36 episodes
Start Right Here: Conversations About What Matters Most Allen Berger & Thom Rutledge
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- Health & Fitness
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4.5 • 30 Ratings
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The Start Right HERE podcast was created because our world could use some therapy. From two bestselling authors and psychotherapists with more than 90 years of combined experience. Still standing, writing, and talking (And making sense the vast majority of the time).
Start HERE emphasizes that mental and emotional well-being requires certain essential understandings and practices. The hosts demonstrate clearly how the same principles that they utilize in individual and relationship therapy also apply to the larger contexts of family, organizations, community and even government.
The hosts are at times as much philosophical as psychological but never stray from their commitment to being practical. There will be “take-aways” from every episode – something to think about in a different way - and/or something new to try to improve your relationship with yourself, your friends, your family, and the bigger world surrounding us all.
We encourage feedback so please email us anytime at podstarthere@gmail.com for any questions or comments!
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Episode Forty: How Do We Say Goodbye?
The first thing we’ll say to anyone who has listened to any of our episodes to date is a BIG THANK YOU. We are not going anywhere but we are transitioning to a new focus and format for our weekly podcast. All that comes with our new title: "Emotional Sobriety." Next week’s episode will be a fresh start.
Today, Allen, Thom, and Patrick discuss what it means to say goodbye due to change in circumstance, relationship ending, or death. The most essential point we can make is that any attempts to avoid or even deny loss when it is happening in our lives will only serve to slow our progress and often leads to our becoming completely stuck. Though consciously and honestly processing all thoughts and feelings related to loss takes a lot of work, it is only through that processing that we grow. In our final installment of Start Right Here, we observe how moving through loss with honesty and vulnerability can result in significant and often life-enhancing gains.
Join Allen & Thom at our Thursday night Zoom meeting on Emotional Sobriety and the Steps (login information below)
https://zoom.us/j/330149513
Password: 375986
We appreciate feedback! Contact us at pndirective4@gmail.com for any questions and comments. -
Episode Thirty-Nine: Taking Care of Unfinished Business (Part Two)
Conversation about how we are challenged in the present to attend to unfinished emotional business continues, with both Allen and Thom giving specific examples (personal and professional) of how this work plays out. Producer, Patrick Newman, asks about actually finishing what is unfinished and if there is a time when it is completed, which takes the conversation in the very important direction of understanding that the goal is not to "finish" but to continue to attend to what we become aware of.
The shift in attention is more a matter of process than it is content. The emotionally sober person accepts responsibility for facing and addressing what comes up, but need not feel compelled to search every corner of the psyche what might be unresolved. Once more, a common theme for this podcast emerges: life is to be lived only from the present moment. We are not required to understand everything that has gone on before, nor required to predict the future.
Opie disobeys his Pa in order to look good in his friends' eyes and learns a valuable lesson.
Pre-Order Allen Berger's new book, "12 Essential Insights for Emotional Sobriety" here:
https://4dphd.com/product/12-essential-insights-for-emotional-sobriety/
Listeners could also benefit from this free download from Thom, describing INTRApersonal Change Process:
https://3f48999b-b083-4400-97b5-96c49b21a0e7.filesusr.com/ugd/e71801_bcea88c1cdd6458caa10058d8b169463.pdf
Join Allen & Thom at our Thursday night Zoom meeting on Emotional Sobriety and the Steps (login information below)
https://zoom.us/j/330149513
Password: 375986
We appreciate feedback! Contact us at podstarthere@gmail.com for any questions or comments. -
Episode Thirty-Eight: Taking Care of Unfinished Business (Part One)
Allen, Thom and Patrick all share their personal experiences to shed light on the therapeutic work of investigating our past as a way of helping to resolve issues in the present. Emphasis is placed on the importance of understanding that all changes we make happen in the present tense, that we always have choices available to us. Dealing with past in therapy and through support groups is not something we do to completion but instead is the beginning of an expanded redefining of ourselves. Next episode will be a continuation of this discussion with an emphasis on what we can do to bring about practical changes in the present.
