PODCAST · education
Discomfortable
by A.J. Bond
A Humorous Podcast About Shame
Episodes
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Getting Discomfortable with Jen Lumanlan
Jen Lumanlan In this episode, I’m joined by researcher, parenting coach, and author Jen Lumanlan to discuss her new book, Parenting Beyond Power: How to Use Connection and Collaboration to Transform Your Family—and the World. I had the pleasure of reading an advance copy of Parenting Beyond Power...
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Getting Discomfortable with Impermanence
Impermanence One of the ways that I define toxic shame, is that it is an interpretation of the feeling of shame (shame affect) as something global, permanent, and externally referenced. In this episode, I want to explore the permanent aspect of this interpretation because I’ve been experiencing…
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Getting Discomfortable with Rupture
Rupture Lately, I’ve noticed a particularly insidious message hidden in my shame. Not only do I tend to go into shame when I make a mistake (as I’m sure most people do), but my inner critic adds insult to injury by convincing me that on some level, I knew I was going to make that mistake! And the...
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Getting Discomfortable with Viral Memes
Viral Memes In episode 101, I put forth a provocative analogy for toxic shame that I think captures the slippery and insidious way that it spreads from one generation to another. I see toxic shame as operating like an unconscious viral meme. The thought experiment goes like this: imagine that as…
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Getting Discomfortable with Shame and Wisdom
Shame and Wisdom After a long hiatus, the podcast is back with episode 100! In this special episode, I share a conversation I had a few months ago with my friend Virabhadra Colin Bested. Virabhadra has spent the last several years exploring monastic training at Willow Dharma House and MAPLE...
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Getting Discomfortable with Authenticity
Authenticity Episode 99 is a weird and special exploration of authenticity that upended my entire notion of what this podcast is and what I want it to be! Authenticity is a concept and a practice that I really value and something that I consider to be one of the opposites of toxic shame. Shame...
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Getting Discomfortable with Circling
Circling In Episode 98, I describe one of my favourite practices, Circling. Circling is an interpersonal relational modality that I’ve been playing with and training in for a number of years now, and it has been one of the most powerful tools I’ve found for improving my self-awareness and...
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Getting Discomfortable with Shame Affect
Shame Affect In Episode 97, I tackle some common questions that people confront when they begin exploring their shame: what does shame actually feel like? And how do you spot it when it’s happening? We all feel shame, but because it is so uncomfortable and aversive, it is a feeling that we often...
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Getting Discomfortable with Paloma Medina
Paloma Medina In Episode 96, I interview TEDx speaker, educator, coach, and entrepreneur Paloma Medina. I first met Paloma when I took her masterclass The Neuroscience of Equity and Inclusion in Portland several years ago, and I was immediately impressed with her commitment to science while...
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Getting Discomfortable with Hopelessness
Hopelessness Hopelessness is one of those tricky emotions, like shame, where the unpleasantness of feeling it is amplified by the fact that I don’t want anyone to know that I’m feeling it. Not only do I experience hopelessness as a kind of emotional prison in which my world seems devoid of any...
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Getting Discomfortable with Sally Adnams Jones
Sally Adnams Jones In Episode 94, I interview author, educator, counsellor, and artist Sally Adnams Jones. Sally did her PhD in Arts Education with a focus on transformation through creative practices, an exploration that uncovered some powerful insights about the interplay between shame and...
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Getting Discomfortable with Judgement
Judgement In Episode 93, I come clean about the fact that I’m a pretty judgemental person. Of course, we all naturally make judgements all the time, that’s part of how we make decisions and form opinions. But culturally, being “judgemental” has come to mean something like, passing judgement on…
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Getting Discomfortable with Susan Campbell
Susan Campbell In Episode 92, I interview clinical psychologist and best-selling author Susan Campbell. I first heard about Susan because of her book Getting Real, which was one of the founding texts in the Authentic Relating (AR) movement (AR has been such a useful practice on my journey of...
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Getting Discomfortable with Nathan Vanderpool
Nathan Vanderpool In Episode 91, I interview Nathan Vanderpool. Nathan has a background in psychology, cultural and religious studies, and he did his PhD in sociology. He’s also a singer/songwriter and the author of the Social Arts Handbook. Nathan recently led me in a process he calls Trauma...
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Getting Discomfortable with Peter Limberg
Peter Limberg In Episode 90, I interview Peter Limberg, the steward of The Stoa. Almost a year ago now, on March 21st, 2020, as the pandemic arrived in North America, Peter started an online event space inspired by the Stoa Poikile (“painted porch”) in ancient Athens where Zeno held the...
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Getting Discomfortable with Michaële Antoine
Michaële Antoine In Episode 89, I interview Michaële Antoine, creator and founder of Curios Consulting, a learning studio that equips teams and communities to have better conversations. Michaële is a self-described “conversation enthusiast” with a background in intercultural and rhetorical...
