Ever feel trapped in a toxic cycle with a parent where you lose yourself completely? After years of arguments and emotional exhaustion, I made the hardest decision of my life—going no contact with my dad.

This isn’t about not loving them or refusing to forgive. It’s about creating space to discover who you are when you’re not constantly adjusting to someone else’s needs and emotions.

In this vulnerable episode, I share the guilt, family pressure, and the one thing that completely surprised me after 6 years of no contact.

If you’re considering family estrangement or struggling with toxic family dynamics, this is for you.

What you’ll discover:

- Why guilt is actually a protective function

- How to handle family reactions while maintaining boundaries (including what we can say)

- The relationship metaphor that changed everything

- Signs you’ve lost yourself in a toxic family dynamic

Your mental health matters. Sometimes choosing yourself over toxic patterns is the most loving thing you can do.

👇 Share your experience with difficult family relationships below—you’re not alone in this journey.

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Grief doesn’t come with a timeline—and six years in, I’ve realised it’s not about “acceptance” or "moving on" but about learning how to live with and integrate both the love and the loss. 💔 In this episode of The Self Development Collective, I share openly about my own grief journey after losing my brother, what has shifted since my “3 years in” update, and the unexpected ways grief continues to shape life years later.

If you’re walking through grief, or supporting someone who is, I hope this conversation offers comfort and connection. Grief is messy, deeply personal, and never looks the same for everyone. In this episode, we explore:

⏳ What grief can look and feel like six years later

💭 The ongoing challenges that still show up over time

🌙 How loss can shape the way we live day to day

💡 Why respecting our limits and being gentle with ourselves matters in healing

This isn’t about “fixing” grief—it’s about honesty, hope, and knowing you’re not alone in the process of carrying loss.

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Grief & Milestones/Celebrations // How I Cope & What I’ve Learned

Grief can feel especially heavy during milestones and celebrations. Whether it’s a birthday, wedding, anniversary, or holiday, these moments often highlight our loved one and our grief even more.

In this episode, I share my own experience of navigating grief during my daughter’s first birthday and the insights I’ve found through The Grieving Brain by Mary-Frances O’Connor. Her research on how the brain processes grief helped me understand why milestones make grief feel so raw—and why it’s normal for these moments to trigger waves of sadness.

We’ll explore:

• Why milestones and celebrations intensify grief

• How the brain “maps” loved ones who are no longer here

• Why acceptance isn’t the goal—integration is

• What I’ve learned about coping with grief during milestones

• Gentle practices that help me care for myself in these tender moments

If you’ve ever wondered how to deal with grief and loss of a loved one during big life events, this episode offers compassion, clarity, and gentle reminders that you’re not alone.

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In this episode, I sit down with my school friend Jade to unpack her entire ADHD diagnosis journey: what finally prompted her to seek answers, the childhood signs she now recognises, and how her life has shifted both before and after putting a name on her experience.

🔸 What You’ll Hear:

• The subtle signs in school and uni

• What led to the decision for a diagnosis in adulthood and motherhood

• How Jade navigated the assessment process: gathering school reports, pushing past gender bias, and finding a neuro-affirming psychiatrist

• Life post diagnosis

• A guest perspective on what an ADHD diagnosis really means—and how naming it can transform your relationships, work, and self-understanding

Whether you’re supporting someone with ADHD or exploring a diagnosis for yourself, Jade’s candid story offers support. It's a great way to explore what the process and experience of an adult ADHD diagnosis can look like.

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Going through a friendship breakup can feel even more confusing than a romantic one. The signs are subtle, the emotions complicated—and the grief? Often overlooked. In this episode, we talk about the quiet unraveling of friendships that once felt like home, and what to do when they no longer feel right.

If you’ve been feeling emotionally drained, anxious before seeing someone, or like you have to shrink yourself around a friend, this episode will help you explore whether it’s time to let go. I share my own friendship breakup story, the emotional signs I ignored, and how life transitions—like motherhood, grief, or personal growth—can shift our capacity to connect.

This is for you if you’re navigating the pain of losing a friend, wondering what’s changed, and seeking compassionate, real-talk relationship advice—without blame or guilt.

🔸 What You’ll Hear:

• Why some friendships fade even when there’s no big fight

• Signs of emotional disconnection and subtle burnout

• The difference between toxic friendships and natural drift

• How capacity, expectations, and identity shifts create change

• Reflective questions to help you let go with love

Whether you’re in the middle of a friendship breakup or just starting to question a connection, you’re not alone. This conversation is your permission to honor where you are, and reclaim space for friendships that align with who you are now.

