Connectfulness practice

We need relationship in order to survive. If you were raised without a secure base you likely learned early on to modify yourself. In this episode I am talking with Kelly McDaniel, LPC, NCC, CSAT, author and psychotherapist, about the complex trauma of chronic loneliness and how to heal from the toxic stress of disconnection. Kelly McDaniel’s first book Ready to Heal (2008) was written for women healing from addictive love and sex. Her new book Mother Hunger arrives July 2021 from Hay House. https://connectfulness.com/episode/28-legacy-of-chronic-loneliness-kelly-mcdaniel ( For full show notes click here.) Resources:  https://kellymcdanieltherapy.com/ (kellymcdanieltherapy.com) Find Kelly on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kellymcdanieltherapy/ (@kellymcdanieltherapy) Learn more about Rebecca’s practice at https://connectfulness.com/work-with-me (connectfulness.com) and explore her upcoming online offerings:  If you enjoyed this episode and want to dive in deeper, consider joini

So often in the journey of relational healing we discover parts of our Selves have been disowned — the parts of one's spirit which allow spontaneity and imperfection and cultivate abundance and joy. In this episode we explore the creative process as a way to bear witness to these parts of Self. My guest, Chris Zydel, The Wild Heart Queen, works with people using creativity and artistic expression as a way to get in touch with the deeper aspects of who they are. Chris says the ‘creative juice’ is our ability to meet the mystery of what we don’t know within ourselves and within each other. Join us on a reclamation of trust in our deeper knowings and permission to reshape how we see ourselves and develop new cultures, together.   Resources: http://www.creativejuicesarts.com/ (creativejuicesarts.com) Learn more about Rebecca’s practice at https://connectfulness.com/work-with-me (connectfulness.com) and explore her upcoming online offerings:  If you enjoyed this episode and want to dive in

Sexuality is a part of who we are and we all deserve to learn about it in a way that is safe, comfortable, and judgement-free. Learning about positive sexuality is transformative for individuals and society overall. My guest, Elizabeth Greenblatt, strives to support young people develop the skills to navigate their sexuality in a healthy and fulfilling way and believes young people must be at the center of this work. Elizabeth says “we must understand that young people are the experts on their lives and listen to them. We must be willing to listen without judgement and provide support that helps them to make healthy decisions and think critically about their choices. And we must talk about pleasure. Only talking about sex within the context of disease and pregnancy prevention does a disservice to young people and doesn't help them build skill in prioritizing healthy and pleasurable experiences.” Being listened to is huge, it teaches us how to listen to (and know) ourselves. Knowing the Self is such an impor

We’re excited to bring Juliane Taylor Shore, LPC, LMFT, SEP (AKA Jules) back to the podcast — last time she joined us, on https://connectfulness.com/episode/18-welcoming-our-protective-systems-juliane-taylor-shore (episode 18), Jules introduced us to the brain science around how to stay relational when our protective systems are activated during times of chaos, like these. In this episode we’re talking about how your relationship can help you heal…and the brain science behind why and how it works. Expect lots of delicious neurobiological explanations around how healing occurs in the subcortical system. Jules says that healing trauma means what was, is not what always will be. Think about it like this, you were born into this world with vast and varied needs: to be safe, heard, seen, soothed and to matter. Your early life experiences installed a kind of knowing around what to expect, how to react to increase wellbeing, increase safety, increase justice, or decrease suffering. But in order to cult

In this episode, La Shanda Sugg and I talk about a generational healing, a topic that truly affects us all. And if there is one message we want you to walk away from this episode with, it’s that generational healing is possible! Trauma can be caused, and passed down generation by generation, in many ways. Often we didn't even notice because it became woven into the fabric of who we think we are and what is our ”normal.” When something triggered a lack of safety — could be a physical, emotional, social, or moral trigger — we do what we’re wired to, avoid and disconnect from the pain, that's why we respond this way. But we have a choice. Generational healing resides in the power that comes from reshaping how we seeing ourselves and rightfully updating the stories and perspective that tells us what we can and cannot do and how we can exist in this world. RESOURCES:  Find La Shanda online at https://www.thelaborsoflove.com/ (thelaborsoflove.com) Learn more about Rebecca’s practice at https://connectf

