In this conversation with Dr. Shefali Tsabary, clinical psychologist and author of The Conscious Parent, Karena explores how unhealed childhood wounds get passed down through generations, why traditional discipline doesn't work, and how the three-step process of awareness, acceptance, and action can help you break toxic patterns — whether you're a parent or not.

How do we stop unconsciously passing our unhealed wounds onto the people we love most?

The path to conscious parenting begins not with your child — but with you.

(00:23) From Psychologist to Conscious Parent: The Origin Story

1. Why Dr. Shefali's work applies to anyone who has ever had a parent
2. Her journey from clinical psychology to meditation to motherhood
3. How unhealed childhood baggage gets projected onto the people we love most

(06:55) Triggers, Boundaries & Breaking the Cycle

1. Why nothing outside of you is truly the trigger, only the match
2. Why real boundaries are internal actions, not instructions to other people
3. The three-step path forward: awareness, acceptance, action

(11:12) Screens, Mental Health & the Disconnection Crisis

1. “Screens are the worst thing to happen to children."
2. Anxiety in girls has doubled; suicidality in boys is at an all-time high
3. The real culprit: Overstimulation and disconnection from the present moment
4. Connection is the antidote to all emotional disease

(15:10) Control, Happiness & the Wake-Up Call We're All Avoiding

1. Why the need to control comes from having been controlled in childhood
2. The numbing epidemic: Netflix, dead-end relationships
3. What it takes to honestly say "I don't like my life"
4. How compliance in children (and adults) leads to eventual breakdown

(23:11) Role Reversal, Self-Love & the Books That Can Change Your Life

1. A community question on growing up as the caretaker and what happens when you need care
2. Karena shares her painful experience as her mother's caretaker in her final five years
3. Dr. Shefali's truth: "No one can love us the way we need — that's everyone's ultimate lesson."

Thanks for the support from our partners, including:

1. Visit Dr. Shefali's website
2. Get a 30-day free pass to Dr. Shefali's community! Email her office and mention The Big Silence
3. Order her books
4. Follow her on Instagram

If this episode moved you, please consider supporting The Big Silence Foundation and exploring our resources:

Connect with The Big Silence Community

1. Order: The Big Silence Memoir audiobook

In this conversation with Dr. Marc Brackett, founder and director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, Karena explores the science of emotional regulation, the RULER framework (Recognizing, Understanding, Labeling, Expressing, and Regulating emotions), and why traditional approaches to handling feelings often fail. Dr. Brackett shares his personal story of childhood trauma, discusses the unique challenges men face with emotional expression, and provides practical strategies for dealing with grief, anxiety, and everyday emotional overwhelm.

How do you actually deal with your feelings instead of suppressing them—and why is emotional intelligence the key to better mental health, relationships, and longevity?

Understanding how to regulate your emotions isn't about fixing or judging them—it's about building the vocabulary and tools to recognize, understand, and work with what you're feeling.

(01:23) The RULER Framework & Navigating Grief Without Judgment

1. How to be present for others during loss while protecting your own well-being
2. Becoming an "emotion scientist vs. emotion judge" during difficult times
3. Emotionally intelligent time travel: recognizing temporary circumstances and taking space when needed

(07:18) Why Men Are Drowning in Suppressed Emotions & The Uncle Marvin Story

1. Gender differences in emotional expression are socialized, not biological
2. How "toughen up" culture teaches boys to deny and suppress feelings
3. Dr. Brackett's childhood sexual abuse, bullying, and why suppression creates emotional debt

(15:42) From Trauma to Yale: Building Emotional Vocabulary & Understanding Anxiety

1. How childhood pain sparked Dr. Brackett's career researching emotional intelligence
2. Why precise emotional vocabulary matters
3. Building emotional granularity to better understand your internal state

(27:35) Realistic Optimism, Toxic Positivity & Six Strategies for Dealing With Feelings

1. Why "everything will be fine" is dangerous
2. Learn to deactivate your nervous system through meditation and breathwork
3. The biology of regulation: sleep, nutrition, and movement directly impact your ability to manage emotions

(38:46) The Dealing With Feeling Wheel: Monthly Check-Ins for Emotional Health

1. Monitoring self-talk, breathing practices, reflection, and social connection
2. Assessing sleep quality, nutrition habits, and movement patterns
3. Why all these elements work together for mental health and longevity

Thanks for the support from our partners, including:

In this conversation with Dr. Wendy Oliver-Pyatt, a board-certified psychiatrist specializing in eating disorders and founder of Within Health and Galen Hope treatment centers, Karena explores the life-threatening reality of eating disorders as serious mental illnesses that claim one life every 52 minutes in America. Dr. Oliver-Pyatt explains the biopsychosocial foundations of eating disorders, shares her personal journey from ballerina to eating disorder specialist, and discusses the warning signs in athletes and high achievers. She reveals the controversial truth about GLP-1 medications and eating disorder risk, and provides actionable tools for reframing your relationship with your body through self-compassion and intentional self-care practices.

