Get the right tools, skills and insights you need to stay mentally strong no matter what life is throwing your way. In each weekly episode of the Deep Resilience podcast, Melli O’Brien shares one key insight or skill to help you grow your inner strength, allowing you to reduce your stress, rise to your challenges and unlock greater freedom and peace of mind in the middle of it all. After 15 years as an entrepreneur educator and coach in the mental health space and having the blessing of a su ...
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Three Steps To Transform Toxic Self Doubt Into Purpose And Empowered Action
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We all have those moments where the voice in the head starts to whisper things like: This isn’t going to work. You're not good enough, you're not talented enough, or you're not smart enough or experienced enough to do that. Who do you think you are? You're too short, too tall, too hairy, too geeky. It will never work! And when we get hooked by self…
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To Stop Overthinking, Use The Office Hours Technique
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Overthinking comes in many forms but by far the main two types are rumination (which can lead to feelings of unworthiness, depression and self-doubt) and worry (which gives rise to stress, anxiety and overwhelm). Research shows that overthinking is linked to mental illnesses such as clinical depression and anxiety. Simply put, overthinking is not a…
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Three Tips For Working With Dark Or Disturbing Thoughts
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When I am working with clients to help them become mentally stronger, one concern that often comes up is how they will be able to handle their most dark and disturbing thoughts. They often feel very intimidated, frightened or overwhelmed by them and worry about the effects of these thoughts in their life. However, when I am able to show them how to…
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When we get thrown a curveball in life we can start to feel really stuck in a situation. We may feel disempowered, defeated, broken, overwhelmed or like we cannot cope. This feeling of stuckness can leave us debilitated and unable to move forward. Often in my work with clients, I find that, if we explore closer we usually find that they are not stu…
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We've all had times where somebody has said or done something that we felt really hurt by. There is the initial event that happened but then we often continue mulling over it, fanning the flames of resentment and anger within us, and keeping the heartache alive. Sometimes we might keep carrying a resentment for weeks, months or years. What we don’t…
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Five Ways To Strengthen And Improve Your Relationships
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When it comes to resilience, having strong relationships is foundational. Research also shows that strong relationships are a predictor of happiness, good health and longevity. Needless to say, it's worth investing in keeping our relationships, healthy, strong and meaningful. In this episode of Deep Resilience, I encourage you to try five tips to s…
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How The Wisdom Of Interdependence Will Grow Your Inner Strength
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The practice of realizing interdependence is about really knowing, not just in our mind but in our whole being, that we are not separate from the world around us. That we exist in a large web of interconnectedness. It is returning to wisdom and belonging. We live in a culture that devalues wisdom and emphasises materialism, individualism and indepe…
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How To Stay In Your Point Of Power In Times Of Stress And Overwhelm
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When we're going through really difficult times it's common for the mind to tip into unhelpful patterns that amplify instead of alleviating our distress, keeping us locked in loops of anxiety, pessimism and reactivity. Racing and repetitive thoughts ramp up our suffering and drag us into disempowerment. But if we can find our point of power in stre…
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Sometimes, things go wrong. Unfortunate things happen. We make mistakes. We all know this is an unavoidable part of life, but there may be something working in the background that can transform these moments from mere setbacks into inflated beliefs about our character. When we personalise these events, conflating what happened with who we are, we b…
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We all want a better life, but is our pursuit of it actually making us happier? In many instances, the answer is no. This is where the Jevons paradox comes in. The Jevons Paradox is named for the nineteenth-century economist William Stanley Jevons. He noticed that as steam engines, powered by coal, became ever more efficient, Britain’s appetite for…
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How To Unbottle And Express Your Feelings
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Identifying and expressing our emotions effectively can one tricky but being able talk about our feelings with others is really important, not only to our relationships with others but for our own mental health, quality of life and overall wellbeing. In this episode of the podcast I offer you a helpful three step framework to help you identify your…
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We all grow up with messaging about what’s “normal”: a normal family, a normal body, a normal life. We may not be conscious of it, but these ideas can linger in the backwaters of our minds and hinder our ability to live with agency and authenticity. The truth, though, is that the idea of “normal” is a myth, and constant striving to close the gap be…
