the 4 R's of what we need to do to change get reviewed here as well.  Also, Mariska gets pretty manipulative to get you to rate and review.  

In this episode we explore how to stop gas lighting yourself, consume the hard medicine of negative feedback, and define that you can achieve.  

This week I had three clients whose partners (who all happened to be male) just left and were not willing to even try to work on the relationship.  This is a podcast in a little of the why that can lead to a partner choosing to just leave.  

In this episode I talk about the bravery of one of my students calling me out when I mis-gendered him on the podcast.  How to react to negative feedback and learn from it.  I also talked about the joy of starting a new group at my school and how I hope it will go.  

What do you do if a friend says something scary and they are not responding?!  We go through some of the steps and options in this episode.  Plus how to handle getting cut from badminton.  

One of my clients was reminding me the major impact that parents cheating can have on the kids.  This episode is an exploration of that.  

If you ever do dumb things and want to stop, this episode explores how we figure out what we are getting from those behaviors and how to find other ways of meeting those needs.  There is also a surprise interruption (or two) in this episode and some reveal of how the Not Allowed to Die podcast is made.