Seeking Connections Podcast

This week on the pod, Kelly and Jessie start out talking about deepening self connection, talk about the wisdom of the tarot, and navigating life as an introvert (Kelly) and an extravert (Jessie).

Jessie and Kelly have been avoiding talking about grief for some time now, and they finally do a deep dive into the topic.  Chock full of resources and permission to grieve any way under the sun, this episode finally tackles a concept that we actually face every day of life being humans.

This week, Kelly and Jessie continue to unpack the complex issue of caretaking, and reference the book "Stop Caretaking the Borderline or Narcissist" by Margalis Fjelstad, focusing in on the Caretaking Quiz and how to begin the healing process if you find yourself on the caretaker spectrum.

This week Kelly and Jessie start out planning to do a grab bag of listener questions, but end up talking about caretaking versus caregiving for the whole stinking episode!  How do you know if you are caretaking in a healthy/appropriate way?  When do you need to change your caretaking behavior?  What does healthy caregiving look like?  We cover all of this and more - with jokes.  

This week, we delve into a listener question about raising kids when you are simultaneously trying to heal from generational trauma, and how not to pass that down through subsequent generations.  

Kelly and Jessie talk about messy friendship times, fun friendship times, owning our stuff, how to relationally talk about when we are activated in friendship in a way that leaves both parties feeling more connected and less burdened, and probably many other things!  

The pod is back for a third season!  This week Kelly and Jessie catch up with being a therapist at this moment in the pandemic, thinking about supporting clients and each other in the journey back to a more holistically healthy life.  We explore coping with social anxiety challenges and thinking about building back slowly and with support - and how to check in with yourself to see how that’s working for you.   

That's right...Season 3 is right around the corner...and Jessie and Kelly are excited to share this preview episode with you in celebration of the launch coming May 4th!  Today we reconnect and recap, catching you up on what's been happening since the end of Season 2.  

This week Kelly and Jessie review the season and say goodbye to 2020 and Season 2. Table Talk Connection Cards by Mama May I help us explore some ideas around mindfulness and appreciation, and we think forward to season 3 and Kelly’s vision of a pop up post-pandemic party in Love Park.

This week, Kelly & Jessie talk all things self care, including everything you're already doing to make it through the day, hour, minute, second. Perhaps offering a more unconventional approach to the brain mechanisms behind self care, Kelly & Jessie stay in the judgment free zone with explaining how to know when you're more in need of self care along with ideas for coping, and of course, real life examples.

This week’s guest, Rosalynne Duff, sits down with Jessie to talk about her work in addressing inequities in the education system and Cognitively Based Compassion Training. Rosalynne shares her wisdom about healing, racial equity, individual cultivation of empathy and systemic change. She offers a path toward wellness for each of us with the ultimate goal of offering the world the best and most abundant aspects of ourselves, in addition to resources and ideas for changing our education system.

This week, Kelly & Jessie follow up on a previous topic: narcissistic abuse...and talk all about healing, which involves: learning to trust yourself, allowing yourself to have needs and set boundaries, believing you are worthy of love, how healing can be worked on in relational therapy, and what self support looks like.

This week’s guest is Kanjana Hartshorne, LCSW, therapist, yoga therapist and founder of Healing Hearts Wellness. Kanjana is engaged in an impressive amount of impactful work helping individuals as well as therapists and other helping professionals heal through both mind and body work. She and Jessie talk about the power of yoga and body movement as part of therapeutic work, addressing cultural appropriation, providing body interventions for ALL bodies, and more! This conversation really inspired us and we hope it will do the same for you. You can find Kanjana at healingheartswellness.com

Join Kelly & Jessie as they connect post election.

We invited Kelly’s husband, Seth (yes, he’s real!) to record with us and speak to what it’s like to have your wife talk about you on her podcast, what it’s like to run a church organization during a pandemic, and what it was like for a childfree by choice couple to suddenly be co-parenting a 7 year old. Jessie discusses living with a couple as a single person, and we all comb through our relational dynamics.

This week, Kelly and Jessie continue to unpack the dynamic between Narcissists and Codependents and specifically discuss narcissistic partners. With a ridiculous amount of real life examples from their own lives, they dive into relationship red flags, and what emotional availability looks like.

This week, Jessie and Kelly begin to unpack what it means to have a Narcissistic parent, including the spectrum of narcissism, the impact it has on kids, and Adult Children of Narcissists. We weave in how addiction can mimic narcissism, and some healing strategies.

This week we welcome our very first guest to the seeking connections podcast! Katie Langley is a speech pathologist, writer, healer and world traveler, in addition to being Jessie’s oldest friend. Jessie and Katie talk about Katie’s ongoing journey into intersectional feminism and how we can all understand and move toward dismantling oppression in our relationships with self, others and community.

After a few months hiatus, Jessie and Kelly are back at it with a whole new season of episodes. This season, we delve deeper into client requests for episodes as well as have our first series of guests!

This week marks the season finale for Season 1! Join Jessie and Kelly as they talk about intentional endings, therapeutic endings, and the importance of being able to process the anticipatory grief surrounding endings. Tune back in soon for Season 2 where Kelly and Jessie invite guests into the mix!

This week, Jessie and Kelly record for the first time remotely, discussing the recent protests over the murder of George Floyd, among many other black people in the U.S. (Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor.........), the importance of acknowledging the immense grief of such violent, racist acts, and model how to talk about race.

This week Jessie and Kelly unpack some common relational reactions: fight, flight, freeze. They offer personal accounts of how these contribute to personal "stories we tell ourselves", how these might show up in the therapy room, and do a general update on life during Covid 19.

This week, Kelly and Jessie take a break and dig into the archives to share with you some questions they answered in February prior to even publishing the podcast! Never before heard questions you might have always wanted to ask a therapist, including "Can you make anyone cry?", "Should I tell my therapist if they have something in their teeth?", and "What is it like to date a therapist?"

This week, Kelly and Jessie talk everything boundaries - what are boundaries, healthy vs. unhealthy boundaries, the boundary spectrum, rigid vs. flexible boundaries, what it feels like when boundaries have been violated, and give examples galore plus reference two excellent books about boundaries.

This week, Jessie and Kelly talk body acceptance and unpack the toxicities of diet culture. Specifically, they reference many anti-diet masters and discuss the importance of finding the helpers in the world. This episode is packed full of information on body acceptance with resources galore.

In this week's episode, Kelly and Jessie discuss week 6 of physical distancing, our continued relational work as a newly blended family, handling conflict, and what to expect from a healthy relationship.

In this week's episode, Jessie and Kelly discuss what it's like to have "life" continue during physical distancing (families with addiction, illness, and mental health issues), coping with overwhelm while being a therapist, and just letting ourselves have our feelings.

In this week's bonus episode, we answer a listener question about social media during physical distancing. We discuss parenting strategies during the epidemic while many attempt to work at home and home school simultaneously. We also offer concrete coping strategies.

Pre-Covid 19, we had planned on making our first episode an introduction episode, but plans changed. In this third episode, which we are calling our "official" first episode, we introduce ourselves and the podcast.

This week, still physically distancing together, Jessie & Kelly discuss therapy themes of the week including boundaries in quarantine, guilt, and coping with Covid 19 isolation.

In this preview episode, we discuss and offer tips for coping and thriving during physical distancing. What better way to start a podcast than in quarantine with a best friend?