Two great healing podcasts

Can podcasts help you on your healing journey ? The short answer is yes, they can.

Healing podcasts and books can both give you helpful information, but podcasts have more emotional substance. It’s easier to trust someone you hear than someone you read. Which is why their emotional tone is at least as important as their content.

So whether you are convinced by podcasts already, or willing to give it a try, here are two podcasts able to improve your day, and sometimes much more.

Healing podcast #1 : Emotional sobriety

An episode of Emotional Sobriety is a conversation between two therapists, Thom Rutledge and Allen Berger ,around a particular recovery theme.

I came to this podcast because I liked Thom Rutledge’s books. I continued listening to it because I enjoyed listening to the ongoing conversation.

It can be a bit chaotic: at times you don’t know where the discussion is going, and I believe these guys don’t necessarily know either.

Also, you can feel they both come from an addiction treatment background, and not from the trauma field. I do have my challenges around addictions (don’t we all?), but it’s not my main problem.

So, why is it still interesting to listen to Emotional Sobriety ?

First, because trauma and addictions are partners in crime. When you bump into one, the other is usually not very far. If you listen to people specialized in treating addictions, and people specialized in treating trauma, what they say is not that different. So you may recognize yourself in what this podcast is talking about. I do, most of the time.

Also, these guys do know what they are talking about: they are very experienced therapists (more than 30 years each, I believe), and they also personnaly went through difficult times. You can hear this depth of experience and wisdom. This is priceless.

At the same time, both are able to making fun of themselves or each other, and this is the only healing podcast I know able to make me laugh at loud. Granted, my kids would tell you I am very easily amused. Still, you may enjoy the experience as much as I do.

And then, my most unusual reason: Thom Rutledge and Allen Berger are part of a crowd who has prevented me projecting my rage and my fear on the male part of humankind. Not because what they say makes sense (although it does). More because of who they are.

I know this may sound weird to most people, but I also know some of you will understand me very well. When you have lived long enough with a narcissistic, exploitative man, faith that there are some decent men around is not enough. You need actual proof. And listening to these guys talking (including, by the way, their producer Patrick) helps me confirm empathetic, kind, emotionally articulate men exist. I’m not sure they had this in mind when creating the podcast, but it is a handy collateral benefit. If you have the same problem than me, I encourage you to give it a try.

Healing Podcast #2: The Anxiety Coaches Podcast

The Emotional Sobriety podcast hosts sometimes invite guests, and I was delighted to hear them welcome Gina Larson, from the Anxiety Coaches Podcast. Gina is a coach, and her goal is to help listeners manage their anxiety.

I’m all in: I spent most of my life somewhere between anxiety and panic. Like many trauma survivors, feeling relaxed was (still is) an ambitious goal.

I like Gina Larson’s approach because she does not dismiss anxious feelings. That’s good, because anyone who dismisses mine loses credibility at once. How on earth can you tell a trauma survivor that his or her anxiety is not realistic, when he or she lived through horrendous events already ? That’s sheer stupidity.

Anyway, Gina Larson makes it clear that our responsibility is to improve our internal state. For us sexual trauma survivors, responsibility is a loaded word, so let’s be clear: we are not responsible for what happened to us. We are not responsible for our emotional scars either. Our responsibility is limited to taking steps to heal, employing all the resources we can. But it’s a very empowering, hopeful responsibility.

Here are two recent episodes that I like particularly, the first one focused on long term habits, and the second one on short term intervention:

• 5 ACP habits that help free you from anxiety
• Power over panic

So let’s be ambitious and aim at being relaxed. Let’s also try to resolve and integrate underlying issues, some of them hiding in our past. These two podcasts can help us do just that.