Beyond Skin Picking & Hair Pulling

Raffaela
  • 5.0 (20)
  • Self-Improvement
  • Updated Weekly

Beyond Skin Picking & Hair Pulling is a podcast for high-achieving women who want freedom from their BFRB*; they want more authenticity, deeper confidence, to feel powerfully secure in who they are, so they can do more of what they love. Hosted by Raffaela Marie - speaker, mentor, and creator of the STRENGTH Method - who overcame chronic skin picking, selective mutism, social anxiety, and depression, not by forcing willpower, but by healing from the inside out and addressing the true root causes.  Each episode offers a no-fluff look at healing from body-focused repetitive behaviours through the lens of self-confidence and authenticity. Raffaela blends psychology, neuroscience, and real-world experience to uncover what’s truly driving the urge to pick, and how to find lasting freedom from it. Listeners walk away with tangible tools they can apply immediately to reduce urges, regulate emotions, and build emotional resilience. Beyond symptom management, this podcast helps you reconnect to your authentic self, feel grounded in your worth, and create lasting freedom from BFRBs*. If you’re ready to stop performing, start healing, and build confidence that feels real, you’re in the right place.*BFRB = Body Focused Repetitive Behaviours like chronic skin picking, nail/cheek biting, and hair pulling.

  1. 2d ago

    117: Why You Can't "Just Stop" + A Science-Based Approach to What Works Instead

    Did you know there is a specific brain function that is largely responsible for your chronic picking, pulling, and biting? That's right, you're not broken. You never were. It's your brain over-functioning. In fact, it's a really common struggle in this modern, overstimulated world. Look at all the people who are overworking, overeating, overgiving, overexercising, overthinking, overgrooming. We're all chronically overwhelmed and addicted to it. And it's because of something called intermittent reinforcement. In this episode, I share with you how this particular brain function is one of the key drivers behind your BFPA* + tangible steps to rewiring your brain. These steps don't require force, are backed by science, and will pull on your heartstrings. Not to mention, they will actually help you to move forward towards freedom. Journaling prompts from the episode "Needs" list. Which one calls to you? ReliefEscape ComfortStimulationCertaintyControlNumbingAchievementConnectionWhatever stood out to you in the list above, ask yourself these Qs: Why is that need so important to you right now?What would it give you to make the space to meet that need for yourself?How might this impact those around you?What will it cost you to not make the space to meet that need?What are 3 tangibles things you can do to meet that need in your life right now?References & Resources • Determinants of Addiction: Neurobiological, Behavioral, Cognitive, and Sociocultural Factors https://www.sciencedirect.com/book/monograph/9780323905787/determinants-of-addiction • Intermittent Reinforcement: Why Toxic Relationships Feel Addictive https://reachlink.com/advice/relations/intermittent-reinforcement/ • Engineered Highs: Reward Variability and Frequency as Potential Prerequisites of Behavioural Addiction https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306460323000217 • Wired for Want: How Dopamine Drives the New Epidemic of Everyday Addictions https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Zoe-Wyatt/publication/391756047_Wired_for_Want_How_Dopamine_Drives_the_New_Epidemic_of_Everyday_Addictions • Stuck in a Toxic Cycle? This Psychological Pattern Might Be Why https://www.catharticspacecounseling.com/blog/stuck-in-a-toxic-cycle-this-psychological-pattern-might-be-why 💌Share your story - Book your FREE BFPA* Support Call with me 🌟Download your FREE Guide to Stop Skin Picking Using Somatics 📝FREE Holistic Skin Picking & Hair Pulling Assessment - Join the waitlist 🎯Join the 7-Day Skin Picking Recovery Challenge 🙋‍♀️Send me a message here My name is Raffaela Marie. I'm a holistic BFRB coach who has healed from 15 years of chronic skin picking myself and dedicated my life to helping driven women do the same. Through my podcast, free resources, and programs, I teach strategies to overcome urges, build emotional safety, and expand into authenticity. My approach goes beyond quick fixes, focusing on root causes and long-term recovery.

