Nobody dreams bigger than their relationship with themselves will allow. In this episode, Dr. David Schlosz explores why the size of our dreams is a measure not of imagination but of self-concept, the quiet, adaptive answer we carry to the question who am I allowed to be?

Drawing on NARM's insight that we disconnect from ourselves to stay connected to others, Carl Rogers' conditions of worth, the possible-selves research of Markus and Nurius, Bandura's work on self-efficacy, and Snyder's hope theory, this episode reframes small dreaming as an old act of protection and shows where present-moment agency lives. For clinicians: what it means to hold a client's possibility in trust until their self-concept can hold it themselves. For everyone: a guided somatic practice called Breathing Room, making a quarter-inch more space in the self.

Referenced (as attributed paraphrase): Rosamund Stone Zander & Benjamin Zander, Laurence Heller (NARM), Carl Rogers, Hazel Markus & Paula Nurius, Daphna Oyserman, Albert Bandura, C.R. Snyder, Judith Herman, D.W. Winnicott, Murray Bowen, Parker Palmer, Rilke, Desmond Tutu (Ubuntu).

What if the most important thing a therapist brings into the room isn't a technique, intervention, or perfectly timed question, but themselves?

In this deeply personal conversation, I sit down with licensed marriage and family therapist Kim Fry to explore how our relationship with ourselves shapes every relationship we have with others. Together we talk about the transformative power of curiosity, why therapists don't heal people by fixing them, and how our own unresolved stories inevitably show up in the therapy room.

Kim shares the profound story of a single voicemail from her own therapist that forever changed her relationship with anger, authenticity, and what it means to truly be seen. From there, our conversation unfolds into an exploration of presence, supervision, vulnerability, and why healing begins when we stop performing and start showing up as fully human.

Whether you're a therapist, helping professional, or simply someone longing to live more authentically, this episode is an invitation to consider a different question:

What if your greatest gift to another person is not having the answers—but being fully present with them?

In this episode, we explore:

• Why the therapist's relationship with themselves matters more than any intervention
• How curiosity creates the conditions for healing
• The difference between fixing someone and being with someone
• What anger can teach us about ourselves
• Why authenticity is often our greatest challenge, and our greatest gift
• How therapists can cultivate a more sustainable and deeply human practice

An invitation to stay with yourself.

We've spent two episodes digging the well and learning how to draw water.

Now it's time to drink.

The final episode in The Well series is unlike any previous episode of Project I Am. Rather than another teaching, this is a guided experience, a gentle invitation to slow down, and reconnect with your body.

Through reflection, visualization, and somatic awareness, Dr. David Schlosz guides listeners back to the place where healing begins, not by becoming someone different, but by finally learning how to stay with themselves.

You don't have to earn rest.

You don't have to earn compassion.

You don't have to become perfect before you deserve love.

The deepest wells are not filled by striving.

They're filled by relationship.

They're filled by grace.

They're filled by the courage to keep coming home to yourself.

If you've journeyed through Parts One and Two, this final episode brings the series to its emotional and spiritual conclusion.

Take a deep breath.

Come to the well.

The water is waiting.

How your healing becomes someone else's hope.

We've spent years talking about self-awareness.

But what actually happens when two nervous systems meet?

In Part Two of The Well, Dr. David Schlosz explores the invisible space between people, the place where healing relationships are formed.

Why do some people make us feel instantly safe?

Why do we sometimes carry emotions that don't belong to us?

How can we remain deeply compassionate without losing ourselves?

Drawing from counseling, attachment, interpersonal neurobiology, and years of clinical experience, David unpacks the profound difference between rescuing and accompanying, empathy and emotional fusion, and reacting versus remaining present.

In this episode, you'll discover:

• Why your body is always listening
• The hidden wisdom of countertransference
• How to ask, "Whose feeling is this?"
• Why differentiation is essential for healthy relationships
• The difference between helping someone and carrying them

Most importantly, you'll discover that people rarely heal because someone says the perfect thing.

They heal because they discover someone who isn't afraid to stay.

Whether you're a therapist, a student, a caregiver, or someone who simply wants to love the people in your life more deeply, this conversation will change the way you understand connection and yourself.

Because when you've spent years digging your own well...

you finally have water to offer.

Why your healing begins with you.

Before we can become a safe place for someone else, we have to learn how to become a safe place for ourselves.

In Part One of this three-part series, Dr. David Schlosz explores one of the most important and often overlooked truths of healing: the work we avoid in ourselves inevitably shapes the way we show up in our relationships.

Using the metaphor of a well, David reflects on why personal growth isn't separate from helping others, it is the foundation of it. Whether you're a counselor, parent, teacher, leader, or simply someone longing for deeper relationships, this episode is an invitation to stop performing, stop abandoning yourself, and begin the courageous work of digging beneath the surface.

Together, we'll explore:

• Why healing is expansion, not erasure
• How childhood adaptations become adult patterns
• The difference between surviving and truly living
• Why your greatest gift to others is your willingness to keep doing your own work

Because every difficult conversation... Every honest therapy session... Every boundary... Every tear... Every moment you choose yourself instead of abandoning yourself...

You're digging the well.

And one day, someone else's hope may come from the depth you've been willing to create.

"Every place you've learned to stay with yourself becomes another place you can stay with someone else."

There is a particular kind of loneliness that has nothing to do with being alone. You can be loved, married, surrounded, texted-back-within-the-hour, and still feel that no one in the room is meeting the real you. Just the version you sent ahead. The easy one. The capable one. The one who's fine.

For a lot of us, that gap wasn't an accident. We built it. Because somewhere along the way, being seen stopped feeling safe.

In this episode, Dr. David Schlosz explores the need to be seen: why it's biology rather than neediness, why we run from it even as we ache for it, and what happens in the body when someone finally stays long enough to witness us and doesn't look away. As he says, "We were made for the dance."

Three lenses: your inner life, the therapy room, and the one who does the seeing.

The episode ends with a short guided practice. You are not broken. You were adapting. Come as you are.

What determines whether pain breaks us or transforms us? In this episode, David explores one of the most neglected concepts in psychological healing: capacity, the room we have for our own difficult emotions, and for each other's.

Through three lenses, our own inner life, the therapy room, and the heart of the helper, this episode weaves together the window of tolerance, research on emotional suppression and experiential avoidance, the neuroscience distinguishing empathy from compassion, and stories of people learning that the feelings they feared would drown them were actually survivable.

Whether you're a clinician, a leader, a parent, or simply someone carrying something heavy, this episode offers both a framework and a practice: capacity is not a trait you're born with. It is a room you build, one ninety-second stay at a time.

We often imagine healing as a journey toward peace, freedom, and deeper connection. But what happens when your growth starts changing the relationships around you?

In this episode of Project I AM, Dr. David Schlosz explores one of the most difficult and rarely discussed realities of healing: not everyone benefits from your becoming healthier.

As you learn to set boundaries, listen to your body, speak your truth, and stop abandoning yourself to keep the peace, relationships inevitably shift. Conversations change. Roles dissolve. Old patterns are challenged. And sometimes the people who seemed most comfortable with you are actually most comfortable with the version of you that ignored your own needs.

If you've ever felt guilty for growing, lonely for changing, or confused by how others respond to your healing journey, this conversation is for you.

Because sometimes healing isn't about learning how to keep everyone else comfortable.

Sometimes it's about learning how to remain loving without disappearing.

"You do not need to become less compassionate to become whole. You simply need to include yourself in the circle of compassion."

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