UNBOTHERED MY طيز

Meredith Al-Rekabi
  • 5.0 (1)
  • Personal Journals

Women are taught to let things go, keep the peace, stay small. This show is for the ones who are done with that. "Unbothered My طيز" is where we talk about the things women are supposed to swallow quietly. The rage, the exhaustion, the relationships that ask too much. Every episode is unfiltered and built for women who are finally letting themselves be bothered by the things that deserve their anger. Because the women who changed things? They were bothered.

Episodes

  1. Sep 19

    It Wasn't That Bad

    How often do we minimize our own pain before anyone else gets the chance? In this episode, Meredith explores self-invalidation, why “it wasn’t that bad” can become a survival strategy, and the difference between healthy perspective and talking ourselves out of our own feelings. We get into emotional invalidation, suppression, boundaries, forgiveness, anger, and one question that can change the way we understand painful experiences: Instead of asking, “Was it really that bad?” ask, “What did it do to me?” Because healing doesn’t require making something bigger than it was. It just means finally refusing to make it smaller. Krause, E. D., Mendelson, T., & Lynch, T. R. (2003). Childhood emotional invalidation and adult psychological distress: The mediating role of emotional inhibition. Child Abuse & Neglect, 27(2), 199–213.Schreiber, R. E., & Veilleux, J. C. (2022). The Self-Invalidation Due to Emotion Scale: Development and psychometric properties. Psychological Assessment, 34(10), 937–951.Gross, J. J., & John, O. P. (2003). Individual differences in two emotion regulation processes: Implications for affect, relationships, and well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85(2), 348–362.Ford, B. Q., Lam, P., John, O. P., & Mauss, I. B. (2018). The psychological health benefits of accepting negative emotions and thoughts. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 115(6), 1075–1092.

    It Wasn't That Bad

  2. Sep 15

    The Listening Brain: Empathy, Emotional Attunement & the Slow Leak

    What happens when empathy starts costing you pieces of yourself? In the third and final episode exploring comparison and shrinking, we look at the listening brain: emotional attunement, over-functioning, anxiety, and the blurry line between caring for someone and becoming responsible for them. Because maybe the goal isn't to care less. Maybe it's learning how to stay soft without disappearing. In this episode: Empathy vs. empathic distressWhy helping can create an illusion of controlAnxiety and uncertaintyFear of rejection and over-functioningWhen empathy becomes self-abandonmentCaring deeply without losing yourselfSinger, T. & Klimecki, O. (2014). Empathy and Compassion. Current Biology. PubMed Carleton, R. (2016). Into the Unknown. Journal of Anxiety Disorders. PubMed Downey, G. & Feldman, S. (1996). Implications of Rejection Sensitivity for Intimate Relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. PubMed

    The Listening Brain: Empathy, Emotional Attunement & the Slow Leak

  3. Sep 1

    The Relational Comparison Trap

    Why does someone else's beauty, success, relationship, or attention sometimes feel like it says something about you? In this episode of Unbothered My Theez, we're getting into the relational comparison trap: where it comes from, why women are especially vulnerable to it, and how comparison quietly gets tangled up with our sense of worth. Because the goal isn't to never compare yourself again. It's to stop letting comparison decide what you're worth. SOURCES American Psychological Association. (2018). APA Guidelines for Psychological Practice with Girls and Women. Block, K., Gonzalez, A. M., Schmader, T., & Baron, A. S. (2018). Early gender differences in core values predict anticipated family versus career orientation. Psychological Science, 29(9). https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797618776942 Shutts, K., Kenward, B., Falk, H., Ivegran, A., & Fawcett, C. (2017). Early preschool environments and gender: Effects of gender pedagogy in Sweden. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 162, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2017.04.014 Festinger, L. (1954). A theory of social comparison processes. Human Relations, 7(2), 117–140. https://doi.org/10.1177/001872675400700202 Myers, T. A., & Crowther, J. H. (2009). Social comparison as a predictor of body dissatisfaction: A meta-analytic review. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 118(4), 683–698. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0016763 Fardouly, J., Pinkus, R. T., & Vartanian, L. R. (2017). The impact of appearance comparisons made through social media, traditional media, and in person in women's everyday lives. Body Image, 20, 31–39. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bodyim.2016.11.002 Ertl, M. M., & Ahn, L. H. (2026). Development and initial validation of the measure of internalized misogyny with cisgender U.S. women. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 73(3), 384–397. https://doi.org/10.1037/cou0000829 Blötner, C. (2026). Valuing others over oneself: Development and validation of a people pleasing scale in two German samples. Current Psychology, 45, Article 952. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-026-09519-2 Vial, A. C., & Cimpian, A. (2024). Gender differences in children's reasoning about and motivation to pursue leadership roles. Sex Roles, 90, 42–65. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-023-01428-z Booth, A. L., & Nolen, P. (2012). Choosing to compete: How different are girls and boys? Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 81(2), 542–555. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2011.07.018 When do we observe a gender gap in competition entry? A meta-analysis of the experimental literature. (2022). Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 198, 139–163. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2022.03.030

    The Relational Comparison Trap

  4. Sep 1

    Being BIGGER to be BETTER

    Nobody teaches women to take up space. They teach us to apologize for existing in it. This episode is about why women shrink themselves to keep the peace, where that habit comes from, what it quietly costs, and what it looks like to finally stop. No fluff. No fixing. Just the truth.