Shena Tubbs, Relational Trauma and Love Addiction Expert, Coach, and LPC joins us to talk about how early trauma manifests in our adult relationships, recreating a cycle from childhood. As Shena shares, healing begins with getting the language and words around family trauma and what did/didn’t happen. Persistent love addiction/love avoidant adult relationships are often a recreation of early trauma, of seeking out people that would do the same, in hopes that it will turn out differently. Shena is the host of the https://www.blackgirlsheal.org/podcast/ (Black Girls Heal podcast) and the founder of Black Girls Heal, an online community dedicated to helping women of color break the cycles of unavailable relationships & love addiction, heal unresolved childhood trauma and improve their self love to make way for the love they want.   RESOURCES: Find Shena Tubbs’ Podcast, Recovery School, Self-Love Intensive, and Mini Program 'The Healed and Loved Woman', online at https://www.blackgirlsheal.org

This episode highlights helpful ways to tend to our selves, reclaim power, and perhaps help us soothe our selves when we don’t have the power to change our situation. My guest, Dr. Jane Tornatore is a Therapist & Speaker Seattle, WA. A recovering perfectionist, she knows the pain of being bogged down by old beliefs and never quite measuring up to expectations. She supports people in converting outdated patterns and stress into more freedom, joy, and authenticity that come from being gentler with the self and living more from the heart.  We recorded this episode in February 2020. I’ve been holding onto it given all that’s been uprooted in the world. Contextually, the world was different when we recorded this episode and I wonder how a world filled with pandemic and uprising might have altered the core our discussion.    RESOURCES: Find Jane online at https://everydaylove.me/ (EveryDayLove.me) and at https://doctortornatore.com/ (DoctorTornatore.com)  Grab a copy of Jane’s b

Systemic racism is real and deeply rooted in society. When we center our society around whiteness but don’t discuss it we’re ignoring the problem of racism. Distancing ourselves from the problem of racism is to perpetuate it by allowing countless more injustices to be committed. When we become conscious we can take responsibility and change course. The opposite of being a racist is not being not-racist. The opposite of being racist is being antiracist. In this episode, Robin Mallison Alpern, the Director of Training at the Center for the Study of White American Culture (CSWAC), joins me for a conversation about the work involved in de-centering whiteness and being anti-racist.  It’s important to acknowledge that we’re two white woman having this conversation. Listening to this episode, allow yourself to open to new information. RESOURCES:  Visit the http://euroamerican.org/ (Center for the Study of White American Culture (CSWAC) at euroamerican.org) for books, workshops, and trainings.&nbs

In this episode relationship therapist and host, Rebecca Wong, talked with Emily Nagoski, New York Times bestselling author of Come As You Are & Burnout. It goes without saying that we’re all living in a deepened state of stress in this pandemic time. Emily helps us to understand how stress affects sex and learn more about what we can do to reclaim confidence and joy and transform our sex lives. Resources: Emily Nagoski’s mission in life is to teach women to live with confidence and joy inside their bodies. Learn more about her work at: emilynagoski.com Learn more about Rebecca’s practice at https://connectfulness.com/work-with-me (connectfulness.com) and explore her upcoming online offerings:  If you enjoyed this episode and want to dive in deeper, consider joining the next cohort of my Supporting Your Relational Self 6-week-online-course. This course is based on the teachings of Pia Mellody. We’ll cultivate lifelong practices to sustain you, untangle core issues that affect us all in relations

I'd like to introduce you to http://tmiproject.org/ (TMI Project), a nonprofit near and dear to my heart, that uses writing and true storytelling for social justice movement building, to ignite human connection and as a healing modality for personal transformation. I have gone through the workshop as a participant and became a trained facilitator of their methodology. I recently sat down with Eva Tenuto, the co-founder and executive director of TMI Project, to talk about how storytelling can enhance connection and resilience during times of social isolation.    Resources:  Eva Tenuto is the co-founder and executive director of TMI Project, a non-profit organization offering transformative storytelling workshops and performances in which storytellers divulge the parts of their stories that they usually leave out. Since 2010, Eva has brought TMI Project from her living room to a host of performance spaces, high schools, colleges, detention centers, mental health facilities, theaters and the United Nations. E

