For self help haters

hmbm

self heeeeelllllllpppppp

An emotional power-up for when you are feeling down about unmet goals and need help getting un-stuck.   

Don't Be Discouraged!

Freaking out about something in your life? Overwhelmed by anxiety over the future? We've all been there! This is an emotional power-up for this kind of state - specifically when you're working on yourself and overcoming a super difficult emotional issue. For example: an eating disorder, self-cutting, any unhealthy managing problem of any kind. Because everything is in your power to change when it comes to your focus and energy. So don't panic - if you're doing the work, the momentary freak outs will pass if you go through the motions of self-care. Soothe in healthy ways and first things first. 

If you are suffering extreme pain and need help call 9-11 or an emergency service. Don't dwell in places that feed the darkness! xo

Panic and Fear: When You're Overcoming a Big Scary Issue

Letting go of someone or something you love can be a terrifying proposition.  This episode offers a small beacon of hope if you are confronting a painful loss. 

Episode 5: Letting Go

The relationship you have with yourself is the most important relationship you have in the world.  This episode features a recipe for creating more self-love and confidence so that you can live a happier and more fulfilling life.  There are ten different tools, a few of which are from the "Help Me Be Me" book.  Invest in your relationship with yourself and you will better the lives of everyone you touch. 

Episode 7: Self-Love from Scratch

Warning - I say a couple bad words in this one! And it's cause the topic demands it. This is a little "confrontational" power-up for anyone who's hating on themselves and feeling like a loser.  It's to help you stop the negative thoughts and focus on more positive and relevant thoughts - like what you want to do that makes you happy! I hope you likee and if you want more there's a bunch of tools on the links below:
xox Sarah May b

http://www.teaspoonofhappy.com
teaspoonofhappy.squarespace.com/bookstore/

When You're Hating On Yourself and Feel Like a Loser *Contains Sparse Profanity

OR Building friendships worth growing for a lifetime.


In this podcast I go over the three essential ingredients to good friendship so that you can train yourself to choose great ones. I also cover nine general rules for being a great friend to yourself and others – as well as ways to find friends that are perfect for you. So if you are looking to make new and better friendships that you can invest in for a lifetime, this is a podcast for you.

This is for Catherine – (thanks girl!) She wrote, “Can you talk about what it means to be a good friend – and ways to practice that.” Catherine - I know your question was more general than the topic above. I chose to take this angle because I think it’s a good way to force yourself to choose better relationships, despite your conditioned-in blinders. 

Just like with anything else – a job, a marriage, or anything really, we bring our old rusty eyeballs into a relationship – and often we can’t tell how we are being blinded by those issues and experiences.  Sometimes they can compromise our ability to choose the right people for the right reasons, or give and to receive the fruits of friendship.  In other words, they get in the way of smart and self-loving decision-making.  So I am going to present this to you in a way that hopefully will allow you to approach friendship from an intentional perspective so that you can build mutually beneficial and powerful friendships that bring value to your life and the others who are out there right now, in need of a friend like you.

If you likee, check out the Teaspoon for more of my writing- as well as my books. And if you prefer to read, this will be posted as a blog later on this week. Smile peeps! xox Sarah May b.

http://www.teaspoonofhappy.com


Episode 27: Nine Tools to Build Successful Friendships

Does your brain start chattering and seemingly never stop?  Do you feel distracted and unable to focus?  This is for anyone who is trapped in chronic thinking. Like your brain won’t seem to shut up and it’s getting a bit noisy up there. I will cover the what, the why, and most importantly, the solution. There are about 10 different super silly tools to get you started. And apologies in advance - I also drop the F-bomb. (Just once!)

This is for Cindy – and it’s a great topic. Thanks for suggesting this girl!

Check out TeaspoonOfHappy.com for the blog post with all my references and research  -it will be live later this week. Smile peeps! xox Sarah-May B.