    27 min

  2. Jun 9

    116: How to Actually Regulate Your Emotions

    After this, if you want a guided meditation on how to drop into your body, listen to episode 108: Why You Can't Slow Down + Somatic Practice to Show You How.  To truly regulate your emotions, you need to get out of your head and into your body. The frustrating thing is that even if we understand this concept on a logical level, we can still be left feeling lost about how to implement it effectively and consistently. This is because emotional regulation is a felt experience, not a thought process. You've got to stop thinking about how to feel and instead allow yourself to experience it. Like jumping out of a plane and floating to the ground far below. You can't truly appreciate the full experience unless you do it. Anything else is just living in our imagination rather than reality.  So let's take that leap together and learn: The brain system that keeps you trapped in your headHow the purpose of this system can be rooted in traumaWhat your inner child has to do with it allThe steps to getting out of your head and into your body💌Share your story - Book your FREE BFPA* Support Call with me 🌟Download your FREE Guide to Stop Skin Picking Using Somatics 📝FREE Holistic Skin Picking & Hair Pulling Assessment - Join the waitlist 🎯Join the 7-Day Skin Picking Recovery Challenge 🙋‍♀️Send me a message here My name is Raffaela Marie. I'm a holistic BFRB coach who has healed from 15 years of chronic skin picking myself and dedicated my life to helping driven women do the same. Through my podcast, free resources, and programs, I teach strategies to overcome urges, build emotional safety, and expand into authenticity. My approach goes beyond quick fixes, focusing on root causes and long-term recovery.

    24 min

  3. Jun 2

    115: Chronic Skin Picking is an Addiction, Not OCD

    This is why the typical treatments for OCD - CBT and habit reversal - just don't seem to work. You've been falling through the cracks of ill-fitted treatment and blaming yourself for being a hopelessly broken human being. It's not your fault. You've just been misinformed and going about healing the wrong way. If this resonates, then odds are you'll find hope and a path forward in this episode. You'll learn: 🌟How a behaviour can become an addiction 🌟Where addiction comes from 🌟How you can heal the root cause + the three core components that facilitate this Resources: Intermittent Reinforcement - article https://www.catharticspacecounseling.com/blog/stuck-in-a-toxic-cycle-this-psychological-pattern-might-be-why In the Realm of the Hungry Ghosts by Gabor Mate - book https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/617702.In_the_Realm_of_Hungry_Ghosts Behavioral Addictions: Signs, Symptoms, and Treatment Options - article https://americanaddictioncenters.org/behavioral-addictions Introduction to Behavioral Addictions - study https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3164585/ The Difference Between an Addiction and a Compulsion - article https://www.verywellmind.com/the-difference-between-an-addiction-and-a-compulsion-22240 💌Share your story - Book your FREE BFPA* Support Call with me 🌟Download your FREE Guide to Stop Skin Picking Using Somatics 📝FREE Holistic Skin Picking & Hair Pulling Assessment - Join the waitlist 🎯Join the 7-Day Skin Picking Recovery Challenge 🙋‍♀️Send me a message here My name is Raffaela Marie. I'm a holistic BFRB coach who has healed from 15 years of chronic skin picking myself and dedicated my life to helping driven women do the same. Through my podcast, free resources, and programs, I teach strategies to overcome urges, build emotional safety, and expand into authenticity. My approach goes beyond quick fixes, focusing on root causes and long-term recovery.

