As we continue our series, Ending the Year Well, we look at a very important question we could ask ourselves at the close of the year: what does the healthiest version of myself look like? If I'm as healthy as I want to be, what does that look like emotionally, physically, mentally, professionally, sexually, and so on. Then we do some inventorying: who is going to help me get there and who isn't? Folks, it's time to "clean out the closet" of our relationships. We're going to talk about recruiting, reconciling, and releasing... and we're looking ahead into 2026 with purpose, intention, and full responsibility for who we are.
To look at the "Yearly Inventory" from years past, click here:
1: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-vanessa-londino-podcast/id1555914519?i=1000588774344
2: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-vanessa-londino-podcast/id1555914519?i=1000589824748
3: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-vanessa-londino-podcast/id1555914519?i=1000590594579
4: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-vanessa-londino-podcast/id1555914519?i=1000591292133
If you'd like to send me a message, email me at: contact@vanessabentley.co (not .com)
As the year winds down to a close, it’s time to take some inventory and think through how we want to close 2025 out. Starting a new year with a clean slate is one of the greatest gifts you can supply to your mental health. No baggage. No loose ends. No unfinished business. Just a clear mind and an open heart. So we need to ask ourselves: Am I holding on to hurt, bitterness, or resentment? Is there someone I need to forgive? This week, we tackle what forgiveness is and isn’t, how to do it, and how it’s actually essential to your mental health.
Send me an email about the podcast! Contact@vanessabentley.co
Buy “The Toolbox” - https://a.co/d/azt401j
Happy thanksgiving to all! I wanted share the gratitude in my heart for you, the audience, some thoughts on how to cultivate a life that overflows with thankfulness, and a prayer for all who listen. Many thanks for keeping this podcast going in its fourth year!
Listen to this episode if you’re feeling defeated, tired, run down, or if you’re hearing yourself complain a lot. Elysia Skye is a speaker, mindset and leadership consultant, and host of The Brilliance Method Podcast, and here’s what I learned from talking to her: authenticity in action is one of the most compelling expressions of humanity. Elysia is brave, bold, deeply caring, and filled with hard fought wisdom. She has faced battles in her own life to reach her goals, and she brings this same passion and practical knowledge to us in this episode. Her work is all about bringing out the “brilliance” in all of us, and I’m so thankful she shared her gifts with the Work of Being Human audience!
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To connect with Elysia…
Watch or Listen to The Brilliance Method Podcast: https://linktr.ee/elysiaskye
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Dr. Alan Weissenbacher is a pastor and a neuroscientific researcher. His work in addiction and recovery led him to dive more deeply into the brain’s ability to change and rewire itself. In this episode, Dr. Weissenbacher leads us down the road of recovery, brain change, a grace filled process, and why you should celebrate every step. (Hint: it has to do with how your brain works.) He’s funny, kind, thoughtful, patient, and delivers a strong wind of hope for anyone who has ever felt like giving up. Simply put: this episode is about how you can change anything!
For more information on Dr. Weissenbacher, click here: https://alanweissenbacher.com
To order his book, “The Brain Change Program,” click here: https://a.co/d/2KuNY3N
Many listeners have requested an episode on grief for two reasons: (1) grief is difficult, and we seek all the help we can get. (2) Grief is universal. We will all face losses of many kinds. Marcia’s experience with grief, while heart wrenching and tragic, offers us hope, purpose, and an uncommon vitality. She is an expert on finding life again after loss. Marcia teaches us to view grief as a spiritual passage through our greatest fears to a new version of ourselves. Marcia’s faith, hope, and determination to live again will inspire you to accept grief as part of life and, in her words, get breathing again, moving again, and living again.
For more information on Marcia: https://www.thesterlingrosesanctuary.us
To purchase Marcia’s book on grief: http://a.co/d/3Qq4eHR
Follow her on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesterlingrosesanctuary/
Two weeks ago, we took a bit of a deep dive into understanding how our negative beliefs develop. This week, we're going to tackle what we DO about them. How do we actually change negative belief systems about ourselves? About others? The truth is, we have a lot more power and agency than we realize. Through deeper understanding and an assertion of our commitment to growth and change, we can actually change any negative belief to a positive one. This week, I'll talk you through how.