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How to Cope with Life Transitions: 5 things that help
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Change is inevitable, but that doesn’t make it easy. Even positive life transitions can feel destabilising, and our excitement can quickly be transcended by stress and overwhelm. Whether we are navigating major or minor-scale change, there are steps we can take to help move through these shifts with greater ease and confidence, allowing us to ancho…
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Guilt is a complex and often uncomfortable emotion, and while we might find it distressing to experience, it holds immense potential for constructive growth if we tune into its insights. Often mistaken for shame, which can become debilitating and detrimental to our self-esteem and wellbeing, guilt offers an avenue to realign with our values and aut…
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Four Questions To Ask Yourself In Times Of Grief
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Anyone who has experienced grief knows how profoundly painful and scary it can be. It can totally overwhelm and debilitate us, and in our attempts to escape or push through in any way we can, it’s easy to tip into maladaptive or unhelpful coping mechanisms, making an already difficult time feel even more impossible. Amidst the turmoil, taking some …
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What Is Trauma And How Does It Heal? Three Steps That Can Help
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Trauma can seem a weighty term, but the truth is most of us have had experiences in life that have that have somehow burdened or constrained us. Some of us are so impacted we feel completely stuck, broken, hopeless. While we can’t change the events of the past, it is possible to heal. The wounds we carry are not what happened to us but what happene…
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Three Steps To Transform Loneliness Into Power
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Spending time alone is an important and healthy part of being human, but becoming isolated or emotionally disconnected from others can naturally lead to painful feelings of loneliness, even if we aren’t actually alone. Most of us thrive in healthy communities with close relationships, so when loneliness signals our social needs are not being met, i…
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The First Step To Working With Loneliness
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Loneliness can consume us, often triggering depression and pulling us into deeper isolation. To cope with this, we are typically advised to escape or repress the feeling by remaining busy, distracted and preoccupied, but this can ultimately exacerbate our suffering and leave us burnt out. An emotion apt to cause so much pain may seem an obvious ene…
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Negative Body Image Issues: Understanding and Transforming Them
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In a society overly fixated on our outward appearances and achievements, we can easily get caught in loops of shame or disappointment about our bodies and, from a place of harsh judgement, push ourselves to fix, change or improve what we perceive as flaws or inferiorities. As ever-changing and impossible standards permeate our environments and our …
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Self love is a simple, though perhaps not always easy, practice of maintaining an accepting attitude towards yourself and treating yourself with kindness and respect. Often misconstrued as self-importance, self-indulgence or toxic positivity at the expense of our ability to love and care for others, true self love embraces the coexistence of frustr…
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The human mind is a double-edged sword. While it has the remarkable ability to help us survive, problem-solve and innovate, if allowed to roam unchecked, it can easily succumb to unhelpful programmed thought patterns that cause stress and suffering, latching on to rumination, self-criticism and limiting beliefs. Cultivating the skill of mindfulness…
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Deep resilience is a state of mental-emotional and spiritual integration and strength that can change everything. The way you live, the way you lead, the way you love and the way you handle life's challenges. This podcast will help you unlock your own deep resilience. In this way you can use this podcast as your weekly training ground to build inne…
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Introducing Deep Resilience: A state of mental-emotional-spiritual integration and strength
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We've equipped our mental strength toolkits with tried and true mindfulness and mindset techniques, but what about when these fall short? Sometimes, even the strongest mind is not enough to pull us through our toughest days or lift us from our lowest lows. While these evidence-based techniques offer immense value, they can overlook our deepest well…
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New Exciting Changes: Announcement of forthcoming changes in the podcast, including a new name which will be reveailed and explained in the first episode of the season. While the content will remain similar, it will now offer greater value based on feedback received from the audience and new insightsinto mental strength Hints at what is to come: In…
