The Work of Being Human

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. Follow me on instagram! https://www.instagram.com/vanessathetherapist?igsh=MTJ6NTYwdWFsOG5ieg%3D%3D&utm_source=qrFollow the podcast! https://www.instagram.com/theworkofbeinghuman?igsh=MXd6cTY3b3ZwNXZ1&utm_source=qrSend me an email. I love hearing your thoughts and requests: contact@vanessabentley.coIf you like/love this podcast, please share it!

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 itThank 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: @theworkofebeinghumanFollow 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: @vanessathetherapistFollow the podcast: @theworkofbeinghumanSend me an email! Contact@vanessabentley.co (not .com)Podcast by Vanessa BentleyProducer/Editor: Jared BentleyMusic: Vanessa BentleyMusical 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.coFollow me on Instagram: @vanessathetherapistFollow me on X: @vthetherapist

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.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/david_leacoaching/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DaringdeeplyYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@daringdeeplycoachingTo 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