Juliane Taylor Shore, LPC, LMFT, SEP (AKA Jules) joins Rebecca to discuss the impact of being quarantined at home, experiencing isolation, fear and grief. How these experiences work in tandem with our implicit memory systems, and the effect it all has on our relationships. It's such a quick process, we can’t preempt it. Instead the focus shifts towards slowing down and coming into enough relationship with ourselves that our brains hook back on. In order hold this level of fear and grief, we need to practice a lot of grace around how often we all will be flipping into protective systems — into neuroceptive danger — it’s constant right now. Jules breaks down Polyvagal Theory for us, a theory of the evolution of the autonomic nervous system and she’s shared a PDF so you can follow along (click here to download). Jules is a therapist and trainer of therapists in Austin, Texas. She specializes in applying Interpersonal Neurobiology to the healing of trauma and the creation of relational health with the peo

Dr. Shideh Lennon, a clinical psychologist and Somatic Experiencing practitioner, joins us to discuss how to embody resilience during the current COVID-19 pandemic. We're talking about simple practices that we can use to bring ourselves back into our bodies. We’re still going to feel it all, but these tools may help increase our capacity by being our biggest, best selves so that we may bear and be with all that's arising. Resources: Dr. Lennon’s website: https://slennonphd.com/ (slennonphd.com) Learn more about Rebecca’s practice at https://connectfulness.com/work-with-me (connectfulness.com) and explore her upcoming online offerings:  If you enjoyed this episode and want to dive in deeper, consider joining the next cohort of my Supporting Your Relational Self 6-week-online-course. This course is based on the teachings of Pia Mellody. We’ll cultivate lifelong practices to sustain you, untangle core issues that affect us all in relationships, and weave in relational skills to expand your Self care

Dr. Rebecca Jorgensen, or Becca, joins me to discuss how to avoid common pitfalls and achieve more secure relationships. Becca shares from the EFT (Emotionally Focused Therapy) perspective that, being human, we all need to feel secure. Our initial insecurities often develop into defensive, protective strategies born from the pain of trying to be seen and heard. The thing is, these strategies makes it difficult for people to come close to us, or for us to maintain connection. When we feel sensitive and insecure, we automatically put up our guard up, go behind a wall, or get critical of others and push them behind a wall, and when we do, we block ourselves from having what we need the most, secure connection. We block ourselves because our insecurities have hardwired into us ways of coping with that inadvertently increase our pain and loneliness. This is where the work of secure relationships comes back to developing self awareness. I hope this conversation helps to cultivate a safe sacred space for you to deve

The family system is the first filter children experience the world through, it informs the senses and creates the meaning from which each of us understand the “me”, our unique “who I am.” It’s up to parents to reach in and help the growing child navigate their reality —but that‘s not what usually happens— usually parents try to make the child become what the parent needs the child to be so that the parent is comfortable.  In this episode, my teacher, Jan Bergstrom, LMHC will help us understand how the Self exists in relation to our own perceptions, our own thoughts, our own experiences, and our own souls. Jan is an expert in field of codependency, developmental and relational trauma in the lineage of Pia Mellody, a pioneer in treating the affects of childhood trauma in adults. We'll go into depth about the 5 Core Practices for Becoming Your Healthiest Self. After all, that’s the journey each of us is on —to discover the Self— it’s the crux of our lives. How do we know the Self? How do we know who we are? W

This is a powerful discussion about the ways each of us dances with power and privilege. How the very ways we are oppressed have possibly become how we oppress others, and also ourselves. And the liberation that begins when we remove the blinders and really see ourselves in each other. I’m talking with Dr. Sonya Lott, a licensed psychologist in private practice with a specialization in complicated grief, the host of the Reflections on Multicultural Competence podcast, and the founder of CEMPSYCH, LLC, (Continuing Education in Multicultural Psychology). She's on a mission to transform the narratives created about ourselves and others through the socialization process and our experiences with power, privilege, and marginalization based on our many intersecting cultural identities. As Dr. Lott says, “It's messy, trying to connect, to be in relationship — it's about being a relationship with oneself first and then with other people. Being able to show up in this vulnerable way. It's not you have a problem. We h