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Life can get pretty messy sometimes when we’re dealing with all the ups and downs that come our way. At times like this, our thoughts and emotions are all over the place. We call this the ‘Beautiful Mess Effect’. And, often, we’re inclined to hide our messiness from others. But, did you know that showing vulnerability can actually be good for our m…
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Add More Spice To Your Life By Using The Habit Releaser
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Do you spend your daily life on auto-pilot? We all do it. Many of us have daily habits that we repeat day after day without even realising it. This means that we often miss out on the truly beautiful moments by just not noticing them. Do you want to be more mindful and add a little spice to your life? In this episode of Mentally Stronger, I introdu…
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Many of us wake each morning to be met with a seemingly endless list of demands and responsibilities. Whether it’s “I have to deliver a crucial presentation to a high-profile client” or simply, “I have to make the bed,” the sense of obligation and constriction evokes feelings of resistance, resentment and restriction. Even tasks we once found joy, …
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How To Listen To Your Emotions (and why it really matters that you do)
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While we all face difficult emotions at various times in our lives, we each respond differently. We might keep ourselves busy, trying to bury them under work and responsibilities. We might bombard ourselves with endless content, escaping into virtual or fictional worlds. Some look to external sources to numb or distract from pain, while others resi…
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When the demands of our lives stretch us to our limits and we feel the overwhelming pain of grief, heartbreak, or hopelessness, we might respond in one of two ways. We might struggle against the discomfort by shutting down, isolating or lashing out. We might be consumed by our feelings and sink into the quicksand of self-criticism and negative self…
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Envy, The Thief Of Happiness (and 2 science backed ways to take it back)
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Depicted in artwork, literature and religious texts throughout history, envy has long been part of the human experience, but never quite like it is today. Social media grants us access to a constant stream of highly curated and filtered images of happiest and most successful moments of our peers and strangers alike. With all of this at our fingerti…
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In the pursuit of perfection, we often view things through a lens of comparison, criticism, or judgment, hindering our ability to fully embrace and authentically love what’s in front of us. We do this to ourselves too, striving for perfection and judging ourselves against some standard or ideal self. This inner tension distorts our view of ourselve…
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Make Great Decisions Quickly, Using This Incredible Tool
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Every day, we make countless decisions that shape the direction and quality of our lives in one way or another. With each choice steering the course of our lives at each little juncture, no matter how great or small, their amassed weight has the potential to overwhelm. We’ve been given conflicting advice: “Trust your gut,” “Follow your heart,” or “…
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Living with someone who is constantly criticising, berating, and judging you is exhausting, demoralising and breeds a sense of tension and uneasiness within the home. The same can be said for what might be called our true home, the one we carry with us everywhere: our mind. Many of us endure constant feelings of unworthiness, stress and inner strug…
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The power of the human mind is a double-edged sword. It enables us to plan, solve problems, create goals and work towards them, but its dark side tends to haunt our inner world with self-criticism, ruminations and worries. For many of us, that voice inside can become our own worst enemy, crushing our self-esteem and fuelling constant stress, negati…
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Seek First To Understand, Then To Be Understood
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We all have a natural yearning to be understood, but effective communication requires mutual understanding. In our efforts to convey our point of view or form the perfect response, we often miss the opportunity to see another perspective, and create a defensive environment that is ripe for misunderstandings, distrust and resentments. Steven Covey o…
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Shame and guilt, often used interchangeably, are different experiences with distinct effects. Guilt, the feeling we get when we’ve done something wrong, is adaptive and helpful, prompting discomfort when our actions contradict our values and facilitating self-reflection and restitution. Shame, on the other hand, is the feeling that we are what’s wr…
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Moments of perfection in our lives, whether a life-changing sunset or an unforgettable kiss, are often intruded by a common thought: “I wish this moment could last forever.” Though it’s natural to want to hold on to the things that bring us peace, joy or wonder, true enjoyment is hindered when we cling to the desire for things to remain as they are…
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Constant Stress? Here’s the Gold Standard Technique to Help Manage it