    Being BIGGER to be BETTER

  5. Aug 28

    Survival Spillover

    Important note for listeners: This episode discusses psychological concepts and research concerning intimate partner violence and trauma. It is educational and is not intended to diagnose any individual with narcissistic personality disorder, PTSD, or another mental health condition. Terms such as “narcissistic behavior” describe behavior in this discussion and should not be interpreted as a clinical diagnosis. What happens when the behaviors you learned to survive a controlling or abusive partner start showing up in your other relationships? In this episode, we explore coercive control, hypervigilance, identification with the aggressor, and the urge to “outsmart” an abusive partner. We look at how survival strategies can spill over into relationships with friends and family, and why understanding where a behavior came from doesn’t mean ignoring the harm it can cause. Sources World Health Organization. Violence Against Women. WHO describes intimate partner violence as behavior causing physical, sexual, or psychological harm, including psychological abuse and controlling behaviors. Lohmann, S., et al. (2024). The Trauma and Mental Health Impacts of Coercive Control: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse. The review identified 68 eligible studies and found moderate associations between coercive control and PTSD and depression. Lahav, Y., Talmon, A., & Ginzburg, K. (2021; first published online 2019). Knowing the Abuser Inside and Out: The Development and Psychometric Evaluation of the Identification With the Aggressor Scale. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 36(19–20), 9725–9748. Lahav, Y. (2021). Painful Bonds: Identification With the Aggressor and Distress Among IPV Survivors. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 144, 26–31. doi:10.1016/j.jpsychires.2021.09.046. Lahav, Y., Talmon, A., & Ginzburg, K. (2020). Identification With the Aggressor and Inward and Outward Aggression in Abuse Survivors. Journal of Interpersonal Violence. The study examined 306 participants reporting childhood abuse and found associations between dimensions of identification with the aggressor and inward and outward aggression. Kassing, K., et al. (2026). “Slowly, Over Time, You Completely Lose Yourself”: Conceptualizing Coercive Control Trauma in Intimate Partner Relationships. Journal of Interpersonal Violence. The qualitative study examined experiences of women who had survived coercive control and proposed “coercive control trauma” as a framework for understanding its psychological effects.

    Survival Spillover

  6. Aug 18

    The Curse of Comparison

    You've been told comparison is the thief of joy. But nobody told you why you can't stop doing it, or that it was never really your fault to begin with. In this episode, we get into the curse of comparison: why women are socialized from childhood to measure their worth against other women, how the brain's own empathy systems turn listening into a measuring stick, and how a survival instinct built for a world that no longer exists is still running quietly in the background of your everyday life. This isn't about five steps to stop comparing yourself. It's about understanding what's actually happening — so the comparison stops having the final word. Sources Lev-Ari, L., Baumgarten-Katz, I., & Zohar, A.H. (2014). Mirror, mirror on the wall: How women learn body dissatisfaction. Eating Behaviors, 15(3), 397–402. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eatbeh.2014.04.015 Rothers, A., & Cohrs, J.C. (2023). What makes people feel respected? Toward an integrative psychology of social worth. Psychological Review, 130(1), 242–259. https://doi.org/10.1037/rev0000393 Swencionis, J.K., & Fiske, S.T. (2014). How social neuroscience can inform theories of social comparison. Neuropsychologia, 56, 140–146. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2014.01.009 Hasty, J., Lewis, D.G., & Snipes, M.M. (2022). The power of gender: Patriarchy and matriarchy. In Introduction to Anthropology (Section 12.3). OpenStax. https://openstax.org/books/introduction-anthropology/pages/12-3-the-power-of-gender-patriarchy-and-matriarchy

    The Curse of Comparison
  • 6 Episodes

About

Women are taught to let things go, keep the peace, stay small. This show is for the ones who are done with that. "Unbothered My طيز" is where we talk about the things women are supposed to swallow quietly. The rage, the exhaustion, the relationships that ask too much. Every episode is unfiltered and built for women who are finally letting themselves be bothered by the things that deserve their anger. Because the women who changed things? They were bothered.

Information

  • Creator
    Meredith Al-Rekabi
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    6
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Meredith Al-Rekabi
  • Show Website
    UNBOTHERED MY طيز