    26 min

  4. May 26

    114: Why You Procrastinate The Things You Know Are Good For You

    It's because of your inner critic. But it's not enough to know this one small fact. In fact, maybe reading this leaves you feeling more lost than before. This is because our mind needs to understand the WHY behind new information to make sense of it and organise it in our brain in a way that is helpful. It's like you're on a long hike and someone adds a new, sparkly tool to your backpack. You get the sense it's important, but you don't know what it's for or how to use it, so it just becomes a burden. This is what it's like when we hoard information without learning how to apply it. In this episode, you'll learn: - Why you procrastinate the things you know are good for you and end up picking/pulling/biting at your body instead - The profound part your inner critic plays in this frustrating pattern - Practical tools and questions to apply this knowledge to help you reduce procrastination, feel more regulated, and create more meaningful moments in your life 💌Share your story - Book your FREE BFPA* Support Call with me 🌟Download your FREE Guide to Stop Skin Picking Using Somatics 📝FREE Holistic Skin Picking & Hair Pulling Assessment - Join the waitlist 🎯Join the 7-Day Skin Picking Recovery Challenge 🙋‍♀️Send me a message here My name is Raffaela Marie. I'm a holistic BFRB coach who has healed from 15 years of chronic skin picking myself and dedicated my life to helping driven women do the same. Through my podcast, free resources, and programs, I teach strategies to overcome urges, build emotional safety, and expand into authenticity. My approach goes beyond quick fixes, focusing on root causes and long-term recovery.

    26 min

  5. May 19

    113: The Origin Of Intrusive Thoughts & How To Stop Them

    You're not a freak. I used to feel like there was something deeply wrong with me because of the thoughts that would barge their way into my head at the most random, inappropriate moments. But judging yourself and trying to force the intrusive thoughts away has much the same effect as when we do the same with skin picking, hair pulling, and nail biting - it just makes things worse. Sometimes destructively worse. I hear you. I see you. Let's work on this together. What you'll learn: 🌟Where your intrusive thoughts are coming from 🌟The unexpected connection to chronic picking, pulling, or biting 🌟3 questions to generate a powerful perspective shift and deep healing Here are the 3 questions from this episode. Save them in your phone for future reference: How does it make me feel?  What does that feeling make me want to do? What is this behaviour protecting me from?  💌Share your story - Book your FREE BFPA* Support Call with me 🌟Download your FREE Guide to Stop Skin Picking Using Somatics 📝FREE Holistic Skin Picking & Hair Pulling Assessment - Join the waitlist 🎯Join the 7-Day Skin Picking Recovery Challenge 🙋‍♀️Send me a message here My name is Raffaela Marie. I'm a holistic BFRB coach who has healed from 15 years of chronic skin picking myself and dedicated my life to helping driven women do the same. Through my podcast, free resources, and programs, I teach strategies to overcome urges, build emotional safety, and expand into authenticity. My approach goes beyond quick fixes, focusing on root causes and long-term recovery.

    23 min

  6. May 12

    112: Why Do I Pick More During PMS?

    Yes, hormonal changes are the obvious answer. But let's not forget the medical gaslighting most women have experienced on this topic, AND the unconscious gaslighting we do to ourselves. What is it about all this that makes you want to pick, pull, and bite at your body with a whole new vigour every single month? I think you can feel it. There's something there that isn't being taken seriously that really deserves to be. It's time to understand what that is for you so that you can better care for yourself at every phase of your cycle. Honour your mind. Honour your body. This is how you can reduce picking, pulling, and biting. 💌Share your story - Book your FREE BFPA* Support Call with me 🌟Download your FREE Guide to Stop Skin Picking Using Somatics 📝FREE Holistic Skin Picking & Hair Pulling Assessment - Join the waitlist 🎯Join the 7-Day Skin Picking Recovery Challenge 🙋‍♀️Send me a message here My name is Raffaela Marie. I'm a holistic BFRB coach who has healed from 15 years of chronic skin picking myself and dedicated my life to helping driven women do the same. Through my podcast, free resources, and programs, I teach strategies to overcome urges, build emotional safety, and expand into authenticity. My approach goes beyond quick fixes, focusing on root causes and long-term recovery.