If you'd like to send me an email about the podcast - thoughts, requests, (critiques!), and reactions - I'd LOVE to hear from you! Email me at contact@vanessabentley.co (not .com)
Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vanessathetherapist/
Thanks for listening! Please follow, subscribe, and SHARE! :-)
This was one of those episodes I simply had to do. I was ready to record part 2 of last weeks episode (“Why Am I So Hard on Myself?”), but based on my own experience and what I’m hearing from you all, I had to pivot. This week, we tackle what to do when we’re offended, when we disagree. We look at the escalation stages of conflict and how to diffuse it at the most essential stage. We are going to become skilled communicators, in search of truth and reason, able to navigate disagreement without putting our relationships in jeopardy. These are skills everyone simply must have. (And we even dabble a bit into Socrates!)
Send me an email. I’d love to hear from you! Contact@vanessabentley.co (not .com)
This week we tackle an important theme in therapy: self-understanding. Clients see therapists for a variety of needs: relief, tools, compassion, and hope. But underscoring all of these important goals is one universal must: you must learn to understand yourself. Most of us, at some point or another, have battled a negative internal voice. This week, we unpack it and explore how to understand your internal voice, where it comes from, and how to begin the work of dismantling it. (Next week we dive into how to turn a negative internal voice into a positive one.)
Send me an email! Contact@vanessabentley.co
The last few weeks have brought us stories of horrific violence - a shooting during mass at a Catholic school in Minneapolis resulting in dozens of injuries and two dead children, a senseless murder of a young woman on a train, who came to our country for a better life, then the assassination of political leader, Charlie Kirk, killed in cold blood while debating students on a university campus. The next day was... September 11. Twenty four years after I saw my city come to its knees. (I'm a former New Yorker.) I knew the world would never be the same that day. I felt the same way when that bullet ripped through Charlie Kirk's throat - we'd crossed a line. Again. The world will never be the same. And I found myself, as I often do, soul searching: "What is the root of this violence?" On this special episode of "The Work of Being Human," I analyze the tragedies we've witnessed in the last month as well as the root of violence that is exploding in our nation. It's not political. It's not ideological. Tune in for more.
I love hearing from you: contact@vanessabentley.co
We've all said it; we've all felt it: "I'm confused!" We are flooded with too many thoughts, feelings, options, and contradictions. It's uncomfortable, we like clarity, so we try to push it away as quickly as possible. Just like anger and sadness, confusion gets a bad rap because it's uncomfortable, but it's serves an almost wholly positive purpose in mental health. The truth is, we have to tolerate feeling confused if we want to learn, grow, deepen, and be able to read unsafe people. This week, we expand our understanding and respect for CONFUSION. No one wants to live there, but in order to be mentally healthy, we've got to learn how to stay in it long enough to let it do what it needs to do.
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Send me an email. I love hearing your thoughts and requests: contact@vanessabentley.co
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It is THE most searched for phrase in any search concerning mental health. “Am I depressed?” “How do I know if I’m depressed?” “What are the symptoms of depression?” “Can depression be healed or resolved?” (Yes.) We want to know and understand ourselves. We need to have a sense of what is normal and what isn’t. How much sadness in the normal tragedy of life is allowed before it becomes a habit? A condition? An impairment? These questions flood our minds as life goes on, struggle after struggle. This week, we dive into both the nature of depression and the etiology - in other words, how it comes to be. What happens in life that predisposes us to a depressed or melancholic state? And if we find ourselves down in the dumps for a good period of time, what should we do about it? After listening, you’ll walk away with:
- An understanding of the history of depression and how we’ve attempted to address it across millennia, because it ain’t new
- An understanding of what depression is and what it is not
- Why you should give it the respect it deserves (Yes, I said respect.)
- How to resolve depression, how to grow past it
Thank you SO MUCH for listening (no really) and please share!
I’d love to hear from you! If you’d like to reach out and share your thoughts, reactions, or ideas for the podcast, email me at contact@vanessabentley.co (not .com)
Follow the podcast on Instagram: @theworkofebeinghuman
Follow me on instagram: @vanessathetherapist
ChatGPT can give you endless information, instant insights, and will even mimic a little human comfort — but it can’t heal you. In this episode, I unpack the real role of AI in our search for growth and wholeness: the advantages (access to knowledge, new perspectives, clarity) and the limits (no intimacy, no struggle, no human relationship). Healing isn’t about collecting data; it’s about being known, facing reality, and letting the mess of being human shape you. This conversation is about where ChatGPT fits—and where it absolutely cannot—in the work of being human.