This is part 2 of Unraveling The Survival Knot with Hedy Schleifer. If you haven’t already tuned into part 1 of this series, we recommend you begin there. We’re diving even deeper into the process of being a host/visitor and opening ourselves to each others deepest truths, to our own deepest truths, on a level where we may not have exposed ourselves to that in the past. Hedy Schleifer is an internationally renowned relationship builder and motivational speaker who guides, counsels and teaches couples, partners, business associates, therapists and families about relational maturity. Hedy is the founder of the Encounter-centered Couples Transformation approach (EcCT). An integrative and interdisciplinary model that lies at the intersection of philosophy, clinical theory, organizational methodology, and relational neurobiology and memory reconsolidation. Hedy guides partners through what she calls the “Art of Connection,” teaching them how to turn their relationship into a living laboratory for the development

I’m joined by Hedy Schleifer, an internationally renowned relationship builder and motivational speaker who guides, counsels and teaches couples, partners, business associates, therapists and families about relational maturity.  Hedy is the founder of the Encounter-centered Couples Transformation approach (EcCT). An integrative and interdisciplinary model that lies at the intersection of philosophy, clinical theory, organizational methodology, and relational neurobiology and memory reconsolidation. Hedy guides partners through what she calls the “Art of Connection,” teaching them how to turn their relationship into a living laboratory for the development of relational intelligence: how to fill their partnership with creativity, wisdom and generosity of spirit. Relational intelligence puts partners on the path to relational maturity and is at the core of having successful relationships both personally and professionally. Hedy believes that world peace begins with the human family, and she teaches how to hon

In this month's episode I'm joined by Maya Luna, a Feminine Mystic and a Poet exploring the Tantric Path and Feminine Embodiment. We muse about our collective hunger for deep acceptance of who we really are. Our fear of letting go, of surrendering, and of softening into the moment. The masculine conditioning that’s taught us we have to keep doing, and controlling, and making life happen, and if we don't we're going to die. The deep feminine is the soulful nourishment of being we are craving. All our doing is an attempt to experience fulfillment. And the truth is that the feeling of fulfillment and satisfaction is available unconditionally in every moment no matter what. We experience it through the technology of slowing down, opening the body and surrendering. By meeting what’s actually here — even when it’s pain and discomfort — by actually letting the moment in, to experience it and be penetrated by it’s nectar. There are so many gifts and delicious nuggets tucked into this episode, be sure to list

“Healing from white-body supremacy begins with the body — your body. But it does not end there. In order to heal the collective body that is America, we also need social activism that is body centered. We cannot individualize our way out of white-body supremacy. Nor can we merely strategize our way out. We need collective action — action that heals.” — Resmaa Menakem, My Grandmother’s Hands Rebecca is joined by healer, author, and trauma specialist, Resmaa Menakem. Resmaa helps people, communities, and organizations find strength and healing that’s both holistic and resilient. He’s authored 3 books and today’s discussion is centered around his most recent: My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies. Resmaa shares that in order to mend racialized trauma we need to move the conversation from race to culture and cultivate a somatic abolitionist mindset and community. And a big part of that work lies in doing our own reps to learn what to pay attention to and then

Rebecca is joined by John Eric Baugher, a scholar, writer and teacher exploring the transformative possibilities of contemplative end of life care. His book, Contemplative Caregiving offers encouragement to show up in the fullness of life. This is an in-person (one microphone) interview and it’s a long one.    Resources: Find out more about John’s work at https://johnericbaugher.com/ (https://johnericbaugher.com/) John’s Book: https://www.amazon.com/Contemplative-Caregiving-Compassion-End-Life/dp/1611807042 ( Contemplative Caregiving: Finding Healing, Compassion, and Spiritual Growth through End-of-Life Care) Learn more about Rebecca’s relationship therapy practice and intensive couples retreat experiences in NY at https://connectfulness.com/ (connectfulness.com) Thank you to our sponsor, TherapyNotes. Therapists, you can get two free months of TherapyNotes and a free data import after signing up for a free trial by going to http://www.therapynotes.com/ (www.therapynotes.com) and using promo code: