The SelfWork Podcast

Do you know how to heal from an affair?

This episode is once again motivated by a wonderful question from a listener. He’s a guy whose been in a relationship for many years – had an affair – or as he says “I cheated." But he now realizes that he still has deep feelings for his girlfriend. He wants to know how the two of them need to approach reconciliation together. I was struck by his sincerity and honesty, and decided to featu...

Today's episode is about watching my mother disappear.

She wasn't a magician; she didn't physically leave all of us. She disappeared after she very bravely went into rehab and got off the massive amounts of prescription drugs she'd been taking for decades.

My mother would've been 100 years of age this week, a feat she wouldn't have liked as she hated aging. I think of her a lot but decided that, in an episode ...

Do you chat with a bot these days? Is AI feeling like therapy to you?

Here's a new "You get the gist" segment of SelfWork!

I was surprised the other day by someone saying that – in their battle with an upcoming divorce and ongoing separation – that they’d been talking with an AI chatbot. And that it was helping in its own way.

It reminded me a little bit of the first time a new client told me that they’d met their spouse o...

Conflict can work for you and help you create more intimacy in your relationship.

I’ve worked with so many couples on how to work through conflict. And there are definite things to do and things not to do. As I said in the last episode (which you might want to listen to if you haven’t..) a relationship that avoids conflict, where one or both people don’t talk about the elephant in the room, is also avoiding (or not creating) intimac...

 In this episode, we’re going to focus on nine very real consequences or dangers of avoiding conflict in partnerships, in marriages, and in committed relationships. It’s a response to a listener’s question – and I’ll read a part of her email. In general, conflict-avoidant relationships also become intimacy-avoidant relationships. Avoiding the conflict can stem from fear of the loss of the relationship or defensiveness. And it can l...

Today on SelfWork, we're talking with a mother and father whose beloved daughter Ella, at age 24, died by suicide. And how they've dedicated their lives to suicide prevention.

I was introduced to Martha and Chris Thomas through a family member who told me about their daughter’s suicide. They’ve chosen a path, along with their son Solomon, an NFL football player, to try and keep any other family from living through the horrif...

If you want to find out how to heal your mind through your body, this interview with the very kind and compassionate Karden Rabin is a must-listen.

Drawing on decades of research in neuroplasticity, psychology, trauma, behavior, clinical experience with clients, and their own personal journeys of recovering from chronic illness and pain, Jennifer and Karden teach readers how to learn and ‘speak’ the language of the nervous system. F...

Emotional manipulation can be hard to figure out. But when you do, it's also hard to know what to do about it.

So today, I’m going to use two such questions from listeners to give you some ideas. First is from a mom who took care of her granddaughter a lot early on – and now feels that her daughter and her relationship has become toxic and the daughter is withholding her child from her.

Second is from a woman who has “lots” kids ...

Today we’re going to focus on the feeling that you're not important - a feeling likely created by how you were parented.

How does this happen? Your parents' careers came first. The parents themselves came first for one another, only caring for the child as a secondhand and almost bothersome activity. Your being wasn’t celebrated – instead what you could achieve got some notice, as long as you continued to be successful. Your...

Today on SelfWork, we’re focusing on self-doubt and how to grow from failure. Or what you’re calling failure.

But labeling something as a failure can be used in several different ways , can’t it? It can be motivating, or it can stop you in your tracks. It can cause tremendous embarrassment, even shame, or you can use it to grow. What you tell yourself about failure has such a strong impact on whether it leads you into depression, ev...

One of the hardest tasks we take on as humans is raising children.

Many of us do a pretty good job of raising children. But many of us don't. Sadly, our kids are often left to become adults themselves and bear the scars of our anger, our addictions, or our neglect. And if they don't do something differently than we did, they can perpetuate the problem.

Raising children poorly can then be passed on. It's called transgenera...

There are many lessons learned about grief through my work in the last 34 years of being a therapist. And today, I want to share them with you in this 439th episode of SelfWork.

Some common questions that I'll cover are:

• Is it ever “too late” to grieve?
• Does your grief mean that your faith isn’t strong enough or that you are failing?
• Is there a right way to grieve?
• Is there a right way to respond to someone’s grief?
• Do you ever g...

Are you working toward success?

My guest on SelfWork today is a career expert - Laura Gassner Otting - I've already been influenced by her new book WonderHell in quite a wonderful way!

Laura’s secret superpower is seeing your greatness and reflecting it back on you, so that you can get “unstuck” — and achieve extraordinary results. A regular contributor to Good Morning America, the TODAY Show, Harvard Business Review, and Oprah D...

Today we're going to talk about the fairly sticky subject of the difference between expectations, demands, and boundaries. In this "second time around" episode, Christine Mathias, Dr. Margaret's communication manager, lets us in to how her younger self struggled with setting good boundaries - and why this particular episode meant a lot to her.

So, what is the difference between expectations, demands and boundarie...

Today on SelfWork, the focus is on how to work through disappointment.

John Crowley, my friend and incredible production engineer, chose this episode as one of his "second time around" favorites to present to you in my absence. My immense gratitude to him for taking the wheel!

What are the seven steps to work through disappointment? Here they are!

• Grieve first.
• Start getting perspective right off the bat.
• Consider and acknow...

How are you supposed to live a normal life when "home" was chaos? That's the topic of today's SelfWork. and it's triggered by a very frank email from a listener whose kept his chaos secret for many years.

We can tend to keep secret the fact that home was chaos – you can fear being judged for it, even though you didn’t cause it. Please heed a trigger warning; the story is hard to hear. And if there was significan...

Today we're going to focus on how to find community and belonging by finding or creating a "third space." What's that?

Many of you don’t remember the 1983 hit show Cheers. It was about a local Boston bar run by a recovering alcoholic who was still very much a playboy. The bar was peopled by everyone from a grandiose psychiatrist, a retired coach, a rather superior-feeling grad student, a mailman, and well... who knew...

Why is it so hard to treat eating disorders? We're going to find out today in this interview with Johanna Kandel, founder and director of the National Alliance for Eating Disorders.

Kandel brings her own successful recovery from anorexia and bulimia to this interview whose message is that full recovery is possible. She's the author of book "Life Beyond Your Eating Disorder, but in her establishment of a thriving clinicia...

Today the focus is on doctors and depression, with Dr. Pamela Buchanan as my guest, in a second episode in the "Careers That Kill" series, discussing medical providers, the pandemic, and depression.  

She's a board-certified physician, speaker and thought leader dedicated to transforming healthcare and championing mental well-being. She’s a TEDx speaker known for her powerful talk on “Emotional Flatline,” which explores ...