Episode 29: How to Stop Thinking So Much - Tools for Chronic Overthinking

Has it ever happened to you – that you do something nice for someone else and they don’t respond and so part of you is worried they didn’t like it, but then you start to get mad, because you are thinking – they should have appreciated that gesture! And how could they?! So uncaring. Wow – they are really a jerk, after all.  Or, maybe there’s someone in your workplace who gave you a dirty look – and you can’t figure out why, did they hear something? Do they really just dislike you? And if so, why? You didn’t do anything to them. Maybe you try to be nice and they don’t acknowledge you at all and now you just feel uncomfortable. The tension makes you feel nervous and distracted because you are nice! AND didn’t do anything wrong!  If this sounds like you and you do everything in your power to talk yourself out of it, but still can’t seem to soothe the obsessive thoughts of everything from worry to hate to insecurity and self-doubt, then this is a podcast for you! It’s got some information about why this happens plus some methods to soothe the obsession. And most importantly, how to curb your need for validation from other people when it’s hurting you to do so. 

For more of my writing, check out TeaspoonOfHappy.com

Smile lovely friends!!! And if you like this, please show me some love! It helps me a lot a lot! xox Sarah May B. 

(This one's for you - Ambika! Hope it helps xox)



Episode 41: What Do They Think: How to Stop Obsessing About Other People’s Thoughts

For when you can’t stop feeling worried or obsessed with what is threatening your stability in life – a stress response based on past traumas or recent ones, for that matter. 

In this episode, ‘survival mode’ is the term we are giving a pervasive sense of fear and stress and anxiety over issues that are not a real threat, though they are experienced in hypotheticals. Survival mode drives people to obsessively think about painful things: things past, things to come, analyzing and solving endlessly. In other words – like the worst version of brain overdrive you can imagine and all the time.  It’s so powerful that it takes over your life. 

This can come in varying degrees – from intolerable writhing panic to manageable but potent worry. Regardless, it’s always something that keeps you outside of your life – unable to truly engage and enjoy it as you see others do.  Living in survival mode, you want to run and you don’t know where.

This one is for Heather! I heart you girl – hope this helps the teensiest bit.

For more of my writing head to TeaspoonofHappy.com


Episode 54: Stuck in Survival Mode – When Worry Takes Over Your Life

This is for anyone stuck in a place of self-hate and inaction. Someone in a shitty place in life, depressed and hopeless: hating on themselves, where they are, and at a loss for where to go from here. Maybe you have people in your life who love and encourage you and you hate that you’re bringing them down – yet you can’t figure out why your life just sucks so much when others get to be happy. You feel it is unfair for both of you. 

However – if you suffer severe depression, it’s probably not for you.  I know that chronic depression is one of the hardest things to battle. And for some, it’s paralyzing – like worse than death. It’s like being a human zombie. I am terrified of depression – it’s the worst kind of pain. So if you suffer that, you might not like this post – because it assumes that you have some power in the situation. If you are a sufferer who is incapacitated by your depression, this is not for you.  I feel for you, and when I have enough to offer you, I will create an episode just for you.  

There are three parts. The what, the why and the how. Let’s do this! xo


Episode 65: Stuck, Depressed and Full of Self-Hate

Love shouldn’t hurt. It shouldn’t feel like it’s your lifeline – that you will fall into a million pieces if someone else chooses to break up. This kind of chemical bond is similar to that we universally associate with High School romance: hormones are high and we reach sometimes addiction-level chemical intoxication. But that’s not how it should feel when you pass the hormonal bump. Like such an intensely devastating and all-consuming obsession. Past the initial courtship stage, love shouldn’t be tied to NEED and it shouldn’t be able to command your mood and focus. So if you experience it this way, and it causes you to do things that betray yourself and put your needs aside those of another.  If you find yourself all-consumed by the actions or thoughts of another to the degree that it controls your happiness – this is an episode for you. It’s about the particular reasons that this kind of attachment happens to you, that you might not be able to see are operating – or know are optional.  To you it probably just feels like “you” and who you are, not some other powerful unseen force. Because most people who operate like this think of it as a measure of how MUCH they love, or their ability as a person to bend and adapt. Not so. This is an unhealthy form of attachment that can be tweaked once understood. 

