This week’s poem and episode discuss the painful feeling of longing to be like someone else, which can often be confused with both looking up to someone and idolizing them. Of course, these are very different things! It’s a wonderful thing to be inspired by someone’s vibe or style, but this can easily trickle into self-worth/esteem/confidence and comparison traps.

Through a more storytelling-focused poem, this episode breaks down what separates us in these ways, specifically how longing to be like someone else (as a tendril of not feeling like we’re enough) is a reflection of both the need to look inward and acknowledging that the other person perhaps needs to do the same (and inviting them to do this with you, if possible).

The poem is about seeing ourselves in others, others in ourselves, and knowing where and how old the walls, buildings, and boxes of comparison truly are.

Here's an excerpt of the poem (the full written & visually formatted versions can now be found & read at mikbrew.substack.com!):

But then, I imagine plucking a brick from the old building like a book from a shelf. What story would each hold & tell? There are thousands of brick books per building, so says the internet, gaps to grasp them sealed with mortar until the grains of stories and truths finally break their bonds free, crumbling the building to bits under their new gas-phase weight because the more brick books you free from their shelves, the faster the building falls. Listen to this week's episode to hear the full poem! If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves.

Disclaimer: This Podcast and all of our mental health learning and educational content is not therapy and is not a replacement for therapy. Noah and Simon do not take this therapist-client role in any way for Resolvve.

Please seek professional help if needed. Go to www.resolvve.ca to get the support you need.

Follow us on Instagram (@resolvvementalhealth), TikTok (@Resolvve), and Youtube (@resolvvementalhealth).

This week's audio blog is about panic disorder.

Disclaimer: This Podcast and all of our mental health learning and educational content is not therapy and is not a replacement for therapy. Noah and Simon do not take this therapist-client role in any way for Resolvve.

Please seek professional help if needed. Go to www.resolvve.ca to get the support you need.

Follow us on Instagram (@resolvvementalhealth), TikTok (@Resolvve), and Youtube (@resolvvementalhealth).

This week, Mikaela reads a poem about coming home from college/university for the spring and summer (though it can absolutely apply to returning home after having been away a long time, too).

The poem and episode look at the possible tension between the comforts/familiarity of a childhood home and the newfound freedom/independence we seek as young adults, perhaps realizing for the first time that we aren’t merely extensions of our parents or guardians. It’s strange returning to a place that hasn’t changed when we have.

The poem is written in a loose sapphic ode (four-stanza sections called quatrains—the first three lines of each have 11 syllables and the fourth has five). This form is usually formal, lyric, and ceremonious, written and recited to celebrate ideas, people, places, etc.

Though I’ve stretched the stitching of the form, I hope it fits as a way to reflect on (and inherently honour) one of the deepest moments of knowing in our lives.

Here's an excerpt of the poem (the full written & visually formatted versions can now be found & read at mikbrew.substack.com!):

Where & when are my parents not part of me? In different things, I now see and believe. I want to feel I’m nearly twenty. Yet, in loving, always we?

Listen to this week's episode to hear the full poem! If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves.

Disclaimer: This Podcast and all of our mental health learning and educational content is not therapy and is not a replacement for therapy. Noah and Simon do not take this therapist-client role in any way for Resolvve.

Please seek professional help if needed. Go to www.resolvve.ca to get the support you need.

Follow us on Instagram (@resolvvementalhealth), TikTok (@Resolvve), and Youtube (@resolvvementalhealth).

This week's audio blog explores whether social media is the cause of the youth mental health crisis.

Disclaimer: This Podcast and all of our mental health learning and educational content is not therapy and is not a replacement for therapy. Noah and Simon do not take this therapist-client role in any way for Resolvve.

Please seek professional help if needed. Go to www.resolvve.ca to get the support you need.

Follow us on Instagram (@resolvvementalhealth), TikTok (@Resolvve), and Youtube (@resolvvementalhealth).

This week, Mikaela Brewer reads a poem that explores parenthood, but in the voice of a toddler who has a new little sibling. Being a parent is a beautiful experience, but it is also exhausting (and equally so at different points while a child grows up). And, perhaps especially when children are very young, it may feel like your physical, mental, emotional, and spirtual work to care for them isn’t quite understood or noticed. This poem seeks to reimagine this, offering a way in which toddlers and infants may communicate how much they love those who care for them during the most vulnerable years of their lives.

Here's an excerpt of the poem (the full written & visually formatted versions can now be found & read at mikbrew.substack.com!):

What I mean is, sometimes no smile means you’ve caught humans loving the very very most that they can. And, I wish Mama & Dada knew that we knew. We see when they don’t smile— out of breath but not of love—trying to balance feeding us, changing us, watching us, holding up our heads, hearts, souls (and eating, maybe, sleeping, occasionally).

Listen to this week's episode to hear the full poem! If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves.

Disclaimer: This Podcast and all of our mental health learning and educational content is not therapy and is not a replacement for therapy. Noah and Simon do not take this therapist-client role in any way for Resolvve.

Please seek professional help if needed. Go to www.resolvve.ca to get the support you need.

Follow us on Instagram (@resolvvementalhealth), TikTok (@Resolvve), and Youtube (@resolvvementalhealth).

In this week's audio blog we discuss where you can find free therapy and counselling services in Toronto, Ottawa, and beyond.

Disclaimer: This Podcast and all of our mental health learning and educational content is not therapy and is not a replacement for therapy. Noah and Simon do not take this therapist-client role in any way for Resolvve.

Please seek professional help if needed. Go to www.resolvve.ca to get the support you need.

Follow us on Instagram (@resolvvementalhealth), TikTok (@Resolvve), and Youtube (@resolvvementalhealth).

The poem & episode this week presented by Mikaela Brewer are special birthday editions for Unsinkable’s 5th anniversary.

Please be sure to check out the resources, programs, partnerships, and action items Mikaela has shared in this episode. Thank you so much to our podcast guests from season 1 for lending their voices & words to this poem. You can re-listen to their episodes below!

Here's an excerpt of the poem (the full written & visually formatted versions can now be found & read at mikbrew.substack.com!):

Because we’ve braided this woven raft of 4.1 million people, strong and vast, limbs linked, lying on our backs and having practiced our breathing in sync, above the waves we float, steer, expand always and all ways.

Listen to this week's episode to hear the full poem! If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves.

Disclaimer: This Podcast and all of our mental health learning and educational content is not therapy and is not a replacement for therapy. Noah and Simon do not take this therapist-client role in any way for Resolvve.

Please seek professional help if needed. Go to www.resolvve.ca to get the support you need.

Follow us on Instagram (@resolvvementalhealth), TikTok (@Resolvve), and Youtube (@resolvvementalhealth).

This week's blog discusses cognitive processing therapy for PTSD and other conditions caused by trauma.

Disclaimer: This Podcast and all of our mental health learning and educational content is not therapy and is not a replacement for therapy. Noah and Simon do not take this therapist-client role in any way for Resolvve.

Please seek professional help if needed. Go to www.resolvve.ca to get the support you need.

Follow us on Instagram (@resolvvementalhealth), TikTok (@Resolvve), and Youtube (@resolvvementalhealth).