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When we encounter stress, our bodies instinctively enter the fight-or-flight mode. This evolutionary mechanism, enabling us to fight, fly or freeze in the face of danger, was an essential survival tool for our hunter-gatherer ancestors. But in today's fast-paced world, our lives occupied with busy schedules, personal challenges and global crises, w…
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The Difference Between Blame and Accountability
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Assigning blame is a natural response when we face adversity, hurt or disappointment. According to research professor, author and speaker Brené Brown, it’s how we discharge anger, discomfort and pain. While pointing the finger might be easy or even our first instinct when we feel wronged, its inverse relationship with accountability is fundamentall…
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The human mind is wired to prefer information that supports our existing beliefs and reject that which goes against them, otherwise known as confirmation bias. It doesn’t matter how rational, open-minded or fact-driven we are; it’s a natural tendency made more potent by deeply-ingrained or emotionally-charged views which can prevail even over clear…
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The Link Between Self-Compassion and Success
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For a lot of us, showing compassion to others comes as second nature. We readily offer words of support, encouragement and reassurance to the people around us, strangers and friends alike, but how many of us can say we extend ourselves the same grace? Where does all of that kindness go when it’s our failure, our mistake, our setback? When we let ou…
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How To Let Go Of A Grudge (in Three Steps)
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Whether it’s an insensitive comment or a larger betrayal, we’ve all been hurt by the words or actions of others. Regardless of the cause - be it a mistake, misunderstanding, or genuine ill-will - the resulting pain we feel is real, and we often find ourselves ruminating, fanning the flames of resentment and anger, and keeping the heartache alive. T…
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The Altruism Effect: Why The Good You Do is Good For You
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Each of us has an inherent power to make a difference in the world around us, a power that is all too easy to forget. Bombarded with a seemingly endless cycle of catastrophic news, a kind word or good deed here and there might feel like a drop in the ocean. We've probably all heard something along the lines of "if it makes a difference to just one …
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When things are left messy, unanswered or unresolved, we often find ourselves longing for closure, some magical process through which we can wrap everything up in a neat little package, feel better and move on. What makes closure so elusive, though, is that we’re often seeking it from another person, maybe in the form of an apology, an explanation …
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Five Steps To Prepare For Difficult Conversations
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If you tuned in last week, you know the importance of difficult conversations; they’re essential to the health of your relationships, your own mental wellbeing, and for driving change on a larger scale. But even with the guidance of my four-step framework, without proper preparation, we may find ourselves approaching these situations with a negativ…
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Have you ever avoided having a difficult conversation with a friend, colleague or partner? If you have, you might already know how harmful it can be, both to yourself and the relationship. Whether it’s a small annoyance or major issue, leaving things unaddressed can breed resentment, enable toxic and harmful behaviour, and cause relationships to fa…
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Letting Your Triggers Become Your Teachers
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Periods of calm, quiet and tranquillity present excellent opportunities to recharge, deepen our mental strength practice and connect with profound states of peace, but it is out in the ‘real world’ where these skills are really put to work. Even the most spiritually accomplished of us, the most skilled meditators, the most revered teachers can beco…
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With the ability to connect on a global scale came the ability to compare ourselves to more people in more ways than ever before, and despite the confidence and seeming perfection so often portrayed on social media, we’re all born with the same two primal fears: the fear that we are not worthy and, consequently, the fear that we won’t be loved. The…
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The One Distinction That Changes Everything
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Sometimes, a simple insight can make a world of difference. You may have heard the old adage, “pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional.” Well, it’s true. We so often create unnecessary suffering, stress and struggle for ourselves by piling on and becoming stuck in unhelpful thoughts and emotional reactivity. But the idea that we can merely ch…
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As we move through life, we constantly and often unconsciously jump to conclusions about the world and people around us. Influenced by our past experience, we make assumptions and draw inferences, attaching stories that support our brain’s built-in negativity bias over the objective reality of a situation. This seemingly small, reflexive mental hab…
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