In this episode of What’s on Your Bookshelf, Sam Powell and Denise Russo tackle one of the most challenging chapters in Dr. Caroline Leaf’s book Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess — the chapter on trauma and how our minds process painful experiences.

The conversation explores why suppressing difficult thoughts often makes things worse and how learning to process them intentionally can help us heal and move forward.

In this episode we discuss:

* The difference between “Big T” trauma and “Little t” trauma — and why both deserve attention and validation.

* Why avoiding painful thoughts can actually harm our long-term mental and physical health.

* How the Neurocycle process can help people reconceptualize painful memories instead of suppressing them.

* Practical grounding techniques like box breathing and the 5-4-3-2-1 sensory exercise to calm the mind during stressful moments.

* Why healing trauma often takes time, patience, and repeated cycles of reflection and processing.

One Big Takeaway

Healing isn’t about pretending painful things never happened.

It’s about learning to look at those experiences differently so they no longer control your thoughts, reactions, or future.

A Note for Listeners

This episode discusses trauma and emotional healing. While the ideas in the book can be powerful tools, professional therapy and support can also play an important role when working through deeper experiences.

Coming Next

In the next episode, the conversation shifts from trauma toward breaking bad habits and building healthier mental patterns that support long-term resilience.

📖 Buy the book and come along on the adventure with us.

We’re so excited you’re here and would love to hear from you.

How to reach us:

Denise: LinkedIn | Substack | School of Thoughts LinkedIn Sam: LinkedIn | Substack | LeadtheGame’s Career Locker Room | Website

Subscribe and Review on Apple and Spotify.Subscribe to our YouTube channel.

In this episode of What’s on Your Bookshelf, Sam Powell and Denise Russo dive deeper into Dr. Caroline Leaf’s book Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess and explore the chapter where the ideas finally become practical.

After weeks of building the foundation, this conversation focuses on how to actually train your mind and strengthen your brain through daily mental habits.

In this episode we discuss:

* Why learning alone isn’t enough — and why transformation only happens when you apply what you’re learning.

* The idea that your brain is “hungry” for the thoughts you feed it and how that shapes your mental resilience.

* A powerful comparison between mental training and physical training — building your brain like you would build muscle.

* How small daily practices can improve focus, sleep, emotional regulation, and decision-making.

* The 5-step Neurocycle process for strengthening your thinking and processing ideas more deeply:

* Gather

* Reflect

* Write

* Recheck

* Active Reach

One Big Takeaway

Most people consume ideas.Few people process them deeply enough for real change.

This episode explores how slowing down, reflecting, writing, and sharing ideas can turn learning into lasting transformation.

Coming Next

In the next episode, the conversation moves into one of the book’s most powerful topics: Using the Neurocycle to detox stress, trauma, and toxic thought patterns.

📖 Buy the book and come along on the adventure with us.

We’re so excited you’re here and would love to hear from you.

How to reach us:

Denise: LinkedIn | Substack | School of Thoughts LinkedIn Sam: LinkedIn | Substack | LeadtheGame’s Career Locker Room | Website

Subscribe and Review on Apple and Spotify.Subscribe to our YouTube channel.

This episode dives into Chapter 10 of Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess by Caroline Leaf — and the science behind why real mental change takes 63 days, not just 21.

Sam and Denise unpack:

* Why 21 days builds awareness — but 63 days builds automation

* What actually happens in your brain during habit formation

* The emotional benchmarks you’ll hit (from excitement to doubt to resolve to peace)

* Why “little by little, then all at once” is neurologically true

* The power of accountability in sustaining change

* How forgetting works — and how to stop feeding toxic thoughts

* Why rewiring your brain is self-leadership in action

Key takeaway:

You don’t just start change — you sustain it. Seven to thirty minutes a day for 63 days can literally reshape your neural pathways.

This episode is practical, grounded, and motivating — especially if you’ve ever quit something on Day 10 and wondered what went wrong.

📖 Buy the book and come along on the adventure with us.

We’re so excited you’re here and would love to hear from you.

How to reach us:

Denise: LinkedIn | Substack | School of Thoughts LinkedIn Sam: LinkedIn | Substack | LeadtheGame’s Career Locker Room | Website

Subscribe and Review on Apple and Spotify.Subscribe to our YouTube channel.

This week, Denise and Sam move from theory to practical brain training.

If you’ve ever:

* Reacted when you meant to respond

* Spiraled into negativity

* Felt hijacked by stress

* Wanted “peaceful control” but couldn’t quite reach it

This episode gives you tools to interrupt the spiral and retrain your thinking.

What You’ll Learn:

* The difference between reacting and responding (the 30–90 second rule)

* Why self-regulation is trainable — not a personality trait

* How to shift from anxiety to “peaceful control”

* The 3:1 positivity reset (rewiring negative thought cycles)

* Visualization tools:

* The Box Technique

* The Window Technique

* The Suit of Armor

* The Rewind Technique

This episode blends neuroscience, parenting stories, job-search rejection, and everyday frustration (yes, including the sock saga) into something powerful:

👉 You don’t eliminate discomfort.👉 You learn to manage it.👉 And that’s where freedom starts.

📖 Buy the book and come along on the adventure with us.

We’re so excited you’re here and would love to hear from you.

How to reach us:

Denise: LinkedIn | Substack | School of Thoughts LinkedIn Sam: LinkedIn | Substack | LeadtheGame’s Career Locker Room | Website

Subscribe and Review on Apple and Spotify.Subscribe to our YouTube channel.

This week, we hit the halfway point of Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess and shift from science to application.

The big idea?The steps to change your thinking are simple — but not easy.

We unpack Dr. Caroline Leaf’s 5-Step Neurocycle:

* Gather – Face the thought instead of avoiding it

* Reflect – Go beneath the surface

* Write – Process it consciously

* Recheck – Prune, graft, reframe

* Active Reach – Stabilize and build forward

Key takeaways from this episode:

* Emotions aren’t weaknesses — they’re warning signals.

* You can’t change what you refuse to acknowledge.

* Healing isn’t replacing a bad thought with a happy one.

* It’s integrating your story so it stops owning you.

* Growth isn’t ripping the tree out — it’s pruning and regrafting.

We talk about grief, stress, hustle culture, deep thinking, and why awareness literally changes your brain chemistry.

If you feel stuck in a recurring thought pattern, this episode gives you a practical framework to begin rewiring it.

👉 Read along with us in Chapter 8.📖 Buy the book and come along on the adventure with us.

Next week: Directing your brain for change.

We’re so excited you’re here and would love to hear from you.

How to reach us:

Denise: LinkedIn | Substack | School of Thoughts LinkedIn Sam: LinkedIn | Substack | LeadtheGame’s Career Locker Room | Website

Subscribe and Review on Apple and Spotify.Subscribe to our YouTube channel.

What we unpack in this episode

Denise and Sam break down one of the biggest ideas in the book so far: your mind is not your brain — it’s separate yet inseparable, and your mind can change your brain. They explore the different layers of mind, how thoughts actually form, and why your emotions and body signals are often your first “heads up” that something deeper is happening below the surface.

Key takeaways

* Mind ≠ brain. The brain responds to the mind — it doesn’t “force” you to do things.

* Four levels to mind activity: conscious, subconscious, non-conscious, and unconscious (dreaming).

* Dr. Leaf’s “tree model”:

* Leaves = conscious thoughts

* Branches/trunk = subconscious (the bridge)

* Roots = nonconscious (where the deep entanglement lives)

* A thought isn’t just a thought — it contains layers of memories (informational, emotional, physical).

* The non-conscious processes at extreme speed — and the conscious mind can lag behind by ~10 seconds, which is why you often feel a body signal before you “understand” what’s happening.

* Epigenetics enters the chat: thoughts, stress, and environment can influence what gets “switched on/off” in the body.

🎧 Listen now and understand what your mind really is and what that means for you.

📖 Buy the book and come along on the adventure with us.

We’re so excited you’re here and would love to hear from you.