Follow me on Instagram: @vanessathetherapist
Follow the podcast: @theworkofbeinghuman
Send me an email! Contact@vanessabentley.co (not .com)
Podcast by Vanessa Bentley
Producer/Editor: Jared Bentley
Music: Vanessa Bentley
Musical arrangment: Winston Philip
Relationships are hard. We know this. We are trying to find common ground between us when we come from different backgrounds, assumptions, and habits. It takes patience, time, investment, skill, and a lot of humility. But what happens in relationship when you enter trauma into the mix? What happens when one or both partners are traumatized? When they carry wounds and scars from past abuse, hardship, and fear? This week, we focus on how to have a trauma-informed relationship, how to support, cope, and connect with someone when trauma is part of their story. (Don’t worry. I will define trauma in this episode. Not every hardship is trauma and should not be treated that way.) We’ll get into the neurological changes that take place in a traumatized brain, the behavioral and social challenges, and how to communicate to a brain that is screaming, “I’m not safe!”
Send me a message about this episode, a past episode, or something you’d like to hear: contact@vanessabentley.co
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Do you ever notice how - around some people - you feel really confused? Do conversations feel like a labyrinth? Do you find yourself losing your own train of thought and suddenly you realize the conversation has taken a completely different turn away from what you wanted to talk about? Do you ever notice that you spend hours in difficult conversation and nothing gets resolved? Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to LAYERS - the many confusing walls human beings put up to protect their own hearts and keep yours at bay. This week we dive into this difficult pattern and talk about how to cut through the layers in ourselves so we can clearly see and communicate with others.
If you want to email me with thoughts and topic requests for the podcast: contact@vanessabentley.co (not .com)
Welcome back to Substance, Not Psychobabble! After a couple of months off, I’m back and I’m raring to go. One of my first projects I undertook in the early summer was building a potting bench. Just me, about 1,000 pieces of wood, 1,000,000 screws, a drill, a couple of hammers, and a photo of what it was supposed to look like. I wished myself luck, blasted some hard rock, threw my baseball cap on backwards, and got to work. I’m no carpenter, so patience became a necessary virtue to complete the task. As I went, I kept thinking about how we construct a life with the pieces we’ve been given - our lives, our personalities, our innate gifts, even our traumas - and many, many lessons were learned along the way. In this episode, I share my mini-journey into absolute amateur carpentry as well as the moments that taught me about how our lives are constructed while I was bending and drilling wood to make “The Bench.”
This week, we welcome David Lea to Substance, Not Psychobabble. He is a relationship coach, a trauma specialist, and an expert on masculine and feminine energy. He explores the healthy and unhealthy masculine and feminine in us all, and teaches us how to bring our polarized parts into harmony within us and our relationships. David's message resonates with strength and clarity: your relationship issues aren't about the relationship, they're about YOU. And the good news is: you can do something about it. When we do our inner healing work, the masculine and feminine energies within us heal, and our relationships are on their way to harmony.
David's contact info:
Website: https://www.daring-deeply.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/david_leacoaching/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Daringdeeply
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@daringdeeplycoaching
To contact Vanessa: www.vanessabentley.co
Last Saturday, I spent a good amount of time in my yard, weeding. My thoughts turned to mental health, and I thought a lot about how to get down to the root of a problem to eradicate it rather than just grasping at the surface issue and leaving the roots intact. Why? Because weeds which are not pulled up from the root grow back, just like our problems and struggles when we don't address the root cause, they seem to crop back up. This week we take a brief but deep dive into what needs to happen to change on a fundamental level.
If you'd like to be in touch with feedback or suggestions for a podcast topic, message me here: thepodcast@vanessalondino.com
This week we delve into the real issue... past the emotions, the mental distress, the "diagnosis" your psychiatrist uses to categorize you. We look at the REAL root cause of ALL mental and emotional distress. Hint: it's not a brain malfunction or a chemical imbalance. It's far simpler than that: it's what you believe about yourself and the world. Yes, your belief systems are shaping your entire life. But what if they're false? What if we've built our entire life on a belief system that can't stand the test of scrutiny? This week, we dive into what shapes our belief systems that literally lie at the root of who we believe we are and every decision we make, and we address how to shift them if we discover that they aren't congruent with reality, that is to say... if they're not true. Belief systems are the root of mental health and mental distress. It's time we start really understanding this.
I interviewed one of my heroes! Dr. Chip Dodd, author of the seminal and bestselling book "The Voice of the Heart," is our guest on this week's podcast. Get ready to understand your feelings and how you're made to function. Get ready to feel restored to YOURSELF. Get ready for truth bomb after truth bomb. And get ready to take copious notes. If a podcast has the ability to heal you, this is the one. (Sorry for the audio quality on my end. My mic wasn't properly attached. But don't listen to me anyways. Listen to Chip!)
https://www.chipdodd.com
The song Chip talked about: https://youtu.be/x8aEVJQhyOg?si=zUldWdzkOYGhDUhr