Your Mental Breakdown

Sarah feels righteous anger about a coworker that was let go. Doug helps her see that it's a trigger for her own traumatic past when people in power abuse that power and wrong others. When it's on someone else's behalf, Sarah has insulation, protection, and deflection from her own wounds, making it easier to take up a quest for justice. She is able to draw the link to her own history of being wronged and abused by people in power in the cult and her previous marriage and jobs.

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Drew continues the process of individuation. He sees that sharing his life with his mom is now a function of him being proud of himself, not him looking to her for reassurance and self-worth. Drew acknowledges his own physical body and the sensations that come along with his emotional experiences. Doug helps him understand how regulating his physical body can help him regulate his thoughts and feelings. Drew explores feeling spread thin and starts thinking about where he chooses to put energy now – not just doing everything everywhere for everyone and burning out.

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Sarah felt validated and valued at work this week after a triggering annual review last week. Doug and Sarah explore how what she calls nonsense can make perfect sense to others. They break down issues of control and accountability. Sarah unpacks how her vigilance that others follow the rules is conditioning from her childhood in the cult.

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Drew got emotionally triggered after a recent funeral for a friend from back home. Then he made a surprise visit to his parents for his mom's birthday. Doug fills us in on what we missed in both Drew's last session (#65) that didn't get recorded, and a phone call that Drew and Doug had to process some relationship trouble. In the session Drew is able to go into the emotion underneath the recent triggers.

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Drew learns to trust his gut more. He experiences being the son he wants to be for his parents, rather than the son he thinks they want him to be. He feels whelmed, not overwhelmed, but still needs support from people around him. Drew explores asking for forgiveness rather than asking for permission, and saying "thank you" instead of "I'm sorry."

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Sarah got triggered by a review at work which leads to an exploration of deeper issues. Doug helps her express anger and frustration about being powerless and misrepresented, especially when someone of authority is in control. Sarah starts to make the link to repressed emotion from the childhood heartbreak she experienced in the cult. She is able to stay with the emotion in the session and just not intellectualize it.

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Drew feels his self-confidence grow, but acknowledges that his trust issues are still making him want constant reassurance in relationships. As he recovers from Covid, we explore and break down his relationship to smoking weed. Drew celebrates his baby steps and progress in the meta sense – from pronouncing the word "compartmentalize" to breaking codependence.

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Doug redefines work-life balance: it's a balance of work, rest, and play that are all under the umbrella of life. Sarah examines "play" in her life. She connects the hyper-vigilance of being 'mama bear' for everyone around her to the trauma response that protects her from slowing down or stopping to feel the feelings. Doug uses a folding paper example to show the neural pathways that get embedded in our brains. See the link in these notes to a video clip of him demonstrating it.

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Folding Paper Neural Pathways Video Example

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Who doesn't love the smell of bacon? Drew manages Covid confusion and experiences letting go and trusting himself. He is slowing down without slowing down and acknowledges, "As a human being, you can only put up with so much." He draws inspiration from his grandma - and shares a story about her that Mer loves!

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Doug is on location in New York discovering the quiet, nature side of the city. Sarah and Doug dissect the associations she's held in her head with being a trauma survivor and with being a victim. Sarah explores some recent triggers and exercises having compassion for the younger version of herself that was traumatized. Doug helps Sarah trace some of her discomfort back to a feeling of powerlessness and a fear of the unknown. Mer breaks down the victim mentality and the fear of unravelling in a session both for a client and for a therapist.

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Doug's New Album on Spotify

Tootsie Pop Commercial

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