What if the voice telling you you're not good enough was never yours to begin with?

In this episode of Wired & Worthy, Dr. Amelia Kelley sits down with Maximus Lerois, known as The Identity Architect, to explore how childhood trauma, limiting beliefs, and emotional patterns shape our identity and self-worth.

Drawing from his experience as a Marine Corps veteran and his personal healing journey, Maximus shares insights on PTSD, moral injury, and breaking unhealthy patterns. He also introduces his four-step approach to transformation: Recognize, Reframe, Release, and Rewrite, along with a powerful mirror exercise to help you reconnect with yourself.

Discover how replacing self-criticism with curiosity can help you heal, rewrite your story, and recognize that your worthiness is something you were born with, not something you have to earn.

Key Takeaways

• How trauma and childhood experiences shape our beliefs and behaviors.

• Why our younger selves may still influence our adult decisions.

• How curiosity and self-compassion can help break unhealthy patterns.

• The four steps to rewriting limiting beliefs and reclaiming your identity.

• Why self-worth begins with accepting yourself rather than seeking external validation.

  
  

Connect with Maximus Lerois

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/maximuslerois

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maximuslerois/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Maximuslerois

Book, Mental Health Is a Lie: https://mentalhealthisalie.com/

Connect with Dr. Amelia Kelley:🌍 Website: https://www.ameliakelley.com📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drameliakelley/👩🏼‍💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drameliakelley/

In this insightful episode of Wired & Worthy, Dr. Amelia Kelley sits down with psychologist, psychodramatist, and author Dr. Tian Dayton to explore the lasting impact of growing up with addiction. Drawing from her latest book, Growing Up with Addiction, Tian explains how childhood experiences in families affected by addiction can shape our nervous systems, relationships, and emotional responses long into adulthood.

Together, they discuss codependency, complex PTSD, narcissistic family dynamics, and the intergenerational patterns that keep trauma alive. Tian also shares deeply personal stories about her own healing journey, including a profound near-death experience and a powerful moment with her daughter that changed how she understood breaking generational trauma.

This episode offers a compassionate reminder that while we cannot change our childhood experiences, we can learn to recognize unhealthy patterns, take responsibility for our healing, and build healthier relationships for future generations.

Key Takeaways:

• Growing up with addiction can create lasting emotional wounds, hypervigilance, and codependent behaviors.
• Trauma can pass through generations, even when addiction itself does not.
• Recognizing emotional triggers helps us understand unresolved pain rather than projecting it onto others.
• Narcissistic family dynamics can leave children feeling responsible for managing a parent's emotions.
• Recovery involves self-awareness, emotional honesty, forgiveness, and supportive relationships.
• Breaking generational trauma begins when parents take responsibility for their reactions instead of repeating learned behaviors.

About the Guest

Dr. Tian Dayton is a psychologist, psychodramatist, trauma specialist, and bestselling author whose work focuses on addiction, codependency, and relational trauma. She is the creator of Relational Trauma Repair (RTR), an experiential, body-based approach to helping individuals and clinicians address unresolved emotional wounds. Drawing on decades of professional experience and her personal recovery journey, Tian is passionate about helping people break unhealthy family patterns and build emotional resilience.

Her books include Growing Up with Addiction, Emotional Sobriety, and The ACOA Trauma Syndrome.

Connect with Dr. Tian Dayton

Website: https://www.tiandayton.com/

Relational Trauma Repair: https://relationaltraumarepair.com/

Book: Growing Up with Addiction

Free Reader's Guide: https://relationaltraumarepair.com/

Connect with Dr. Amelia Kelley:

🌍 Website: https://www.ameliakelley.com

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drameliakelley/

👩🏼‍💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drameliakelley/

In this insightful and refreshingly honest episode of Wired & Worthy, Dr. Amelia Kelley is joined by psychologist, spiritual teacher, and author Patrick Marando to explore the connection between self-worth, emotional healing, and finding inner peace. Patrick shares how trauma, perfectionism, and self-rejection can disconnect us from our authentic selves, and why learning to accept uncomfortable emotions is essential to developing a healthier relationship with ourselves.

