The Inner Compass Podcast with Vanessa Bennett

Gamut Podcast Network
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NEW PODCAST SERIES HOSTED BY VANESSA BENNETT Vanessa Bennett, LMFT, is a licensed depth psychotherapist, author, and facilitator known for her no-nonsense yet compassionate approach to healing. She’s the author of The Motherhood Myth and coauthor of It’s Not Me, It’s You, and the founder of Inner Compass Academy. She hosts the Inner Compass Podcast, where she explores the intersection of depth psychology, relationships, and cultural conditioning to support personal and collective liberation.

  1. 1D AGO

    Beyond Anxious vs Avoidant: Earned Security and Attachment Healing

    Attachment language is everywhere, but it often gets used as a shortcut: anxious, avoidant, disorganized as labels instead of doorways into real work. In this episode, Vanessa Bennett, LMFT reframes attachment as an adaptation—a deeply intelligent strategy your nervous system and psyche developed to survive love when closeness felt inconsistent, unsafe, or overwhelming. We explore anxious hypervigilance, avoidant self-protection, disorganized contradiction, and why the anxious-avoidant dance becomes a “nervous system duet” when threat gets activated. The destination isn’t a perfect “secure” identity—it’s earned security and differentiation: the capacity to need, love, and stay a Self.  For educational purposes only. This isn’t therapy. If you want to go deeper, check out the written companion on Substack and explore community + training at https://www.vanessaBennett.com. Additional Resources Explore: VanessaBennett.com Book: The Motherhood Myth Community: Inner Compass Collective Training: Inner Compass Academy Connect with Inner Compass Follow on Instagram Connect with Vanessa Bennett: Follow on Instagram Follow on TikTok Learn more on Substack Connect with Vanessa Bennett on LinkedIn See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

    33 min

  2. APR 27

    Is it Love or Projection? Differentiation, Fantasy, and the Real Work of Love

    Early love is often thick with projection and fantasy—not because love is fake, but because the unconscious is trying to reveal itself through intimacy. In this episode, Vanessa Bennett, LMFT explores emotional fusion, the “Magical Other” fantasy, and why differentiation is not detachment but the somatic capacity to stay rooted in yourself under relational pressure. We talk about how disappointment refines love when fantasy meets reality, why role-enforcement is a sign projection is running the show, and what it looks like to take your projections back without psychologizing yourself out of reality. The question to sit with is simple and brutal: where are you relating to a person, and where are you still relating to an image?  For educational purposes only. This isn’t therapy. If you want to go deeper, check out the written companion on Substack and explore community + training at https://www.vanessaBennett.com. Additional Resources Explore: VanessaBennett.com Book: The Motherhood Myth Community: Inner Compass Collective Training: Inner Compass Academy Connect with Inner Compass Follow on Instagram Connect with Vanessa Bennett: Follow on Instagram Follow on TikTok Learn more on Substack Connect with Vanessa Bennett on LinkedIn See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

    38 min

  3. APR 20

    Why Apologizing Feels So Loaded: Shame, Repair, and Accountability

    A lot of us were taught that apologizing means taking full responsibility for the whole dynamic—becoming the problem so the relationship can stabilize—or avoiding repair because it feels too vulnerable. In this episode, Vanessa Bennett, LMFT breaks down the difference between accountability and self-abandonment, and how codependency often functions as relational anxiety management (collapse on one side, defensiveness and distancing on the other). We explore shame as the through-line—why guilt says “I did something,” but shame says “I am the problem”—and what a grounded apology actually sounds like: specific, bounded, and rooted in truth. The invitation is simple and hard: name what’s yours without collapsing or defending, and let reality show you what the relationship can hold. For educational purposes only. This isn’t therapy. If you want to go deeper, check out the written companion on Substack and explore community + training at https://www.vanessaBennett.com. Additional Resources Explore: VanessaBennett.com Book: The Motherhood Myth Community: Inner Compass Collective Training: Inner Compass Academy Connect with Inner Compass Follow on Instagram Connect with Vanessa Bennett: Follow on Instagram Follow on TikTok Learn more on Substack Connect with Vanessa Bennett on LinkedIn See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

    27 min

  4. APR 13

    How to Stay With Yourself in Hard Conversations (When You Want to Disappear)

    In yoga, there’s a teaching: the pose begins the moment you want to leave it—and the same is true in healing, intimacy, and hard conversations. In this episode, Vanessa Bennett, LMFT explores how growth isn’t built in your best insights, but in the moment your body tightens, your nervous system wants out, and you choose to stay with yourself instead of disappearing. We talk about the difference between pausing to regulate vs. over-processing as self-protection, and why there’s no perfect script that can guarantee another person’s response. The invitation: practice the “micro-moments” of noticing, allowing, and naming what’s true—so discernment doesn’t become self-abandonment.  For educational purposes only. This isn’t therapy. If you want to go deeper, check out the written companion on Substack and explore community + training at https://www.vanessaBennett.com. Additional Resources Explore: VanessaBennett.com Book: The Motherhood Myth Community: Inner Compass Collective Training: Inner Compass Academy Connect with Inner Compass Follow on Instagram Connect with Vanessa Bennett: Follow on Instagram Follow on TikTok Learn more on Substack Connect with Vanessa Bennett on LinkedIn See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