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Getting Discomfortable with Arran Rogerson
Arran Rogerson In Episode 88, I interview Arran Rogerson, a podcaster, facilitator, and coach whose work has quickly become synonymous with the concept of the shadow. Popularized by the work of Carl Jung, the shadow is a metaphor for the parts of ourselves that we hide from ourselves. The shadow…
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Getting Discomfortable with Noah Malcolm
Noah Malcolm In Episode 87, I interview Toronto-based singer-songwriter Noah Malcolm about his decade-long journey from literally being silenced by shame to releasing his first EP. Noah grew up in Prince Edward Island where he taught himself to play the family piano at a young age and loved…
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Getting Discomfortable with Sarah Peyton
Sarah Peyton In Episode 86, I interview author, speaker, and neuroscience educator Sarah Peyton about the brain science of shame and what she calls “alarmed aloneness”. In this candid interview, Sarah illustrates the incredible neuroplasticity of the human mind with impactful stories from her own...
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Getting Discomfortable with Partisanship
Partisanship In Episode 85, I look at the recent election in the United States and the political partisanship that seems to be tearing the country in two. The dictionary on my computer defines partisanship as, “prejudice in favour of a particular cause; bias”. Though we often associate…
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Getting Discomfortable with Savouring
Savouring This week I talk about an ongoing experiment I’ve been engaged in during the pandemic in an effort to enjoy myself in spite of being alone virtually all of the time. I’ve noticed a pattern in my life of conflating people, accomplishments, or things with pleasant feelings. For example,...
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Getting Discomfortable with Cancel Culture
Cancel Culture The podcast is back after a little hiatus (more on that in the next episode), to tackle an issue that has been coming up in the news a lot lately and which people often bring up with me thinking they know what my opinion will be. And while I am of course not a proponent of cancel...
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Getting Discomfortable with Hierarchy
Hierarchy Shame is an unpleasant sensation in our body triggered by moments of social rejection or isolation that naturally pressures us to conclude that something must be wrong with us in comparison to other people. So by merely feeling shame, the idea of hierarchy gets implanted in our mind.…
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Getting Discomfortable with Racism
Racism This episode is difficult to listen to and was even more difficult to record. My touchpoint for racism is homophobia. One of the fascinating aspects of being gay, in my experience, is that I’m acutely aware of both my gay pride and my internalized homophobia. This seeming contradiction...
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Getting Discomfortable with Trauma
Trauma Trauma is something we have all experienced to some degree or another, and it’s something that we are all probably going through right now during this pandemic. So I wanted to try to explore what trauma is all about, as much for myself as for anyone else. Bear in mind that I’m no expert on...
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Getting Discomfortable with Productivity
Productivity Though logically I am completely on board with the growing sentiment that needing to be busy all the time and measuring my worth against my productivity isn’t really healthy, on a deeper level I have clearly been conditioned into it nonetheless. It demonstrates the difference between...
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Getting Discomfortable with Isolation
Isolation When the self-isolation measures of the pandemic first began, digital technology, and especially video conferencing, felt like a lifesaver. There was a flurry of activity and experimentation as everyone attempted to recreate their old lives, their old hobbies, their old businesses, and...
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Getting Discomfortable with Death
Death We’re all thinking and talking and speculating and worrying about the COVID-19 pandemic. But really, deep down (or not so deep down), I think one of the real issues we are concerned with is death. Of all the things that every human experiences, death is probably the one we talk about the...
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Getting Discomfortable with Uncertainty
Uncertainty In these uncertain times, I find myself going back to a micro-ideology I came up with a few years ago, basically reminding myself, “Everything works out in the end, even when it doesn’t!” This little bit of self-advice came about when I realized that I was walking around with a…
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Getting Discomfortable with PANIC
PANIC What is the correct way to feel about waking up one day inside a surreal dystopian science fiction film? There’s no right answer, of course. But if you’re anything like me, it’s probably a mix of panic, fear, anxiety, grief, sadness, shock, confusion, but also curiosity, excitement,...
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Getting Discomfortable with Narcissism
Narcissism Contrary to popular belief, narcissism isn’t really just about self-obsession. Nor is narcissism synonymous with sociopathy. Narcissism is a specific strategy to battle chronic shame and deep feelings of unworthiness. And it’s a strategy that we’ve all employed at times. But when it...
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Getting Discomfortable with Sex Addiction
Sex Addiction As promised in the last episode, this week I look at the way many of us conflate sex and attraction with connection and belonging. I think this explains why sex can be so addictive, because it appears to meet so many of our basic needs around human connection, but it only does so in…
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Getting Discomfortable with Proto-Friends
Proto-Friends Inspired by another recent Twitter conversation, this episode looks at the concept of a “proto-friend”, someone you feel certain you would really connect with if only you had the chance. The Twitter discussion reminded me of a special proto-friend I made at World Domination Summit...
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Getting Discomfortable with Crying
Crying If you’ve been listening to the podcast regularly, you’ll probably know that learning to cry has been one of my goals over the last year. I had some luck crying at the Nonviolent Communication retreat I did last year, but it still seemed like I had more to learn. So when I noticed the...