Together, they discuss how overthinking often serves as a way to avoid difficult feelings, why embarrassment and guilt don't have to define our worth, and how to break free from conditional self-acceptance. In an unexpected twist, technical difficulties interrupt their conversation, giving Patrick and Dr. Amelia a real-life opportunity to practice the emotional acceptance they're discussing.

Whether you're struggling with anxiety, rejection sensitivity, perfectionism, or rediscovering yourself after trauma, this episode offers practical insights to help you navigate difficult emotions, reconnect with your true self, and recognize that your worth has never depended on being perfect.

Key Takeaways

• Trauma can disconnect us from our sense of identity, but self-discovery helps us reconnect.

• Overthinking is often an attempt to avoid uncomfortable emotions.

• Mistakes are opportunities to learn, not signs of failure.

• Accepting difficult emotions helps reduce self-judgment and anxiety.

• Guilt is about what happened, while shame affects how we see ourselves.

• True inner peace comes from self-acceptance, not external validation.

• Your self-worth is inherent and doesn't depend on perfection or approval.

About the Guest

Patrick Marando is a spiritual teacher, psychologist, energy healer, and author of Waking Up to Your Self: A Guide to Living Your Truth. Combining modern psychology with spiritual insight, he helps people break free from conditioned patterns, navigate difficult emotions, and reconnect with their authentic selves.

Through his SOULL™ Method, meditation, and energy work, Patrick guides individuals toward greater self-awareness, inner peace, and emotional healing. His approach emphasizes that true peace and self-worth are already within us. We simply need to learn how to reconnect with them.

Connect with Patrick Marando

🌐 Website: patrickmarando.com

📷 Instagram: @patrickmarando

♪ TikTok: @patrickmarando1

Connect with Dr. Amelia Kelley:🌍 Website: https://www.ameliakelley.com📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drameliakelley/👩🏼‍💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drameliakelley/

In this deeply honest episode, Dr. Amelia Kelley is joined by certified grief support specialist and Grieve Leave founder Rebecca Feinglos for a conversation about the grief of leaving a relationship you still love. Rebecca shares how losing her father forced her to reevaluate her marriage, the warning signs she once normalized, and the moment she realized how peaceful life could feel outside of an unhealthy relationship. Together, Rebecca and Dr. Amelia explore the cycle of abuse, silent treatment and love bombing, the grief of the future you thought you would have, and why missing someone does not necessarily mean leaving was the wrong decision. Rebecca also shares practical ways she rebuilt her life after divorce, from leaning on friends instead of reaching back toward her ex to learning how to be alone, creating new friendships, and finding community through grief.

Key Takeaways

• Healthy conflict is less about how often couples disagree and more about how they communicate, repair, and treat one another during conflict.
• Silent treatment, love bombing, and repeated cycles of disconnection and intense affection can make unhealthy relationships especially difficult to leave.

• Leaving a relationship can mean grieving both the person and the future you imagined with them, including milestones that may never happen the way you expected.

• Rebuilding after divorce happens one day at a time through new routines, supportive relationships, and learning what life feels like outside the relationship.

• Community can be an important part of healing. Rebecca suggests attending gatherings hosted by people you already know, seeking events around your interests, and actually following up when you meet someone you connect with.

• You can still love someone and choose not to return to the relationship. Grieving involves allowing your brain to gradually learn a new reality without that person.

About Rebecca Feinglos

Rebecca Feinglos, MPP, is a certified grief support specialist, founder of Grieve Leave, and host of the Grief’d Up podcast. After losing her mother as a teenager, her father suddenly in 2020, and navigating the end of her marriage, Rebecca took a year-long “grief sabbatical” that ultimately grew into Grieve Leave. Today, the organization helps individuals, workplaces, and communities better understand and support grief through education, storytelling, resources, workplace training, and community experiences like Sad Hours. Rebecca’s work has been featured in publications including TIME, the Los Angeles Times, Fortune, and Slate.

Connect with Rebecca

Website: Grieve Leave

Instagram: @grieveleave

Rebecca’s Instagram: @rfeinglos

Podcast: Grief’d Up

Connect with Dr. Amelia Kelley:🌍 Website: https://www.ameliakelley.com📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drameliakelley/👩🏼‍💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drameliakelley/

What does bipolar disorder actually feel like beyond the stereotypes?