How to reach us:

Denise: LinkedIn | Substack | School of Thoughts LinkedIn Sam: LinkedIn | Substack | LeadtheGame’s Career Locker Room | Website

Subscribe and Review on Apple and Spotify.Subscribe to our YouTube channel.

This week we get practical: What does the science actually mean for you?

We talk about how mind management helps you move from awareness to empowerment — so you can catch toxic thought patterns early instead of living in the spiral.

A few big moments:

* cognitive dissonance (that inner conflict you can’t ignore forever)

* “pay the bill or pay the price” (Denise’s water softener story = 🔥)

* stress isn’t the enemy — toxic stress is

* your brain and body don’t lie… they reflect what you repeat

🎧 Listen in. And if you’re reading with us, keep going. This book doesn’t just explain your patterns — it gives you a way through them.

📖 Buy the book and come along on the adventure with us.

P.S. If you want a free Agile Brain Assessment, message us — no strings attached.

We’re so excited you’re here and would love to hear from you.

How to reach us:

Denise: LinkedIn | Substack | School of Thoughts LinkedIn Sam: LinkedIn | Substack | LeadtheGame’s Career Locker Room | Website

Subscribe and Review on Apple and Spotify.Subscribe to our YouTube channel.

This week we’re in Chapter 4: The Research — the “proof” chapter of Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess.

We talk about what Dr. Leaf actually measured in her studies — from autonomy + awareness to anxiety/depression scales, brain activity, and even physical health markers — and why the data matters.

Big takeaway: awareness without tools can spiral… but awareness with a process becomes empowerment.And no, you don’t get away with not dealing with your stuff — eventually your mind, brain, and body collect the bill.

Next week we shift from the “what” to the “how” — and get closer to the five-step cycle.

🎧 Listen now.

📖 Buy the book and come along on the adventure with us.

We’re so excited you’re here and would love to hear from you.

How to reach us:

Denise: LinkedIn | Substack | School of Thoughts LinkedIn Sam: LinkedIn | Substack | LeadtheGame’s Career Locker Room | Website

Subscribe and Review on Apple and Spotify.Subscribe to our YouTube channel.

This week, we’re in Chapter 3 of Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess — the chapter where things get real.

We talk about:

* Why anxiety, burnout, and irritability are warning signals, not personal failures

* How mind management isn’t “woo” — it shows up in your body, brain, and biology

* The difference between changing your situation vs. changing your relationship to it

* Why real habit change isn’t 21 days — and what actually makes it stick

* How self-leadership today shapes your future — and the people who come after you

This episode is heavy — but hopeful.It’s the moment the book stops circling the problem and starts pointing toward a process.

🎧 Listen now, and get ready — next week we go deeper into the research.

📖 Buy the book and come along on the adventure with us.

We’re so excited you’re here and would love to hear from you.

How to reach us:

Denise: LinkedIn | Substack | School of Thoughts LinkedIn Sam: LinkedIn | Substack | LeadtheGame’s Career Locker Room | Website

Subscribe and Review on Apple and Spotify.Subscribe to our YouTube channel.

We dig into Chapter Two of Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess by Dr. Caroline Leaf and explain why mind management is the lever for change. We separate mind from brain, outline a five-step neurocycle, and share practical ways to catch and edit thoughts.• the urgency behind mind management and lifestyle trends• difference between mind and brain and why it matters• thoughts as precursors to actions and results• how to catch and edit toxic thought patterns• neuroplasticity and rewiring automatic responses• five-step neurocycle: gather, reflect, write, recheck, active reach• the 63-day habit timeline and realistic expectations• using emotions as guideposts for change• applying tools across work and life without silosWe are giving no strings attached, absolutely free, an Agile Brain exercise and assessment that helps you look at your subconscious thinking

We’re so excited you’re here and would love to hear from you.

How to reach us:

Denise: LinkedIn | Substack | School of Thoughts LinkedIn Sam: LinkedIn | Substack | LeadtheGame’s Career Locker Room | Website

Subscribe and Review on Apple and Spotify.Subscribe to our YouTube channel.