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Getting Discomfortable with Boundaries
Boundaries When I first encountered the term “boundaries” a few years ago, I had no idea what it meant. Most of the references to “boundaries” in the self-help books I was reading at the time seemed to assume that the reader would already know what they were. Not only that, but it seemed like…
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Getting Discomfortable with Liv Larsson
Liv Larsson Last summer, I attended a 9-day International Intensive Training in Nonviolent Communication on an island off of Stockholm, and to my lucky surprise, one of the trainers at the retreat happened to be Swedish shame expert Liv Larsson. Liv is an author, educator, mediator, and certified...
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Getting Discomfortable with the Interpersonal Bridge
The Interpersonal Bridge While studying shame over the last few years, I kept coming across clinical psychologist and shame pioneer Gershen Kaufman’s definition of shame, “The breaking of the interpersonal bridge”. But I never understood what it meant. What is the “interpersonal bridge”? And how...
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Getting Discomfortable with Call-Outs
Call-Outs A few months ago I attended a symposium called The Problem of Shame put on by the Menninger Clinic in Houston, Texas. With speakers like Brené Brown and Harriet Lerner, it was an illuminating and amusing conference. But perhaps the most interesting thing that occurred was when another...
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Getting Discomfortable with Non-Monogamy
Non-Monogamy I met Emma (not her real name) at World Domination Summit this year and as usual, I brought up the topic of shame and it led into a discussion about the shame she has had to navigate around her non-monogamous marriage. Emma and her husband Fin opened their relationship over a decade...
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Getting Discomfortable with Microaggressions
Microaggressions This episode looks at the concept of Microaggression and how this phenomenon has shown up in my life in both big and small ways. Given that most microaggressions seem to be largely unintentional, I think the term “micro-stress” might actually be a more appropriate and less…
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Getting Discomfortable with Clarity
Clarity On my recent adventures in dating, I’ve discovered that we are living in an epidemic of Ghosting, ambiguity, and a general lack of clarity. And I am just as guilty as anyone else! As I said in one of my recent Instagram polls, “Ghosted people ghost people.” This culture of ambiguity is...
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Getting Discomfortable with Mean Girls: Part 3
The Shame-Back This week’s podcast is actually a video! You can still listen to the podcast version if you prefer, or you can watch the video version below (or here) complete with footage ripped from the classic teen comedy, Mean Girls (2004). Watch Part 1 here. Watch Part 2 here....
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Getting Discomfortable with Mean Girls: Part 2
Slut-Shaming This week’s podcast is actually a video! You can still listen to the podcast version if you prefer, or you can watch the video version below (or here) complete with footage ripped from the classic teen comedy, Mean Girls (2004). Watch Part 1 here. In Part 2, Cady develops a hopeless...
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Getting Discomfortable with Mean Girls: Part 1
Shame is the root of all evil... I mean comedy.
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Getting Discomfortable with Embodied Beliefs
Embodied Beliefs It all started when I made an offhand joke to my young nephew that monsters lived in the basement of his cabin. Apparently, he believed me and refused to go into the basement after that. My brother texted me, not impressed, but I didn’t even remember having said it (though it...
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Getting Discomfortable with Shaming
Shaming This episode compares and contrasts two different experiences I had with shame recently, each affecting me, my body, and my reactions in distinct ways. It helped me understand the difference between the natural feeling of personal shame and the feeling of being shamed by another person....
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Getting Discomfortable with Honesty
Honesty I teased this subject several episodes ago, but I’m finally ready to release my treatise on honesty. Unlike most religions, I don’t see any moral imperative for being honest. In my mind, honesty is beneficial for purely selfish reasons. As social animals, we are designed to connect with...
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Getting Discomfortable with World Domination Summit
World Domination Summit World Domination Summit (or WDS) is an inspiring conference that brings together 1000 open-minded misfits from around the world under the slogan, “Living an unconventional life in a conventional world”. I first heard of WDS because my boo Brené Brown (who I’ve never…
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Getting Discomfortable with Privilege
Privilege I took a rare break from podcasting last week to attend my second World Domination Summit in Portland, OR. I’ll do an episode all about that experience in the coming weeks (here it is), but beforehand I finally decided to address a highly uncomfortable subject I’ve been putting off...
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Getting Discomfortable with Annoying People
Annoying People One of the biggest misconceptions in our culture is the belief that other people cause our emotions. The truth is, given the same stimulus, everyone reacts differently. What produces anger in one person, produces laughter in another. So it isn’t accurate to say that a given...
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Discomfortable have?
Discomfortable currently has 100 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Discomfortable about?
A Humorous Podcast About Shame
How often does Discomfortable release new episodes?
Discomfortable has 100 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to Discomfortable?
You can listen to Discomfortable on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Discomfortable?
Discomfortable is created and hosted by A.J. Bond.
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