In this episode of Wired & Worthy, Dr. Amelia Kelley sits down with artist, physical therapist, and energy healer Cait Schmitt for an honest conversation about bipolar disorder, hypomania, creativity, sleep, medication, and the spiritual experiences that can sometimes accompany mania.

Cait shares her lived experience of learning to recognize bipolar cycles and distinguish genuine happiness and creative inspiration from the early signs of hypomania. She explains why changes in sleep have become one of her most important warning signs and how she has learned to protect her stability while still making space for creativity.

They also explore the complicated relationship between bipolar medication and creative expression, the misconceptions surrounding bipolar disorder, and Cait’s experience of mania through both scientific and spiritual lenses. The conversation offers a nuanced look at what it means to manage bipolar disorder while maintaining a connection to creativity, identity, relationships, and spirituality.

Key Takeaways

• Why emotional sensitivity or moodiness alone doesn’t necessarily indicate bipolar disorder
• How recognizing bipolar cycles can help identify changes in mood
• Why sleep can be an important warning sign for hypomania and mania
• How Cait distinguishes creativity and inspiration from an escalating bipolar episode
• The relationship between bipolar disorder, creativity, and hypomania
• Cait’s experience balancing medication with creativity and spiritual connection
• How support systems can help someone living with bipolar disorder
• Why managing bipolar disorder can involve learning your individual patterns, triggers, and boundaries

About Cait Schmitt

Cait Schmitt is an abstract painter, physical therapist, and energy healer based in Greensboro, North Carolina. Her art practice explores art as an alchemical and healing medium through which transformation and personal evolution can occur. She works with students, private clients, and designers around the world.

Cait studied Religious Studies and Dance at UC Berkeley before exploring the body from a scientific perspective at Northern Arizona University, where she earned her Doctoral degree in Physical Therapy. She later deepened her spiritual practice through intuitive healing, shamanic mentorship, Reiki, and Angelic Healing training.

Her work brings together creativity, spirituality, energy healing, and emotional transformation. Through her art and healing practice, Cait creates spaces for people to process and integrate emotional and energetic experiences.

Cait began painting in 2018 and is a self-taught artist who has learned from several mentors along the way. She primarily works with acrylic on canvas while also exploring watercolor, collage, charcoal drawing, and dance.

Connect with Cait:

Website: https://www.caitlinschmitt.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alchemy_and_intuition

Connect with Dr. Amelia Kelley:🌍 Website: https://www.ameliakelley.com📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drameliakelley/👩🏼‍💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drameliakelley/

In this episode of Wired & Worthy, Dr. Amelia Kelley is joined by manifestation coach and author Latha Jay to explore the connection between manifestation, limiting beliefs, sensitivity, and healing.

Latha shares the approach behind her book, The 24/7 Manifestation Method, and explains how intentional handwriting, present-tense affirmations, and consistent action can help shift thought patterns. She also opens up about a painful childhood experience that shaped her belief that her voice did not matter—and how therapy and EMDR helped her work through it.

Together, Amelia and Latha discuss how trauma and sensitivity can influence the way we see ourselves, why focusing on what we want matters, and how small mindset shifts can create meaningful change.

Key Takeaways:

• Limiting beliefs can quietly shape our choices and keep us playing small.
• The 24/7 Manifestation Method uses handwritten, positive, present-tense affirmations.
• Manifestation involves aligned action—not just visualization.
• EMDR and self-reflection can help process painful experiences and old beliefs.
• Highly sensitive and neurodivergent people may experience mindset practices differently.
• Focusing on what you want, rather than what you fear, can help shift your direction.
• Consistency matters more than perfection when creating change.

About the guest:

Latha Jay is a manifestation expert, speaker, author, and founder of the Institute for Conscious Creation, where she helps people create lasting transformation by integrating psychology, neuroscience, spirituality, and identity work.

With a background in psychology, biology, integrative medicine, and Ayurvedic science, Latha is known for turning complex concepts into practical tools for transformation. Her teachings have reached millions around the world, helping people move beyond mindset alone and become the person capable of creating the life they desire.

She is the author of the upcoming Wiley book The 24/7 Manifestation Method: Becoming a Magnet for Success in Just 7 Days and is on a mission to make personal transformation both deeply spiritual and scientifically grounded.

