It’s Not Therapy!

Everyone wants authenticity… from others.  Expressing your real feelings, real opinions, and real needs can be scary in a world increasingly built on rejection; hiding behind pleasant, fake smiles seems safer. But that protective fakeness can sabotage the connections we crave. Ontario psychotherapist Kirsten Davidson (https://mindthegaps.co/) talks to Liana about how to create a comfort zone of authenticity for stronger...

When her son Jonathan was very young, Lynn Greenberg was told that his neurodivergence would prevent Jon from achieving scholastic success. Years later, Jon graduated from university with a Master's Degree, and the mother-and-son team now write and successfully publish books for young readers featuring neurodivergent characters. Liana talks to Lynn and Jonathan about how they overcame the hurdles of low-expectations - hint: it wasn...

How to put the 'oral' in sex! A healthy sexual connection with a partner is built on good communication and understanding. But what happens when you don't fully understand what arouses you or how to communicate that effectively? Add the challenges many neuro-divergent people face in making themselves understood and the obstacles to successful intimacy can become ever more daunting. Liana talks with multi-award-winning, Edmonton-bas...

Narcissism - Myths, Facts and When Therapists Get It Wrong.   Narcissism is a word that has broken containment; people mistakenly believe it's simply an inflated ego rather than a specific mental health disorder requiring diagnosis by a licensed medical health practitioner. In other words, it's often misunderstood. But what happens when narcissism is also misunderstood by some mental health practitioners? Mental health educato...

Who are you? The answer to that question often depends on who is asking and where it's being asked. There's the "You" you are at work, the "You" you are to friends and family, the "You" society, your racial, religious or cultural profile says you are, and who you are in quiet moments alone. What is the real you? Or are they all the real you? Machan Taylor has lived this journey as a singer, songwriter, educator and author who perfo...

Many of us were told in childhood not to talk to strangers. Good advice at the time. But today, one of the foundations of the loneliness epidemic is people not knowing how to talk to strangers, or very afraid of trying. Liana lived with these experiences and so did her guest, Geoffrey Huck (courageous-communication.com), who shares how he 'flipped his extrovert switch' and turned his fear of speaking to new people into a compass an...

Many of us have been in a relationship with someone who is wrong for us. This is especially true of people who are 'givers' that find themselves attracted to 'takers'...sometimes repeatedly. Ross Rosenberg is an author and expert on codependency and trauma - such an expert that he believes the term 'codependency' is a misnomer and has instead coined the term Self-Love Deficit Disorder. What is that? Listen as he and Liana discuss S...

For most people, being diagnosed with stage four colon cancer represents the end of their life's journey, but for Tim McDonald it was the beginning of a new path. Tim, a stage four colorectal cancer survivor and liver transplant recipient, talks to Liana about how he turned his struggle with his health crises into a renewed purpose as a patient advocate, speaker, host of the Advocacy at Work podcast and author of the book From Pati...

No, this episode isn't about politics, but the recent social media tirade from US President Trump threatening to militarily destroy Iran and its people, expressed in vulgar language, is a prime example of how behaviour once considered unfit for public display has now become normalized. Not only normalized, but held up as examples of strength, honesty and courage. Liana takes apart this troubling trend, influences which motivate it,...

"Disabled" works just fine for Todd Vaarwerk: Chief Policy Officer for West New York Independent Living, he's more interested in results. Todd uses a wheelchair due to the effects of cerebral palsy, so nobody is better at separating efforts which are useful support for disabled people from the 'well-meaning but useless' or counter-productive steps taken. And he does it with a rich sense of humour in conversation with Liana, who sha...

Duty of Care means ensuring that you take reasonable steps to provide a safe environment for others. It's a simple definition for a complex practice that takes on many different forms in different situations. Liana shares personal stories to reveal how that care can be applied - and misapplied -in ways that can make a situation less safe and supportive than you intend. Ultimately, a reasonable duty of care means finding a balance b...

The unfortunate occurrence at the BAFTA Awards, where an attendee who has Tourette's Syndrome shouted racial epithets at two Black award presenters (and the way BAFTA chose to handle that), has given prominence to the question of 'reasonable accommodation' of people with disabilities. Liana speaks with LJ, a brilliant scientist whose disability has deterred potential employers, about what he sees as reasonable accommodation an...

As a member of the Girls Gone Wild tour of the late 1990s Courtney Kocak had a front-row seat to the "good, clean fun" which that media was marketed as. Courtney also felt the impact of sexualized media, how it affected her self-image and sense of healthy femininity. Courtney, author of the forthcoming autobiography Girl Gone Wild, shares with Liana her experiences in the belly of the beast and how she turned her rocky journey into...