In this solo episode, Bailey Taylor gets candid about body image, self-esteem, and the pressure to keep up in a world shaped by social media, fashion trends, and Ozempic culture. She opens up about her own weight loss journey, falling out of routines, and what it feels like to start over when your confidence is low. Bailey also shares her honest take on the return of ultra-skinny beauty standards, why she believes health and strength should be the goal, and how comparison online can distort your sense of reality. From small daily rituals to movement, skincare, mindset shifts, and learning to slow down, this episode is a raw conversation about taking your power back and building confidence in a healthier, more lasting way.

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Your mind is constantly vacillating — between past and future, good and bad, success and failure — and most of us are addicted to following it wherever it goes. In this episode of Waking Up with Ryan, we explore the difference between the mind that never stops moving and the awareness underneath it that never moves at all. Drawing on a line from A Course in Miracles, Ryan guides you through a simple but powerful shift: resting back into the presence that's always here, beneath every thought. Includes a guided meditation to help you practice coming home to yourself. Perfect for your morning routine — a few minutes to wake up, breathe, and remember who you really are.

Tell Ryan about yourself! https://wakingupwithryan.com/hello

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You can follow Ryan on Instagram (@wakingupwithryan), YouTube (@wakingupwithryanpod), or visit wakingupwithryan.com.

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This week is about what happens when you finally stop trying to be okay with what happened to you.

Ben sits down with his former therapist, Jessica Serber, who helped him work through years of grief and anger after surviving cancer three times before the age of 24. For a long time, Ben thought healing meant moving on, staying positive, and building a life that had nothing to do with cancer. What he eventually learned was almost the opposite: he couldn’t move through the pain until he let himself actually feel it.

They talk about the anger Ben didn’t think he was allowed to have, the parts of his life he felt cancer had taken from him, and how finally telling the truth about those feelings changed his relationship with the experience. They also get into what healing actually looks like when the thing that happened to you never completely goes away, and how to show up for someone you love when there’s nothing you can say to make things better.

We’ve been best friends since college. We lived in the same house while Ben was going through chemotherapy and still barely talked about what was actually happening. Years later, sitting down with Jess brought us back to conversations we didn’t know how to have then.

If you’ve been carrying pain, anger, grief, or something you’ve convinced yourself you should be “over” by now, this episode is for you.

You can’t heal what you won’t let yourself feel.

New episodes every Thursday. Follow on the iHeart app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts, and on Instagram at @freetherapy.

And as a reminder, we are not therapists, and while this may feel like therapy, it’s not. If you’re struggling, please reach out to a mental health professional who can help.

0:00 Reuniting with his old therapist
10:00 Allowed to feel his anger
17:51 Seeing his cancer as trophies
28:09 What to say when someone's struggling
35:28 Getting uncomfortable to heal
42:24 Grief camp and giving back

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That knot in your stomach before something new? It's not a sign to stop — it's a sign you're expanding. In this episode, Ryan explores why fear, nervousness, and anxiety are inevitable companions to any meaningful growth, drawing on stories from legendary performers like Liza Minnelli and Meryl Streep who leaned into their nerves rather than away from them. You'll learn how to reframe that anxious feeling as a signal of impending expansion rather than a warning to retreat — and then settle into a guided practice to help you meet the unknown with more presence, courage, and self-trust. If you've been putting off something because it scares you, this episode is your permission slip to take the leap anyway.

Tell Ryan about yourself! https://wakingupwithryan.com/hello

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You can follow Ryan on Instagram (@wakingupwithryan), YouTube (@wakingupwithryanpod), or visit wakingupwithryan.com.

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Show Notes

What if the biggest breakthrough in autism isn't changing autistic people—but changing the way we see them?

In this inspiring episode of Why Not Me?, Tony Mantor sits down with internationally recognized autism advocate, educator, author, and founder of The Miracle Project, Elaine Hall.

After adopting her son from Russia and later learning he was autistic, Elaine's life took an unexpected turn that would ultimately transform autism advocacy around the world.

