Make Your Damn Bed

Julie Merica
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Nov 23, 2025 • 10min

1619 || stop overthinking yourself

"I think about myself a lot, and not in a good way. I find myself obsessing over past mistakes, cringey moments, etc. and end up feeling guilty and panicked. Eventually I end up concluding that I'm a terrible person who deserves to be feeling this way." Here is the Original Post on the Meditation Reddit: Read the Substack from Soft Perception who said: "the self is not optional. it is yours to inhabit, not theirs to consume. and it will begin to show up when the hand of obligation loosens, when attention turns inward.the floor may feel far below, but every step you take, every boundary you establish, every small act of attention or creation, lays the ground you were never given."SUPPORT JULIE (and the show!)DONATE to the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund AND THE Sudan Relief FundGET AN OCCASIONAL PERSONAL EMAIL FROM ME: www.makeyourdamnbedpodcast.comTUNE IN ON INSTAGRAM AND YOUTUBESUBSCRIBE FOR BONUS CONTENT ON PATREON.The opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/make-your-damn-bed. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Nov 22, 2025 • 11min

1618 || we’re in a self-objectification crisis

Understanding your identity is honestly, none of your business. Don't attach yourself to an identity, because identity, is inherently limiting to it's understood definition. Some of us are trying to fit in where we don't belong, and we wonder why we're uncomfortable. Watch the full aurora quote: " It’s easy to feel safe in yourself when you stop analyzing yourself. And let go of the fact that people may be analyzing you. And let go go the control that we feel like we need to have another’s impression of us, it doesn’t matter. Be open, live freely."Read the Substack from Soft Perception who said: "the self is not optional. it is yours to inhabit, not theirs to consume. and it will begin to show up when the hand of obligation loosens, when attention turns inward.the floor may feel far below, but every step you take, every boundary you establish, every small act of attention or creation, lays the ground you were never given."Try Huel with 15% OFF for New Customers today using code MYDB at https://huel.com/mydb. SUPPORT JULIE (and the show!)DONATE to the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund AND THE Sudan Relief FundGET AN OCCASIONAL PERSONAL EMAIL FROM ME: www.makeyourdamnbedpodcast.comTUNE IN ON INSTAGRAM AND YOUTUBESUBSCRIBE FOR BONUS CONTENT ON PATREON.The opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/make-your-damn-bed. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Nov 21, 2025 • 11min

1617 || if your screen is your kingdom

Some of us don’t engage with the rest of the world anymore not because the rest of the world sucks any more than it always has - but because you have built an intolerance for the world where you are not the dictator. As Siece Campbell put it, “your algorithm worships you. You are the only one who lives inside this tiny box, let’s say you’re spending 7+ hours on your phone every day, well those are hours that we used to spend in a reality in a world that didn’t revolve around you.”We should all be worried about the rise of selfishness as a society because of an increase in addiction to convenience, isolation, comfort, and personal pleasure. She basically posits that we’re becoming so insulated from society that we’re becoming intolerant of the things that can actually bring us long term pleasure. SUPPORT JULIE (and the show!)DONATE to the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund AND THE Sudan Relief FundGET AN OCCASIONAL PERSONAL EMAIL FROM ME: www.makeyourdamnbedpodcast.comTUNE IN ON INSTAGRAM AND YOUTUBESUBSCRIBE FOR BONUS CONTENT ON PATREON.The opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/make-your-damn-bed. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Nov 20, 2025 • 10min