This is an episode to educate more than anything because awareness is the first step to change. So listen to this with the goal of simply taking it in. I WANT TO HELP YOU begin the process of the kind of loving that can be done from a safe and balanced distance. From a comfortable place inside yourself, that protects you always. It’s a way of being that allows you to create healthy boundaries, and choose mates who are capable of loving you, and more importantly – makes you capable of receiving it. Because truly we teach others how they should love us, by how we love ourselves. If you are not protecting your needs and giving yourself care and gentle loving attention, then you’re also telling others not to.

With that, here are the three parts! Part 1 is the what, Part 2 is the why, Part 3 are some steps to take now.

Help Me Be Me takes hundreds of hours to create. If you get anything out of this show or it brings value to your life, please consider a monthly donation – even something as small as a cup of coffee helps immensely. To donate visit HelpMeBeMe.com  Thanks!

Ep 72: Toxic Love: I Need Her, Don’t Leave Me, I Can’t Live Without Him

For those who can’t stop trying to convince themselves they’re bad with self-destructive actions. This one is for Nikki. 

Why do we destroy relationships with those who love us? Why do break our own trust, betray our own dreams, and rob ourselves of happiness and safety as soon as we get close to it. It’s a mystifying loop of behavior that has powerful effects on everything about our life: a chain reaction that keeps us hiding or running from the ugly truth of what we’ve done. 

Just like an addict, you live with a subconscious awareness that you will inevitably destroy whatever good you might have – and that anxiety is overwhelming and scary. Like a lurking future of pain awaits you just around the corner. Happiness is immediately blocked by the overwhelming sense of dread that it will soon be lost. And so you self-medicate the fear and cling more tightly to what you want so badly. 

When you do inevitably self-sabotage and act out in ways that betray your values and the values of your partner, the experience is laden with fear and the resulting shame is soul-crushing. Like you just woke up inside a nightmare. You have an almost separate self who is doing these things despite you. 

I want you to know there’s a simple reason behind your cycle of behavior that you must CHOOSE to learn. It’s not who you are, it’s a tactic that you learned to cope with unrelated pain and anxiety. There are three parts: the what, the why, the how.

Help Me Be Me takes hundreds of hours to create. If you get anything out of this show or it brings value to your life, please consider a monthly donation – even something as small as a cup of coffee helps immensely. To donate visit HelpMeBeMe.com or Patreon.com/SarahMayB  Thanks!


Ep 74: Self-Sabotage: Why We Betray Ourselves and Destroy Our Relationships

How good relationships turn into bad relationships, seemingly out of nowhere. Whether that’s with fights that ensue endlessly, or one partner suddenly betrays the other partner – this kind of behavior can make you feel mystified, angry, and stuck. So I want to shed a bit of light on a potential reason behind these changes – if you once had a healthy and mutually rewarding relationship, this might give you a starting place for the work that has to be done. OR at the very least enlighten you as to what happened. My other name for this episode is Family Ties. You’ll know why if you listen to this. Does any of this sound familiar?
“I thought I married someone who loved me and they seem like they hate me now.” “This behavior came out of nowhere – one day she told me she didn’t love me anymore.” “I can’t believe this happened – I want to ask her, was it worth it?” These are the kinds of things I hear often from my One-On-One clients, especially when it comes to break-ups. It’s a very common experience to suddenly see your partner change into someone you don’t know, you didn’t think they’d be. 

It can make you feel stupid like you should have known better. It can make you feel assaulted – like you just got a hard slap for no reason whatsoever. It can make you feel you can’t tell up from down and the world is not what you thought it was. There’s a reason why this is happening, just like there’s a solution – if you want one. Before I get started I want to tell you that this is much more abbreviated than it should be, because this is such an intricate and amazing topic. If you’re interested in learning more about it I will post a link to my reading material on my website in the blog version. It’s worth a read – called Intimate Partners by Maggie Scarf. A blow your mind amazing book. 

There are three parts: the what why and how – the tools.

