The ASSertive Podcast

We look at a post where friends share diet and weight loss tips and we delve into the weight loss culture and we touch on food rules, emotional eating, intuitive eating, set points and how to have a healthy relationship with nutrition.

We look at a post regarding addiction and explore enabling vs. tough love, how rescuing children from distress can impact us in adulthood and how to prevent relapse. 

We look at a post regarding addiction and explore harm reduction vs. abstinence, the stages of change, and distinguish between a lapse and relapse. We also introduce a relapse autopsy and how to effectively use it and discuss appropriate expectations in addiction. 

We continue looking at the thought error of entitlement, this time in regards to a friendship. We discuss the benefits of direct communication and normalize outgrowing friendships. 

We have an open conversation about entitlement when a spouse gets big-headed after a promotion. A little less psychoeducation but still plenty to learn and plenty of laughs.

We break down a post regarding conflict avoidance within a romantic relationship and discuss personality traits vs. learned behaviors, appropriate expectations, core beliefs around conflict, how to have difficult conversations and skills for getting to a win-win.

We break down a post regarding miscommunication within the family dynamic and discuss triangulation, active listening, empathy building, conflict avoidance tactics, and shifting perspectives. 

We look at the connection between shame and confidence, coping with excess shame, and managing narcissism. We also tackle buzz word concepts of self-compassion, self-love, and self-care.

We explore the data shame provides and how it is important to us and the systems we are apart of. We define Narcissist Personality Disorder gaslighting, and cognitive dissonance. We also differentiate between tactful and tactless honesty.

We explore how to determine if rules are adaptive or maladaptive, challenging maladaptive core beliefs, empathy & empathetic listening, and review the anatomy of an apology.

We explore the data guilt provides and how it is important to us and the systems we are apart of. We also discuss the unbalanced states of guilt, appropriate and inappropriate guilt and the guilt-anger cycle.

We explore coping skills for pain, grief, heartbreak and other uncomfortable emotions in the whelm of pain. We also take you through guided imagery for healthy compartmentalization.

We explore pain, numbness, and hopelessness. We discuss common ways we numb, learned helplessness, the benefits of crying and briefly touch on grief and the grieving process.

We explore how to manage anxiety and stress for yourself and how to support those in your life struggling with anxiety. There are tons of coping skills packed into this one! We also take you through a guided meditation. 

We explore fear, anxiety, stress, and recklessness. We look at how to differentiate between managing and accommodating anxiety, and discuss procrastination, fear responses, hyper-arousal, and perfectionism.

We explore skills for managing anger, differentiate between venting and processing, and how to help deescalate others.

We dive into the highs and lows of anger, physical manifestations of anger, how to effectively utilize anger, review the importance of boundaries, how we under and over function in relationships and look at the pros and cons of the anger iceberg.

As we continue our week of Joy, we explore skills for managing depression, how to identify your values and how your values can help improve your mood, managing productivity guilt and cultivating a relationship with your future self.

We dive into the highs and lows of Joy exploring depression and mania, discuss the hedonic effect, toxic positivity, and the struggle with contentment.