1616 || how to do hard things

The brain’s main goal is to protect us, so when we ask it to do anything new (particularly if you are neurodivergent) it signals to the brain that there may be danger lurking - so it refuses to do it, because it believes that is what keeps us safe. Many brains looks at all new tasks like a hot stove. So how do we manage this? According to kdimerc we can:Remove all unnecessary stoves. Look at the task objectively and ask yourself, “is this task really necessary or important?” If it’s not - take it off the burner completely, for now. Turn off the stove, if you are able to! This will be different for everyone, but it’s typically the things I suggest on this podcast to help you get motivated. Things like body doubling, brain hacks, pairing actions with other triggers, like this podcast, or songs, therapy and medication may help to turn off, or at least, turn down the heat on these stoves. Get really good at touching hot stoves. Like we have been discussing recently on the podcast, building your tolerance for distress is seemingly less and less optional at this point. But unfortunately there will be times where you can’t ignore a task, and you can’t make it less daunting, so you just have to power through the dread and do it anyway. While you may not be able to control your motivation to do a daunting task, you can control your mindset around it. You can come to accept the dread as part of the process. Watch Kdimerc’s video on the "Hot Stove Conundrum" Read Beautiful Chaos’ blog post on "ADHD + The Hot Stovetop" Try Huel with 15% OFF for New Customers today using code MYDB at https://huel.com/mydb. SUPPORT JULIE (and the show!)DONATE to the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund AND THE Sudan Relief FundGET AN OCCASIONAL PERSONAL EMAIL FROM ME: www.makeyourdamnbedpodcast.comTUNE IN ON INSTAGRAM AND YOUTUBESUBSCRIBE FOR BONUS CONTENT ON PATREON.The opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/make-your-damn-bed. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Nov 19, 2025 • 9min

1615 || the hot stove conundrum

Our brain’s main goal is to protect us, so when we ask it to do anything new (particularly if you are neurodivergent) it signals to the brain that there may be danger lurking - so it refuses to do it, because it believes that is what keeps us safe. Many brains looks at all new tasks like a hot stove. So how do we manage this? According to kdimerc we can: Remove all unnecessary stoves. Look at the task objectively and ask yourself, “is this task really necessary or important?” If it’s not - take it off the burner completely, for now. Turn off the stove, if you are able to! This will be different for everyone, but it’s typically the things I suggest on this podcast to help you get motivated. Things like body doubling, brain hacks, pairing actions with other triggers, like this podcast, or songs, therapy and medication may help to turn off, or at least, turn down the heat on these stoves. Get really good at touching hot stoves. Like we have been discussing recently on the podcast, building your tolerance for distress is seemingly less and less optional at this point. But unfortunately there will be times where you can’t ignore a task, and you can’t make it less daunting, so you just have to power through the dread and do it anyway. While you may not be able to control your motivation to do a daunting task, you can control your mindset around it. You can come to accept the dread as part of the process. Watch Kdimerc’s video on the "Hot Stove Conundrum" Read Beautiful Chaos’ blog post on "ADHD + The Hot Stovetop" Try Huel with 15% OFF for New Customers today using code MYDB at https://huel.com/mydb. SUPPORT JULIE (and the show!)DONATE to the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund AND THE Sudan Relief FundGET AN OCCASIONAL PERSONAL EMAIL FROM ME: www.makeyourdamnbedpodcast.comTUNE IN ON INSTAGRAM AND YOUTUBESUBSCRIBE FOR BONUS CONTENT ON PATREON.The opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/make-your-damn-bed. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Nov 18, 2025 • 10min

1614 || how to do a cost/benefit analysis on your habits

How do we hold space for two contradictory ideas? How do we hold space for the reality that things won't always make sense? We can't control everything, but we can build up our "tolerance for distress", which can lead us to wanting to control the stuff we can't, less. The source: https://dialecticalbehaviortherapy.com/distress-tolerance/cost-benefit-analysis/SUPPORT JULIE (and the show!)DONATE to the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund AND THE Sudan Relief FundGET AN OCCASIONAL PERSONAL EMAIL FROM ME: www.makeyourdamnbedpodcast.comTUNE IN ON INSTAGRAM AND YOUTUBESUBSCRIBE FOR BONUS CONTENT ON PATREON.The opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/make-your-damn-bed. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Nov 17, 2025 • 9min

1613 || running from your shadow makes it bigger

"Living systems theory has been so helpful to me. I think there is a drive within living systems to complexify, to wake up—there is an evolutionary movement. I speak out of the love and excitement generated by my little work, which many people are doing with me. It does require being able to experience pain. It does require tears and outrage. It does require positive disintegration. Our whole culture needs positive disintegration. It has to die to itself. So my Christian upbringing is relevant there: Good Friday and Easter, the necessity for death and rebirth. We are going to die as a culture, and it’s better for us to do it consciously, so we don’t inflict it on everyone else." - Joanna Macy The main source: https://www.activehope.info/Read the interview with Joanna Macy. Read the first few chapters of the book ACTIVE HOPE. Read Faron Sage's Article.Read more from Joanna Macy.SUPPORT JULIE (and the show!)DONATE to the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund AND THE Sudan Relief FundGET AN OCCASIONAL PERSONAL EMAIL FROM ME: www.makeyourdamnbedpodcast.comTUNE IN ON INSTAGRAM AND YOUTUBESUBSCRIBE FOR BONUS CONTENT ON PATREON.The opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/make-your-damn-bed. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Nov 16, 2025 • 9min