Connect with Latha Jay:

Website - https://www.lathajay.com

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/latha_jay_/

TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@latha_jay

YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@lathajay8081

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/latha-jay/

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/LathaJay8/

Book - The 24/7 Manifestation Method: Becoming a Magnet for Success in Just 7 Days
https://a.co/d/04XvGVhf

Connect with Dr. Amelia Kelley:🌍 Website: https://www.ameliakelley.com📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drameliakelley/👩🏼‍💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drameliakelley/

What if the biggest regret isn’t failing, but never trying?

Dr. Amelia Kelley welcomes psychologist Dr. Maike Neuhaus to Wired & Worthy to explore regret, finding your purpose, and making choices that reflect who you are. They discuss why success can feel unfulfilling, how ADHD and sensitivity can shape your path, and why self-compassion matters when you feel stuck.

Through an honest conversation about difficult decisions and missed possibilities, they explore how to live more intentionally, and make peace with the regrets you cannot avoid.

Key Takeaways

• Recognise “miswanting”: chasing goals you expect to make you happy that leave you unfulfilled.

• Use your values to guide decisions instead of other people’s expectations.

• See midlife change as an opportunity to grow.

• Allow yourself to grieve a path you didn’t take, even when your decision was right.

• Replace self-criticism with curiosity about what you need.

• Build a meaningful life with varied experiences, rather than expecting constant happiness.

About Dr. Maike Neuhaus

Dr. Maike Neuhaus (she/her) is a psychologist, speaker, coach, educator, and founder of The Flourishing Doc. Specialising in positive psychology and behaviour change, she helps individuals and organisations improve well-being and realise their potential. She holds a Master’s degree in Psychology and a PhD in Public Health from The University of Queensland, where she previously developed and led consultancy services for two research centres.

Connect with Dr. Maike Neuhaus

Website: The Flourishing Doc

LinkedIn: Dr. Maike Neuhaus

Instagram: @theflourishingdoc

Connect with Dr. Amelia Kelley:

🌍 Website: ⁠https://www.ameliakelley.com⁠

📸 Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/drameliakelley/ ⁠

👩🏼‍💼 LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/drameliakelley/

What if someone on the path to violence is not beyond reach, but waiting for someone to listen?

In this powerful episode, Dr. Amelia Kelley speaks with Paul Krauss about what happens psychologically before violence occurs, and how compassionate intervention may help prevent tragedy.

The National Violence Prevention Hotline supports people experiencing violent thoughts and those concerned about someone in their life.

Call: 888-664-6652
Visit: violencepreventionhotline.org

Paul explains how unresolved pain, rejection, anger, and trauma can develop into grievances and violent thoughts. He and Amelia discuss the nervous system’s role in anger, why having violent thoughts does not automatically make someone dangerous, and how feeling heard can create an opportunity for a different outcome.

• Anger is a natural nervous-system response.
• Unresolved pain can develop into violent thoughts.
• Violent thoughts do not always lead to action.
• People contemplating violence may still want help.
• Early, compassionate intervention can prevent tragedy.
• Loved ones can also contact the hotline.

About the guest:

Paul Krauss, MA, LPC, is the co-founder of Health for Life Counseling, home of the Trauma-Informed Counseling Center of Grand Rapids. He is a private-practice psychotherapist, EMDRIA Approved Consultant and Certified Clinician, behavioral health consultant, clinical trainer, and counseling supervisor.

Paul created the National Violence Prevention Hotline and the Intentional Clinician Training Program for Therapists. He also hosts the Intentional Clinician podcast, leads weekly EMDRIA consulting groups, and developed the online course Parenting Young Adults.

National Violence Prevention Hotline:
violencepreventionhotline.org

Health for Life Counseling:
healthforlifegr.com

Instagram:
@violencepreventionhotline

YouTube:
Violence Prevention Hotline

LinkedIn:
National Violence Prevention Hotline

Content note: This episode discusses homicide, suicide, domestic violence, mass violence, and violent thoughts.

Connect with Dr. Amelia Kelley:

🌍 Website: https://www.ameliakelley.com

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drameliakelley/

👩🏼‍💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drameliakelley/