    23 min

  7. May 5

    111: Embracing Authenticity to Freedom from Chronic Skin Picking | Yasmin's Story

    Stories of success and healing are few and far between in the BFPA* community (*BFPA = BFRB + addiction science) And even when you hear about someone healing from chronic skin picking, hair pulling, or nail biting, there's a little voice that says... "It's not for me." "I'm not like them." That's because you're not getting the full story! You're not hearing the how behind the transformation. In this interview with one of my former clients, Yasmin, that's exactly what you'll get. You’ll not only hear her incredible story of healing and transformation, but also the actions she took and the things we worked on together in our sessions that made all the difference. Who knows, maybe simply through listening, you’ll gain important insight into what you can do to support your own healing as well. Listen in to feel inspired, uplifted, and grounded in your own power through just how real and tangible this healing journey truly is.  🟢Connect with Yamin on Instagram 🟢Email Yasmin at: hello@yasminloeffler.de 💌Share your story - Book your FREE BFPA* Support Call with me 🌟Download your FREE Guide to Stop Skin Picking Using Somatics 📝FREE Holistic Skin Picking & Hair Pulling Assessment - Join the waitlist 🎯Join the 7-Day Skin Picking Recovery Challenge 🙋‍♀️Send me a message here My name is Raffaela Marie. I'm a holistic BFRB coach who has healed from 15 years of chronic skin picking myself and dedicated my life to helping driven women do the same. Through my podcast, free resources, and programs, I teach strategies to overcome urges, build emotional safety, and expand into authenticity. My approach goes beyond quick fixes, focusing on root causes and long-term recovery.

    53 min

  8. Apr 28

    110: 4 Most Powerful Growth Areas For Skin Picking & Hair Pulling

    Are you serious about addressing the root cause of chronic picking, pulling, and/or biting? Are you willing to set aside instant gratification for depth and long-term gain? Then let's talk about the 4 most powerful growth areas! In my 15 years of healing and the 3 years I have spent coaching others, like you, to heal as well, I've observed that the greatest change happens when we stop obsessing over how to control and stop this ONE behaviour and start looking at ourselves as a whole, unique human being. We'll explore community, your relationship with self, how you are with self-care, what your purpose is and how you can find it (it's not as overwhelming as you might think. You've probably already been accessing it!) There is so much more to you than picking, pulling, and biting. There is so much more you have to gain than just not engaging in this behaviour anymore. Let's explore all of you. The depths of you. And see what treasure this episode uncovers. 💌Share your story - Book your FREE BFPA* Support Call with me 🌟Download your FREE Guide to Stop Skin Picking Using Somatics 📝FREE Holistic Skin Picking & Hair Pulling Assessment - Join the waitlist 🎯Join the 7-Day Skin Picking Recovery Challenge 🙋‍♀️Send me a message here My name is Raffaela Marie. I'm a holistic BFRB coach who has healed from 15 years of chronic skin picking myself and dedicated my life to helping driven women do the same. Through my podcast, free resources, and programs, I teach strategies to overcome urges, build emotional safety, and expand into authenticity. My approach goes beyond quick fixes, focusing on root causes and long-term recovery.

    29 min
See All (117)

5
out of 5
20 Ratings

About

Beyond Skin Picking & Hair Pulling is a podcast for high-achieving women who want freedom from their BFRB*; they want more authenticity, deeper confidence, to feel powerfully secure in who they are, so they can do more of what they love. Hosted by Raffaela Marie - speaker, mentor, and creator of the STRENGTH Method - who overcame chronic skin picking, selective mutism, social anxiety, and depression, not by forcing willpower, but by healing from the inside out and addressing the true root causes.  Each episode offers a no-fluff look at healing from body-focused repetitive behaviours through the lens of self-confidence and authenticity. Raffaela blends psychology, neuroscience, and real-world experience to uncover what’s truly driving the urge to pick, and how to find lasting freedom from it. Listeners walk away with tangible tools they can apply immediately to reduce urges, regulate emotions, and build emotional resilience. Beyond symptom management, this podcast helps you reconnect to your authentic self, feel grounded in your worth, and create lasting freedom from BFRBs*. If you’re ready to stop performing, start healing, and build confidence that feels real, you’re in the right place.*BFRB = Body Focused Repetitive Behaviours like chronic skin picking, nail/cheek biting, and hair pulling.

Information

You Might Also Like