1612 || the great unraveling

Today we talk about what Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone's book Active Hope. Specifically the three stages of dealing with the current crisis. “Business as Usual” - Those who refuse to change. The people that believe that the current system is the best or only way. “The Great Unravelling” - Those who are inundated with despair about the fact that people are still in "business as usual" mode. The people that believe that the world is in serious decline + feel hopeless + helpless. “The Great Turning” - Those who are working “to transition from a doomed economy of industrial growth to a life-sustaining society committed to the recovery of our world.”Where are you? I waffle between 1, 2, and 3 seemingly all the time, but I spend most of my time in 2. Read the first few chapters of the book ACTIVE HOPE. Read Faron Sage's Article.Read more from Joanna Macy.SUPPORT JULIE (and the show!)DONATE to the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund AND THE Sudan Relief FundGET AN OCCASIONAL PERSONAL EMAIL FROM ME: www.makeyourdamnbedpodcast.comTUNE IN ON INSTAGRAM AND YOUTUBESUBSCRIBE FOR BONUS CONTENT ON PATREON.The opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/make-your-damn-bed. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Nov 15, 2025 • 8min

1611 || are we blaming the wrong guy?

America has a habit of blaming poor people + immigrants for the problems that policy makers create. Stop letting the oppressors scapegoat the oppressed, and start focusing your outrage on the people who perpetuate (and profit from) this harmful false narrative. The Big Short Script: https://www.sellingyourscreenplay.com/wp-content/uploads/screenplay/scripts/The-Big-Short.pdfThe "Careful, that foreigner wants your cookie" Meme: https://www.reddit.com/r/PoliticalHumor/comments/lwssxm/america_summed_up/The "average taxpayer pays $36 in SNAP vs $300 corporate bailouts" meme: https://www.reddit.com/r/theydidthemath/comments/1kjoekc/request_is_this_accurate/SUPPORT JULIE (and the show!)DONATE to the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund AND THE Sudan Relief FundGET AN OCCASIONAL PERSONAL EMAIL FROM ME: www.makeyourdamnbedpodcast.comTUNE IN ON INSTAGRAM AND YOUTUBESUBSCRIBE FOR BONUS CONTENT ON PATREON.The opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/make-your-damn-bed. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Nov 14, 2025 • 8min

1610 || break some rules for justice

"Perhaps the greatest failure of liberal democracies is their historical failure to successfully protect the vital economic and security interests of their less advantaged citizens through their institutions.""It is a cruel irony that this great promise of democracy is rarely realized in practice.""The job of trade unions, parties, and even radical social movements is precisely to institutionalize unruly protest and anger. Their function is, one might say, to try to translate anger, frustration, and pain into a coherent political program that can be the basis of policy making and legislation.""As Martin Luther King, Jr., noted, “a riot is the language of the unheard.” Large-scale disruption, riot, and spontaneous defiance have always been the most potent political recourse of the poor. Such activity is not without structure. It is structured by informal, self-organized, and transient networks of neighborhood, work, and family that lie outside the formal institutions of politics. This is structure alright, just not the kind amenable to institutionalized politics."JAMES C. SCOTT - TWO CHEERS FOR ANARCHISMMore from James C. Scott: https://politicalscience.yale.edu/people/james-scottSUPPORT JULIE (and the show!): https://supporter.acast.com/make-your-damn-bedDONATE to the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund: www.pcrf.netGET AN OCCASIONAL PERSONAL EMAIL FROM ME: www.makeyourdamnbedpodcast.comTUNE IN ON INSTAGRAM FOR COOL CONTENT: www.instagram.com/mydbpodcastOR BE A REAL GEM + TUNE IN ON PATREON: www.patreon.com/MYDBpodcastOR WATCH ON YOUTUBE: www.youtube.com/juliemerica The opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/make-your-damn-bed. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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