    28 min

  5. APR 6

    Codependency Is Cultural: Shame, Control, and the False Self

    Codependency isn’t a personal flaw - it’s a cultural adaptation shaped by shame, external validation, and the belief that your worth lives outside of you. In this workshop episode, Vanessa Bennett and Madeleine Downey break down how codependent scripts form a false self and a shadow self, then show how the patterns keep reinforcing themselves in relationship (over/under-functioning, rescuing, and people-pleasing). You’ll get a practical framework for seeing the “unconscious agreement” in the dynamic - and three archetypal invitations to move toward conscious interdependence: the Divine Alchemist, the Mystic, and the Rebel. This is a map for doing the work in real life: staying whole while staying connected. For educational purposes only. This isn’t therapy. If you want to go deeper, check out the written companion on Substack and explore community + training at https://www.vanessaBennett.com. Additional Resources Explore: VanessaBennett.com Book: The Motherhood Myth Community: Inner Compass Collective Training: Inner Compass Academy Connect with Inner Compass Follow on Instagram Connect with Vanessa Bennett: Follow on Instagram Follow on TikTok Learn more on Substack Connect with Vanessa Bennett on LinkedIn Connect with Madeleine Downey IG: https://www.instagram.com/MadeleineDowney Substack: https://madeleinedowney.substack.com  See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

    1 hr

  6. MAR 30

    The Trinity Wounds: Witch Wound, Sister Wound, Mother Wound

    So much of women’s pain gets individualized as “personal failure,” when so many of our struggles are intelligent adaptations to patriarchal and capitalist systems. In this episode, Vanessa Bennett, LMFT introduces the Trinity Wounds—the witch wound, sister wound, and mother wound—and how they shape women’s relationship to visibility, trust with other women, and the complicated grief we carry toward our mothers. We start with the loss of the village (the severing of communal support and interdependence), then walk through how each wound shows up in modern life: self-minimization, competition, suspicion, compliance, and disconnection from instinct. You’ll leave with a map for healing that includes context, grief, shadow work, relational repair, and embodiment—choosing what’s truer instead of what’s safer. For educational purposes only. This isn’t therapy. If you want to go deeper, check out the written companion on Substack and explore community + training at https://www.vanessaBennett.com. Additional Resources Explore: VanessaBennett.com Book: The Motherhood Myth Community: Inner Compass Collective Training: Inner Compass Academy Connect with Inner Compass Follow on Instagram Connect with Vanessa Bennett: Follow on Instagram Follow on TikTok Learn more on Substack Connect with Vanessa Bennett on LinkedIn See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

    44 min

  7. MAR 23

    Assumptions in Relationships: The Codependency Loop That Keeps You Stuck

    Assumptions are one of the most common ways we manage anxiety in relationships, but they also keep us stuck in the very patterns we’re trying to heal. In this episode, Vanessa Bennett, LMFT is joined by Madeleine Downey, RCC to unpack how mind-reading, overfunctioning, and “being the bad guy in someone’s story” often come from early beliefs rooted in shame. They walk through a practical loop you can use in real time—belief → assumption → behavior → confirmation—and why bringing “the story I’m telling myself is…” into the light can diffuse conflict and deepen intimacy. This is a relational invitation to stop living inside imagined certainty and start choosing clarity, vulnerability, and responsibility. Additional Resources Explore: VanessaBennett.com Book: The Motherhood Myth Community: Inner Compass Collective Training: Inner Compass Academy Connect with Inner Compass Follow on Instagram Connect with Vanessa Bennett: Follow on Instagram Follow on TikTok Learn more on Substack Connect with Vanessa Bennett on LinkedIn See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

    36 min

  8. MAR 15

    The Friendships That Hold Us When Life Falls Apart: What Support Looks Like

    Friendship gets tested in crisis, and sometimes the hardest grief isn’t just what happened, it’s what gets revealed about who can actually stay with you. In this episode, Vanessa Bennett, LMFT sits down with her friend Lena to talk about friendship through trauma after both of them lost their homes in the LA fires, and what real support looks like when your life falls apart. We unpack the difference between being witnessed and being fixed, why small practical help matters more than perfect words, and how adult friendships change when roles, distance, and capacity shift. If you’ve been grieving friendships, struggling to receive, or trying to rebuild community after a rupture, this conversation is for you. Additional Resources Explore: VanessaBennett.com Book: The Motherhood Myth Community: Inner Compass Collective Training: Inner Compass Academy Connect with Inner Compass Follow on Instagram Connect with Vanessa Bennett: Follow on Instagram Follow on TikTok Learn more on Substack Connect with Vanessa Bennett on LinkedIn See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

    42 min
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About

NEW PODCAST SERIES HOSTED BY VANESSA BENNETT Vanessa Bennett, LMFT, is a licensed depth psychotherapist, author, and facilitator known for her no-nonsense yet compassionate approach to healing. She’s the author of The Motherhood Myth and coauthor of It’s Not Me, It’s You, and the founder of Inner Compass Academy. She hosts the Inner Compass Podcast, where she explores the intersection of depth psychology, relationships, and cultural conditioning to support personal and collective liberation.

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