Understanding that weight stigma is trauma opens the door to compassion—and real recovery.

(01:13) The Deadliest Mental Illness You've Never Heard Of

1. Eating disorders kill one person every 52 minutes in America
2. Why they aren't classified with "serious" mental illnesses despite being more lethal than many
3. The confusion between societal pressure and actual mental illness diagnosis
4. Understanding the biopsychosocial foundation: biological, psychological, social, and spiritual factors

(04:47) From Ballerina to Eating Disorder Psychiatrist

1. Growing up as the child of a Holocaust survivor with a mildly autistic mother
2. How ballet and puberty collided to create impossible body standards
3. The danger of narrow frameworks about what's "acceptable" in our bodies

(18:32) Athletes, Perfectionism & the "Healthy" Eating Trap

1. Why high-achieving athletes and fitness enthusiasts face elevated eating disorder risk
2. The difference between disordered eating behaviors and diagnosable eating disorders
3. How orthorexia disguises itself as "clean eating" or "wellness"
4. Warning signs to watch for in competitive sports and fitness culture

(32:47) What Real Treatment Looks Like

1. The biopsychosocial-spiritual treatment model that addresses all aspects
2. How nutritional rehabilitation and medical stabilization work together
3. Family-based treatment approaches for adolescents and young adults

(47:36) The GLP-1 Controversy: Ozempic, Wegovy & Eating Disorders

1. "It's asinine there's no eating disorder warning"
2. How rapid weight loss medications trigger and worsen eating disorders, especially in teens
3. The danger

In this conversation with Bizzie Gold, founder of Break Method and creator of brain pattern mapping technology, Karena explores how childhood experiences create predictable patterns that shape your relationships, career, and mental health—and how understanding your source belief pattern can help you break free from self-deception and build a healthier life.

Understanding your source belief pattern is the first step toward breaking free from self-deception and building the life you actually want.

(02:05) Brain Pattern Mapping & Bypassing Your Story

1. How Bizzie created a predictive algorithm with 98.3% accuracy
2. Understanding childhood experiences as a "distortion filter"
3. Helping people see their own blind spots

(06:16) The Sweet Spot of Trauma That Makes Great Entrepreneurs

1. Why childhood instability creates self-trust and self-efficacy
2. Developing situational awareness to stay safe and how it translates to business
3. Being able to "think five rings down" when others can't see what's coming
4. Attracting chaotic people because you have too much empathy
5. Why workaholism is easier than intimate relationships for abandonment patterns

(13:47) Enmeshment Patterns & The Right Side of the Spectrum

1. The struggle with self-trust and decision-making
2. Why enmeshed patterns need to learn to disappoint people
3. Understanding why some people can't say no

(27:18) Self-Deception & Why Your Brain Lies to You

1. How childhood patterns create self-deception mechanisms
2. Why Bizzie keeps giving chances to people with bad intentions
3. The lesson: don't let empathy destroy your business from the inside

(40:33) Growing Up with Psychiatric Illness & Finding Your Drive

1. Bizzie's experience with an unstable, abusive childhood
2. Activities and achievement as a distraction from chaos at home
3. Why self-preservation instincts don't come naturally for some patterns

(49:08) Self-Care for Workaholics & Pattern Opposition

1. Why self-care is actually mental health work for go-go-go people
2. Doing things that make you feel accomplished in self-care
3. For avoidant patterns: the opposition is to just...

What if your worst childhood trauma became the gateway to your greatest gift?

In this profoundly moving episode of The Big Silence, Karena sits down with Susan Grau: soul healer, grief and addiction therapist, and Hay House bestselling author. Her near-death experience transformed a childhood marked by extreme trauma into a life devoted to healing. Susan had a childhood that most people can't imagine surviving. But she’s transformed unimaginable pain into a life of powerful healing. Now a grief and addiction therapist who works with spirits from the other side, Susan shares how she learned to survive by becoming her unstable mother's "ally," how codependency became her survival strategy, and why she believes therapists need lived experience to truly help people heal.

True healing comes from walking through the fire, not just studying it from afar.