Help Me Be Me takes hundreds of hours to create. If you get anything out of this show or it brings value to your life, please consider a monthly donation – even something as small as a cup of coffee helps immensely. To donate visit HelpMeBeMe.com or Patreon.com/SarahMayB  Thanks!

If you like what you hear, check out my other podcast called Love is like a plant with Ellen Huerta of Mend! xo


Ep 75: WTF Happened? When Great Relationships Suddenly Turn Bad

This is all about how to get the most out of your capacity and your life experiences as well as how to navigate the painful stuff. I want to talk about the growing of self, as it relates to culture and society – and how it has changed. Plus ways that you can begin to maximize your growth as a human. So this is all about you – and the way you grow yourself in this lifetime. Like a self-reflective path-tuning educational episode. 

This one’s dedicated to Rich and Aldana. Hope you like!! xo


Help Me Be Me

A Life Worth Living

Ep 79: In Living Color: Self-Examination Exercises to Get More Out of Experiences

Hi peeps, this is a cheat of an episode in that it’s about how to get closest to getting your ex back via supporting yourself. There are no cheats that will make your ex spontaneously love you if things fell apart, so think of this as a best-practices-for-best-conditions kind of thing.  

That feeling of pain and longing and even obsession over the loss of your relationship. Maybe it wasn’t something you were expecting, or you both kind of “decided” it was right but now you’re realizing it’s not at all what you wanted and you can’t stop thinking about getting back together. Maybe you’re internet stalking your ex, maybe you’re just super depressed and texting them when you get drunk. Or maybe you’re actively trying to convince them you should get back together – as respectfully as you possibly can, and you can’t for the life of you, figure out how to do this right. So this is for anyone who is trying to get their ex back or is holding their head up high and not admitting they want that, but still wishing they were magically back together– either because you broke their heart and you know now you screwed up, or because you were dumped and you were not ready or willing to have this outcome. If this is where you are – you’re likely in a split personality state that can be sometimes a belligerent puking of tears, sometimes a banal but painful loneliness, sometimes annoyingly obsessed, sometimes scary-obsessed, or sometimes feeling like complete and utter worthless shit – and ONLY your ex can make you feel stable and “yourself” again. 

If you are helped by this podcast, consider a small donation. Visit https://www.yaywithme.com/support-help-me-be-me or visit www.Patreon.com/sarahmayb

Ep 80: I Want My Ex Back - Best Practices Toward Loving Outcomes

When we promise ourselves that we’re never ever going to do the thing we hate, again. Maybe that's the thing your parents did, or the thing we already did that burned us – yet we end up right back in that exact same relationship. Or we might promise ourselves that “this is the last time I take this person back! I KNOW what I want for myself and this is not it!” It’s like being a wind-up toy in that suddenly you find yourself resetting the same loop once again, feeling powerless to stop it when its happening to you. You might say things like, “I have no idea how I ended up in this situation!!” Or, “How could I possibly have made excuses for this person and ignored the signs?” Or even, “Why am I still taking this crap? Why do I allow myself to take this person back again and again? I am MISERABLE. I know I am miserable, and yet I can’t seem to stop.” Maybe when you’re IN a relationship it just feels like love. It’s wonderful and hopeful and passionate and fun. You feel great being appreciated by this other person – they adore you and show you their best, and you feel like you’re finally able to use all your gifts. 

If you're looking for more of my writing head to Yaywithme.com and if you're looking for immediate help, I recommend this guy's list:
http://mentalpod.com/get-help

xox Sarah May B.

Ep 85: How to Stop Bad Relationship Loops

Help Me Be Me is an emotional toolkit for creating positive change in yourself. I like to think of it as self-help for people who hate self-help. I'm Sarah May, coach/mom/all-around happy person, and these are the tools that work for me in my life. For all of my offerings you can check out YayWithMe.com What I share is my personal opinion. It's not a diagnosis for treatment or a substitute for professional help. If you're suffering, please reach out to your local emergency services or call 9-1-1. Music theme created by www.BookerHillMusic.com