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Feeling Like You’re Always Helping? Signs of Emotional Burnout in Relationships

In this episode of the Self Development Collective, we’re diving deep into a type of emotional burnout we don’t talk about enough—the kind that happens when we’re supporting others.

This isn’t about work stress or parenting exhaustion. This is about those of us who take on the role of the helper. The fixer. The person who tries to hold everything—and everyone—together. And the emotional tiredness that comes with that.

I share a recent moment in therapy that completely shifted how I understood my emotional exhaustion. This episode talks about the signs of emotional burnout when the challenges we're supporting aren't our own but those of others.

So if you’re asking yourself, “Why do I feel so tired when nothing’s really happening to me?”—this episode is for you.

We’ll explore:

• What emotional burnout can look like when we’re constantly helping others

• Why being the “emotional support person” can be draining

• How emotional tiredness often shows up as anger, resentment, or numbness

• Why childhood roles may wire us into over-helping

• What it actually means to set boundaries as a helper

Whether you’re the go-to in your family, your friendships, or just always feel responsible for others—this is a gentle, honest reflection on the emotional exhaustion that can come with that role.

⏱️ Timestamps:

00:00 – Feeling burnt out but not sure why?

03:10 – The invisible weight of emotional support

06:45 – What “emotional tiredness” can look like

09:20 – Childhood roles and how they shape us

12:05 – Practicing boundaries (even when it’s hard)

15:00 – Reflections + how to reconnect with yourself

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Making Decisions In Life (How Invisible Family Rules Shape Our Life Decisions)

Have you ever found yourself stuck, unsure why you're making the decisions you're making — or why it feels so hard to make any at all?

In this episode, I’m sharing a personal story about one of those moments. A time when I was deep in the decision-making process and realised I was pushing myself down a path that didn’t actually feel like mine. Through conversations in therapy and reflecting on my experience, I started to uncover something deeper — the invisible rules and generational expectations that had quietly shaped how I made decisions my whole life.

We talk about:

• The invisible family rules that shape our decision making

• How legacy burdens can show up in our personal growth journey

• The emotional toll of trying to live up to inherited expectations

• How to begin making decisions that reflect who you are now — not who others expected you to be

This episode is for anyone who’s ever asked themselves, “Why does this feel so hard?” or “Is this really my choice?”

It’s not just about how to make decisions — it’s about how to make them with clarity, compassion, and connection to yourself. Whether you're exploring personal development, mental health, or just learning how to stop overthinking every life choice — this one's for you.

As always, take what resonates, leave what doesn’t, and be kind to yourself in the process.

Timestamps: 00:00 – Intro & personal story 03:00 – The emotional cycle of decision fatigue 10:45 – What are invisible family rules? 14:30 – Legacy burdens & how they show up 20:00 – Making choices that reflect your life now 29:00 – Final thoughts and gentle reminders

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Free Inner Critic Meditation

https://selfdevelopmentcollective.com/free-inner-critic-meditation

In this episode, I open up about my personal journey with the inner critic—how it held me back, and how I’ve slowly learned to work with it rather than against it using the powerful lens of Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy.

For years, I tried everything: affirmations, mindset shifts, journaling... but nothing helped silence that critical voice inside me. It wasn’t until I discovered IFS that I completely shifted my approach to working with the inner critic.

Together, we’ll explore:

• What Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy says about the inner critic

• Why trying to "silence" your inner critic often backfires

• The connection between your inner critic and childhood experiences

• A simple but powerful reframe that helped me soften my self-talk

• Book recommendation: Freedom from the Inner Critic by Jay Earley & Bonnie Weiss

Whether your inner critic sounds like “You’re not good enough,” or keeps pushing you to “do more, be more,” this episode is here to remind you: you are not alone. And there is a gentle way forward.

Resources for this episode //

Freedom From Your Inner Critic - Bonnie Weiss & Jay Early

https://www.amazon.com.au/Freedom-Your-Inner-Critic-Self-Therapy/dp/1604079428

No Bad Parts - Richard Schwartz

https://www.amazon.com.au/No-Bad-Parts-Restoring-Wholeness/dp/1785045113

Internal Family Systems - Richard Schwartz

https://www.amazon.com.au/Internal-Family-Systems-Therapy-Second/dp/B0D6NL2Y8C

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