(02:43) A Near-Death Experience That Changed Everything

1. Susan's story of being locked in a freezer at age 5
2. Growing up with sexual abuse and trafficking
3. How childhood trauma shaped her entire life journey and awakened her abilities
4. The beginning of her connection to the spirit world

(05:51) Growing Up with a Mother with Mental Illness

1. Susan's mother: borderline personality disorder, seeing spirits, and extreme inconsistency
2. Learning how to stay safe
3. The confusing duality: loving and giving one moment, frightening and abusive the next
4. Why Susan became her mother's "ally" while her siblings didn't understand how
5. Understanding codependency as a survival strategy for children of mentally ill parents

(14:18) Addiction, Alcoholism & A Household of Dysfunction

1. Growing up in a home with addiction, alcoholism, and abuse
2. Her brother’s schizophrenia
3. The unpredictability of never knowing which version of your parent you'd get
4. How dysfunction becomes normal when it's all you know

(27:33) Her Brother's Suicide & Choosing to Become a Therapist

1. Why that loss pushed her toward becoming a grief and addiction therapist
2. The importance of therapists having lived experience with trauma and loss
3. How walking through darkness prepares you to help others find light

(38:13) Why Your Therapist Needs to Have Walked Through Fire Too

1. Why Susan doesn't want to see a therapist who hasn't experienced real trauma

What if gratitude isn't just something you feel, but something you create more of every time you practice it?

In this grounding Mental Wellness Month meditation, Karena guides you through an 8-minute practice designed to help you reconnect with gratitude for your body, your breath, and your journey. Using breathwork, visualization, and mantras, this meditation invites you to pause and give thanks for all that has carried you to this moment. Perfect for finding beauty in the everyday, shifting your perspective, or simply celebrating all that you have and all that you are.

Gratitude is a practice. And every time you acknowledge it, you create more of it.

(00:00) Finding Your Peaceful Place & Connecting to Beauty

1. Settling into a quiet space, either indoors or in nature
2. Recognizing that you are surrounded by beauty
3. Pausing to give thanks for all that you are and all that has carried you here

(03:30) Bringing Gratitude to Mind & Holding It in Your Heart

1. One thing you're grateful for today
2. Gratitude for your body, your breath, a loved one, a lesson you've learned
3. Understanding gratitude as a practice, a perspective, a way of living

(06:00) Mantras & Radiating Gratitude Outward

1. "I am grateful for my body. I am grateful for this breath. I am grateful for my journey."
2. Letting your gratitude radiate outward into your life and everyday
3. Celebrating all that you have

If this episode moved you, please consider supporting The Big Silence Foundation and exploring our resources:

Connect with The Big Silence Community

1. Order: The Big Silence Memoir audiobook
2. Shop The Big Silence Self Love Collection
3. Subscribe on YouTube
4. Donate to The Big Silence Foundation
5. Find exclusive offers from our supporters: https://thebigsilence.com/pages/our-podcast-partners

Show Resources:

1. VISIT THE CHALLENGE...

What If Your Gut Could Heal Your Mind?

In this deeply personal episode of The Big Silence, Karena sits down with functional medicine pioneer and bestselling author Dr. Will Cole. From growing up with a bodybuilding dad in the '80s to building the first functional medicine telehealth clinic, Dr. Cole shares his unconventional path to becoming one of the most trusted voices in holistic health. He opens up about the gut-brain connection, why psychiatry still ignores the organ it's treating, and how he practices what he preaches. If you've ever felt dismissed by traditional medicine, struggled with anxiety, or wondered why your mental health and digestive issues seem connected, this conversation will validate everything you've suspected and give you the tools to finally heal.

(00:00) From Bodybuilding to Functional Medicine Pioneer

1. Growing up in the '80s with a Gold's Gym-owning bodybuilder dad
2. How his childhood of "crunchy granola" health became his life's work
3. Starting the first functional medicine telehealth clinic 16 years ago

(08:00) Why Doctors Told Karena They "Don't Deal With Mental Health"

1. The devastating disconnect between mental and physical health in conventional medicine
2. Why psychiatry is the only field that doesn't test the organ it's treating
3. The gut-brain connection: how inflammation, microbiome imbalance, and stress show up as anxiety and depression
4. Breaking down the stigma and siloed approach to healthcare

(15:00) The Shame-Inflammation-Trauma Loop No One's Talking About

1. How toxic shame inflames your body and destroys gut health
2. The science behind stress, trauma, and autoimmunity
3. Why unresolved emotional pain manifests as physical symptoms
4. Dr. Cole's personal struggle with anxiety and overthinking
5. The tools that work: vagus nerve stimulation, peptides, nature, and movement

(25:00) When Everything Hit at Once

1. His father's sudden death
2. The "Gwyneth bone broth" controversy
3. Navigating professional chaos while grieving

(33:00) The Real Tools for Anxiety, Stress & Staying Grounded

1. Transcutaneous vagal nerve stimulation: what it is and why Dr. Cole wears it daily
2. The role of peptides in healing and stress management

What if the answer to your racing thoughts isn't fighting them—but watching them float by?