Join Allen & Thom at our Thursday night Zoom meeting on Emotional Sobriety and the Steps (login information below)
https://zoom.us/j/330149513
Password: 375986
We appreciate feedback! Contact us at podstarthere@gmail.com for any questions or comments. -
Episode Thirty-Seven: What Can We Learn Together About Putting Support to Work in Our Lives?
Allen, Thom & Patrick are joined by two of the participants in the Thursday evening Emotional Sobriety Support Group -- Carol and Craig -- to discuss the importance and the "how-to's" of making good use of a solid support system in recovery. Some of the discussion goes to trusting one's own judgment when there is discomfort in a relationship with a therapist and there is even a short therapy-session that arises in the session that is illuminating. Primarily the emphasis is on each of us accepting full responsibility to create, maintain and make good use of support of other people as we continue to progress in recovery.
Andy and Helen go on a date and try to keep Barney from finding out.
Any questions, comments or suggestions? Email us at podstarthere@gmail.com
Join Allen & Thom at our Thursday night Zoom meeting on Emotional Sobriety and the Steps (login information below)
https://zoom.us/j/330149513
Password: 375986 -
Episode Thirty-Six: Former Lives, Wisdom & Hindsight
Allen & Thom do a deep dive this week into their raw formative periods, underlining how the pain and complications of their pasts contributed to the men they are today. They offer insight into their recoveries, as well as intense and humorous anecdotes about their early careers working in mental wards with violent and disturbed patients.
We’re off next week for Easter, but we’ll be back on 4/11 with two new guests.
Join Allen & Thom at our Thursday night Zoom meeting on Emotional Sobriety and the Steps (login information below)
https://zoom.us/j/330149513
Password: 375986 -
Episode Thirty-Five: How Can We Manage Our Flagging Self-Esteem? (Part Two)
Allen and Thom deepen their conversation from the previous episode about the actions we can all take to improve our self-esteem, emphasizing that concepts alone change nothing. It is all about putting what we are learning into practice. In the case of self-esteem, we are often limited by the repetition of early familial programming that has become "normal." Once problems are identified, the first step to changing things ironically is to accept what we are discovering.
Reference to Thom's first book, Simple Truth, specifically his therapeutic nutshell, "Each day practice accepting exactly who you are and you will never stop changing." Beyond that daily acceptance, introducing some doubt is step 2 -- meaning, becoming able to question/doubt the accuracy and/or completeness of how we have come to define ourselves. Step 3 is introducing imagination with hypothetical question such as songwriter Jana Stanfield does in her song, “If I Were Brave.” The question posed is, "What would I do today if I were brave?" More to follow in this ongoing conversation, but Allen and Thom point out that change always requires our personal involvement and a willingness to take action.
To order Thom's book, Simple Truth:
https://3f48999b-b083-4400-97b5-96c49b21a0e7.filesusr.com/ugd/e71801_760c2012ceb944ed9a1fe008833deb1b.pdf
Join Allen & Thom at our Thursday night Zoom meeting on Emotional Sobriety and the Steps (login information below)
https://zoom.us/j/330149513
Password: 375986
Customer Reviews
2 Wonderful, Helpful, Funny, Qualified, Caring Individuals
Grateful for you Thom and Dr Allen!
These podcasts are life changing!
Thom Rutledge, psychotherapist and author, and Dr. Allen Berger, clinical psychologist and author, have partnered in this series of conversations between friends and colleagues to cover a wide variety of topics of interest around personal growth and healing. Just as I have enjoyed their books, I have yet to listen to one of their podcasts where I didn’t come away with some new understanding that was helpful in my life. These friends have an easy and fun rapport while being vulnerable at times about their own stories and discussing things they have learned along their combined 90 years in practice. I highly recommend this series of podcasts. To date they have recorded 14, and I have listened to each one multiple times. What a gift of love these gentlemen offer the world in their sharing. Pass the gift on to yourself. I promise you won’t regret the investment of some time. I wish you the best in your journey.
Timely Truth to help Right Now
Two talented professionals bring clear, practical advice for coping in today’s world. Two different approaches cover broad interpersonal issues with solid information & a dose of humor. Great place to Start Right Now!