Together, they discuss the importance of meeting autistic individuals where they are, replacing judgment with understanding, and focusing on strengths instead of deficits. Elaine shares the story behind The Miracle Project, the Emmy Award-winning documentary Autism: The Musical, her work influencing Hollywood toward authentic neurodivergent representation, and why creating communities of belonging matters more than simply talking about inclusion.

The conversation also explores late autism identification, masking, neurodiversity, communication beyond words, and the lasting impact acceptance can have on individuals, families, educators, and communities.

Whether you're autistic, a parent, educator, clinician, advocate, or simply someone wanting to better understand autism, this episode offers hope, compassion, and a fresh perspective on what it truly means to belong.

In this episode you'll learn:

• Why behavior is communication
• The power of following an autistic person's lead
• Why "fixing" autism is the wrong goal
• How The Miracle Project is changing lives through the arts
• The importance of strengths-based support
• The reality of masking and late identification
• Creating belonging instead of simply promoting inclusion
• How authentic representation is changing perceptions worldwide
• Why acceptance begins with listening
• Elaine's powerful message of hope for families everywhere

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Tips for nervous system regulation are everywhere right now - from breathwork and cold plunges to conversations about burnout, anxiety, and trauma. But what does it actually mean to be regulated, and are we sometimes turning healing into another thing to obsess over? In this episode, we take a grounded, research-informed look at what your nervous system is really trying to do, why fight-or-flight is not the enemy, and how stress, trauma, lifestyle, and hypersensitivity can shape the way we feel in our bodies.

We explore:
• What the window of tolerance can teach us about overwhelm and shutdown
• Why your nervous system is trying to protect you
• The role of trauma, chronic stress, and lifestyle factors in dysregulation
• What a regulated nervous system can actually feel like
• How hypersensitivity can keep us stuck in symptom-monitoring
• Why sleep, safety, nourishment, connection, and routine matter more than expensive wellness tools

Watch on Netflix: HERE

Follow Jemma on Instagram: @jemmasbeg

Follow the podcast on Instagram: @thatpsychologypodcast

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For business: psychologyofyour20s@gmail.com

Our favourite sources:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.31887/DCNS.2006.8.4/jbremner
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0005789413000191?via%3Dihub
https://academic.oup.com/sleep/article/44/6/zsaa289/6053003
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTJAjx-AGAo

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Life doesn't always go according to plan — and that's exactly where the growth happens. In this episode of Waking Up with Ryan, we explore what it really means when things don't work out the way we hoped, and why those disappointments aren't obstacles to your healing — they're doorways to it.

Drawing on the Yoga Sutras and a reminder from Leonard Cohen ("The crack is where the light gets in"), Ryan walks through how our unprocessed emotions get stirred up in moments of disappointment, and offers a guided practice for pausing, noticing what's arising in the body, and letting yourself be more fully seen and healed — instead of getting swept into old stories and reactive patterns.

You can follow Ryan on Instagram (@wakingupwithryan), YouTube (@wakingupwithryanpod), or visit wakingupwithryan.com.

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This week is about anxiety and rumination, and why trying to get rid of your anxiety is exactly what keeps it going.

Kimberley Quinlan is an amazing therapist who specializes in anxiety and rumination. In this episode she gets into why a thought is not a fact, why avoidance quietly shrinks your entire life, and what she actually does at 3am when her brain won't turn off. It is not what you'd expect!!

We found out during this episode that we've been feeding our anxiety for years without realizing it. She pointed out all the little ways we treat anxious thoughts like they're important, and why attention control is the key to retraining your brain out of the spiral.

If you're the one lying awake at 2am running the same loop, this one is for you.

New episodes every week. Follow on the iHeart app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts and on Instagram at @freetherapy.

And as a reminder, we are not therapists, and while this may feel like therapy, it's not. So if you're struggling, please reach out to a mental health professional who can help.

00:00:00 – Intro
00:02:24 – Why You Can't Get Rid of Anxiety
00:09:32 – A Thought Is Not a Fact
00:15:10 – Why We Ruminate
00:22:12 – Avoidance and Doing It Scared
00:24:55 – The 2AM Spiral

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