In this week's free meditation for Mental Wellness Month, Karena guides you through a powerful practice designed for anyone whose mind won't shut up. This session teaches you to observe your thoughts without getting swept away by them—whether it's worry, planning, or that relentless inner critic. If you've been feeling mentally overwhelmed or caught in cycles of rumination, this 10-minute practice will help you remember: you are not the noise in your head. You are the one witnessing it.

Peace doesn't come from silencing your mind. It comes from changing your relationship with it.

(00:00) Setting the Intention: Mental Wellness Month & Weekly Meditations

1. Creating space for mindfulness, stress reduction, and mental well-being
2. Perfect for seasoned meditators and complete beginners alike

(02:00) The Stream Visualization: Watching Your Thoughts Like Leaves on Water

1. Finding stillness in your body and releasing physical tension
2. The powerful metaphor of sitting beside a stream
3. Learning to notice thoughts (worry, planning, self-doubt) without catching or fixing them
4. Understanding that you are the observer of your thoughts

(06:00) Anchoring in Awareness: Returning to Presence

1. Repeating the mantra: "I am not my thoughts. I am the awareness behind them."
2. Understanding that 80,000-100,000 thoughts per day is normal
3. Using breath as your anchor

If this episode moved you, please consider supporting The Big Silence Foundation and exploring our resources:

Connect with The Big Silence Community

1. Order: The Big Silence Memoir audiobook
2. Shop The Big Silence Self Love Collection
3. Subscribe on YouTube
4. Donate to The Big Silence Foundation
5. Find exclusive offers from our supporters: https://thebigsilence.com/pages/our-podcast-partners

Show Resources:

What if breaking your family’s silence was the first step to truly finding yourself?

Author and educator, Dr. Joan Sung, joins Karena in Austin for a candid conversation about identity, intergenerational trauma, and what it really takes to prioritize mental health, especially within Asian American family systems. From the model minority myth to “tiger mom” dynamics, fetishization, and going “no contact”, Joan shares the tools, boundaries, and mindset shifts that helped her reclaim her story and raise her son with compassion and strength. She also opens up about therapy, inner-child work, and why an “emo tour” became her unexpected self-care.

Stripping away expectation starts with telling the truth about your past, your pain, and your needs, so you can build a life rooted in self-trust rather than approval.

1. Treat creative expression as catharsis
2. Expect to re-encounter trauma
3. Save old pages; fragments from earlier life chapters can become anchors
4. Name your “why”: sharing openly helps others feel seen (and keeps you honest).

1. Learn the history so you can spot manipulation
2. Reject perfectionism as belonging; create your own definition of “enough”
3. Call out gendered stereotypes that penalize Asian women who self-advocate
4. Practice bias disruption at work

1. Reframing care as protecting the whole family line
2. If talking feels foreign, blend modalities to ease in
3. Name intergenerational trauma so symptoms stop looking like “character flaws”
4. Education heals: how learning context validates present pain

1. Separate love from achievement: high standards without shame build resilience, not anxiety
2. Choose attunement over fear
3. Replace internalized critics with compassionate coaching language
4. Measure success by nervous-system safety

1. “No contact” isn’t punishment; it’s acknowledging your capacity and choosing safety
2. Expect pushback; your healing doesn’t need consensus
3. Grief comes with relief and tending to the inner child who still hopes

What if the powerful version of you isn't something you need to become—but something you already are?

In this empowering Mental Wellness Month meditation, Karena guides you through a 9-minute practice designed to help you reconnect with your inner strength and rise into your most confident self. Using breathwork, visualization, and affirmations, this meditation reminds you that you're not waiting to become someone else; you're remembering who you've always been. Perfect for moments when you need to tap into your power, trust yourself, or move through life with intention and clarity.

Your power isn't something you build from scratch. It's something you remember and reclaim.

(00:00) Settling In & Breathing Into Strength

1. Finding a comfortable seated position with spine tall and shoulders back
2. Inhaling strength and power into your entire body
3. Exhaling doubt and anything holding you back

(04:00) Visualizing Your Empowered Self & Calling It Forward

1. Seeing yourself standing tall, rooted, and ready
2. Visualizing a version of you who walks with purpose and speaks with clarity
3. You're not becoming someone else, you're remembering who you've always been

(06:30) Affirmations & Rising Into Your Power

1. "I am powerful. I am grounded. I trust myself."
2. Letting the feeling of empowerment fill you completely
3. Bringing awareness back to your body and carrying this power forward

Subscribe to Karena’s NEW podcast! Tone It Down brings you real conversations about fitness, wellness, lifestyle, and more.

If this episode moved you, please consider supporting The Big Silence Foundation and exploring our resources:

Connect with The Big Silence Community

1. Order: The Big Silence Memoir audiobook
2. Shop The Big Silence Self Love Collection
3. Subscribe on YouTube
4. Donate to The Big Silence Foundation
5. Find exclusive offers from our supporters: