PODCAST · health
Thanks for Sharing
by Jackie Pack
This is the place for all things recovery, healing, and relationships. We explore a variety of topics with people in recovery and the professionals who help them through personal stories. This podcast will give you a broad look at the aspects of recovery that make a difference.
Episodes
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🎧 Episode 386: Do I Matter to You?
The Questions Underneath Our Relationships: Someone can tell you they love you, and you can still wonder whether you matter to them. Underneath many of our reactions in relationships are questions we may never say out loud: Are you there for me? Can I reach you? Will you respond when I need you?…
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Episode 385: We Let the Cards Decide: What happens when neither of us knows what we're going to talk about?
For this episode, Rachel and I tried something different. We borrowed the format—and the questions—from NPR's Wild Card with Rachel Martin: choose a card without knowing the question, answer it, and see where the conversation goes. Full credit to Rachel Martin and the NPR team for creating a…
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Episode 384: The in-between: "I don't even think I'm angry. I think I just need it to be bad enough that I feel okay about going.
A client said that to me a few weeks ago — she was leaving a job she had chosen to leave, and she couldn't stop rehearsing every grievance, every frustration, every way the place had failed her. She wasn't actually angry. She was trying to make the grief feel like certainty, because certainty is...
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Episode 383: Inside the Therapy Room
A Conversation With Rupture Ever After: here are things we can understand for years before they actually change us. We can know where a pattern came from. We can explain our childhood. We can recognize our attachment strategies. We can even know that something that happened to us wasn’t our…
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Episode 382: What You Can’t See About Yourself
How well can we really know ourselves if we’re only willing to rely on our own perspective? We all have blind spots—not because we lack self-awareness, but because there are things we simply can’t see from where we’re standing. And sometimes the people who know us well can see patterns we’ve...
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Episode 381: When There Is No Redo: Grieving What We Can’t Get Back
Some losses don’t come with a funeral. Sometimes we’re grieving what didn’t happen—the nurturing we didn’t receive, the childhood there wasn’t room to have, or the adults who couldn’t be adults. We can build something different now. But healing doesn’t erase the impact of the wound, and making...
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Episode 380: Validation vs Agreement: “I understand why that hurt you” is not the same as “I agree with everything you believe about what happened.”
In this episode, we explore three relational skills that often get confused: Validation says, “If I am you—with your history, family of origin, and the meaning this held for you—I understand how you got there.” Agreement says, “I reached essentially the same conclusion.” Accepting influence says,...
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Episode 379: What do you need? What do you want?
For a lot of people, those are surprisingly difficult questions to answer. Sometimes we genuinely don't know. Sometimes we know, but we've learned to keep parts of ourselves private. Sometimes we've gotten very good at figuring out what's practical, reasonable, available, or best for everyone…
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Episode 378: "I Know It's Best to Just Move On":
There's a moment almost everyone knows: someone says something, and before you've even processed it, you're already deciding not to react. You smile. You let it go. And somewhere in that quiet moment, you might be abandoning yourself. In this episode, I talk about the difference between...
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Episode 377: Who Am I? Why We Lose Ourselves and How We Find Our Way Back
Your "difficult" child might just be determined. Your "too much" might just be someone who hasn't finished growing into her enthusiasm yet. In this episode, I talk about the difference between adaptation and development, why the traits that got labeled as problems in childhood (stubborn…
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Episode 376: Narcissistic Neglect
The deepest injury of narcissistic neglect isn't what happened to you. It's what never consistently happened for you. Nobody wondering what you were thinking. Nobody asking what you felt. Nobody staying curious about who you were becoming. And when those thousands of small moments are largely...
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Episode 375: The Basics of Recovery: A conversation on early recovery
In this episode, Rachel joins Jackie as they dive into the intricacies of early recovery in therapy. In this episode, they discuss the foundational stages of addiction recovery, focusing on the challenges faced by individuals new to therapy. From addressing justification and rationalization to…
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Episode 374: What Did Touch Teach You?
That question has been on my mind after two clients asked me to record this episode. For some of us, touch meant comfort and safety. For others, it meant obligation, manipulation, or even fear. Some of us grew up in families that hugged all the time. Others rarely experienced physical affection....
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Episode 373: When You Change, Your Relationships Change
Changing your patterns doesn't just change you. It changes the relationships around you. One of the biggest surprises in healing is that being healthier doesn't always feel better, at least not at first. The people around you have learned the old dance just as much as you have. So when you stop...
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Episode 372: Now What? Developing the Second Response:
You can understand your pattern completely. You can know exactly where it came from, what it's protecting you from, why it shows up the way it does. And still, in the moment, you do the thing anyway. That's because understanding a pattern and interrupting it are two different skills. And...
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Episode 371: The Gap Between Reaction and Response
Understanding your patterns is one thing. Interrupting them in real time is something else entirely. In this episode, we talk about the tiny space between the trigger and the reaction — and how to find it, use it, and slowly make it bigger. Have a question or something you’d like me to talk about...
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Episode 370: Why knowing isn't enough
Why can you understand your behaviors and still repeat them: You can explain exactly why you do it. And then you do it again. That's not a character flaw. It's the difference between insight and integration, and they are not the same thing. In this episode, I'm talking about why understanding…
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Episode 369: If I Can't Be Loved, I'll Be Needed
I said that in a men's group a few years ago — and the room went silent. Everyone immediately understood what it meant to organize your life around being needed. What surprised me was what came next: when I introduced the idea of being chosen — freely, without obligation — some of the men weren't...
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Episode 368: All Behavior Makes Sense
"All behavior makes sense. And if it doesn't make sense yet — we keep asking questions until it does." This is one of the phrases I say most in my work, and in this episode I'm unpacking where it actually came from. Not grad school. Life. I'm sharing two stories that changed how I see people —…
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Episode 367: Beliefs, Values, and the road back to yourself: What if some of the beliefs running your life were never actually chosen by you?
In this episode, we explore the difference between values and beliefs — and why that distinction matters so deeply in healing, recovery, relationships, and identity. We talk about: • Survival beliefs formed in childhood • The gap between who you want to be and what feels possible •…
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Episode 366: Friendship, Authenticity and the People Who Stay: Why is friendship — truly lasting, genuinely honest friendship — so hard to find and harder to keep?
In this episode, we explore the quiet loneliness of being surrounded by people who don't really know you, the fear underneath the masks we wear, and what it ttakes to build the kind of friendship that survives time, change, and all the complicated business of being human. Plus: the girls' weekend...
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Episode 365: The Boundary Hangover: Why You Feel Worse After Setting Limits (And What's Actually Happening)
You did the hard thing. You said it. And then you felt worse. That guilt, that dread, that urge to immediately walk it back — that's not a sign you did something wrong. It's your nervous system doing exactly what it was designed to do. Just not for the life you're trying to build. In today's...
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Episode 364: When Everything You Believed Stops Making Sense
There’s a moment most people don’t talk about. When what you believed… stops holding. Not because you’re broken. Not because you’ve failed. But because you can finally see. Disillusionment isn’t the end of something. It’s the beginning of seeing clearly. And the people who have the courage to…
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Episode 363: Building Bandwidth in Difficult Relationships
Why do some people still get to you… even after you’ve done the work? It’s not just about “triggers.” And it’s not just about setting boundaries either. Sometimes it’s: – being around someone you don’t trust – navigating tension with someone you love – watching a relationship change in ways you...
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Episode 362: Why We Lie and How to Start Being Honest
Most people think lying is a choice. But for many people, it doesn’t even pass through conscious thought. It starts in the body. A flush A tightening A sense of threat And the truth doesn’t feel like an option. In this episode, I talk about something I often say: “I came by my dishonesty…
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Episode 361: Patriarchy, Relationships, and Healing (Guest Appearance on The Wholeness Network)
In this episode, I share a conversation I had as a guest on The Wholeness Network, where we talk about patriarchy—not as a buzzword, but as something that quietly shapes how we love, how we show up, and what we believe we’re allowed to need. This shows up in my work all the time: • men who were...
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Episode 360: When Healing Feels Incomplete
People don’t leave therapy because it’s not working. Sometimes they leave because it’s getting too close to what matters. And sometimes… they stay. But still feel like something is missing. You might: understand your patterns have more awareness even be making progress …but not actually feel...
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Episode 359: Why does America respond differently to scandals like the Epstein case?
We keep asking: How could this happen? But maybe the better question is… Why are we still surprised? When the Epstein files resurfaced, I saw a lot of shock, even in professional circles. Names people admired. People who built identities around wisdom, healing, or influence. I texted my friend...
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Episode 358: Why He Shuts Down When Emotions Show Up
Sometimes relationships fall into a confusing pattern. Things feel connected for a while. Conversations are easier. You feel hopeful. And then emotions show up: hurt, stress, vulnerability, and suddenly the other person shuts down. Many partners assume this means the person doesn’t care. But…
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Episode 357 | Episode 5 in the Pornography Use, Addiction & Healing Series:
Recovery isn’t dramatic most of the time. It isn’t big breakthroughs. It isn’t intense motivation. It isn’t one powerful decision that fixes everything. It’s steady. It’s going to bed when you’d rather “steal time.” It’s feeling shame without escaping it. It’s waking up at 3 a.m. and choosing not...
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Episode 356: Rebuilding After Secrecy: Why Sobriety Alone Doesn’t Fix the Relationship
What actually happens after sobriety begins? Many couples believe that once porn or addictive behaviors stop, the relationship should feel better right away. But for many people, that’s when a deeper layer of healing starts — emotional awareness, reconnecting with the authentic self, and learning...
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Episode 355: Porn, Compartmentalization, and the Secret Self
What happens to the self when parts of life begin living in secrecy? In this episode of the Thanks for Sharing podcast, we move beyond behavior and beyond relationship impact to explore how porn can shape identity, emotional development, and connection. We talk about: • how compartmentalization...
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Episode 354: Porn, Predictability, and Relational Capacity: Porn is often framed as a private habit or a personal struggle. But its impact is rarely private.
In this episode, we explore how porn reshapes relationships, not just behavior. We talk about how porn: quietly reorganizes relationships around absence impacts the partner’s nervous system and sense of safety often feels like cheating, even when there’s no physical affair contributes to...
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Episode 353: What Porn Actually Does to the Brain: Porn isn’t just about sex, it’s about the brain.
In this episode, we explore why porn is so compelling, why willpower usually fails, and why intelligent, caring people struggle with it even when it conflicts with their values or relationships. This conversation moves beyond shame and into understanding how novelty, dopamine, attachment, and...
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Episode 352: The world feels divided — but the real damage is happening between us.
We recorded this episode planning to talk about current events, and the conversation didn't go exactly where we planned, and that's why it matters. Instead, we found ourselves talking about how people are actually living inside all of this, the personal experiences and stories that impact us....
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Episode 351: When Answers Become a Defense: How Rationalization Keeps Us Comfortable...and Stuck: Most avoidance doesn’t sound defensive.
It sounds reasonable. It sounds like: • “This makes sense.” • “This is normal.” • “I already know why I do this.” In this episode, I explore how rationalization and minimization quietly protect comfort, certainty, and the need to feel right — especially for smart, thoughtful people.
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Episode 350: When you try to talk… and somehow you become the problem.
Defensiveness doesn’t always look like anger. Sometimes it looks like minimizing, mocking, dismissing, or explaining things away. In this episode, I talk about: • why people get defensive • how avoidance can be loud or quiet • how to respond without escalating • and the red flags that mean a...
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Episode 349: Letting the Year Unfold : What if the new year isn’t asking you to decide anything?
Rachel and I talk about why so many of us feel pressure to know what comes next, and how real change tends to happen without announcements. We explore how moves, family dynamics, and internal shifts quietly reorient us long before we name them. If you’re entering this year without goals or...
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Episode 348: What we're carrying forward, and what we're putting down: Not every year ends with closure. Some years end with clarity, and some don’t.
As this year comes to a close, there’s pressure to reflect, resolve, and reset. But not everything we live through gets neatly wrapped up. In this episode, I talk about what it means to move forward without closure, why waiting for it can keep us stuck, and how grief, loss, and complicated family...
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Episode 347: Navigating Uneven Healing in Couples
When one partner grows faster, it doesn’t mean the relationship is failing. Uneven healing is one of the most painful dynamics couples face. One partner finds language, boundaries, and insight. The other is still trying to feel safe. This episode isn’t about who’s “ahead.” It’s about how healing...
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Episode 346: Identity Shifts and Recovery
In this episode, we go into the identity shifts that happen in relational recovery, for betrayed partners, for CPTSD survivors, and for the partners who are healing from addiction or avoidance. When recovery is real, identity shifts happen beneath the surface. And they can feel terrifying,...
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Episode 345: 🎙️The Discomfort Paradox: Why the Hardest Parts of Healing Set You Free
Have you ever made a decision or taken a step in your healing that terrified you, only to realize later it was the best thing you've ever done? Today we’re talking about why healing so often feels uncomfortable, why your brain resists the exact things that help you grow, and how to tell the...
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Episode 344: The Family Roles We Inherit
Family roles aren't personality traits. They are survival strategies. In this episode, Jackie talks about how these roles form within the Child Self, the Adaptive Child Self, and the Functional Adult Self framework. And how healthy families do it differently. If you grew up in a role you’re…
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Episode 343: Who Do You Think You Are?: “Who do you think you are?” Sometimes that question feels like an accusation — but what if it’s actually an invitation?
In this week’s episode, I explore how identity is built: the parts we inherit, the roles we perform to survive, the stories we are never allowed to tell, and the parts of us that only come alive when we finally feel safe. If you’ve ever wondered why you feel the way you do… or why it’s so hard to...
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Episode 342: Healing Emotional Pain
Emotional pain isn’t random. It’s inherited, absorbed, reenacted, and carried on. n this episode, we trace heartbreak, betrayal, childhood trauma, and addiction back to their emotional roots… and explore what it actually takes to heal the younger self still holding the pain. Emotional pain is…
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Episode 341 We Need to Talk about Jeffrey Epstein
Not as a headline or scandal, but as a blueprint of how power preys on vulnerability… and how society lets it happen. This episode is not about conspiracy theories or sensational stories. It’s about trauma. It’s about power. Epstein wasn’t a scandal. He was a warning. This episode explores why...
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🔐 Episode 340: The Green Flags in Relationships No One Talks About
Accountability is one of the strongest predictors of emotional safety. In this episode, I reveal 8 evidence-based green flags that show someone is capable of healthy love — not just interested in it. These are the relational patterns that build safety → security → trust → love → shared meaning....
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Episode 339: But is it good sex?
We love to say “We have good sex.” But what if what we’re calling good is actually trauma, anxiety, emotional distance, or porn conditioning disguised as intimacy? In this episode, I’m asking the uncomfortable question most couples avoid: “Is it really good sex—or just intense sex?” Great orgasms...
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Episode 338: The Loneliness Epidemic: How we lost connection
We’re more “connected” than ever—yet lonelier than we’ve ever been. Loneliness has become an epidemic. We’ve traded real community for scrolling, and honest connection for performative belonging. And it’s hitting young men the hardest. In this week’s episode, Jackie unpacks the roots of…
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Episode 337: 🌿 Trauma bonds keep us tied to relationships that hurt us—relationships we know aren’t healthy, but somehow feel impossible to leave. 💔
In this episode of Thanks for Sharing, I explore what trauma bonding really is, how it forms, and why it’s so difficult to break free. We’ll discuss the psychology behind it, the subtle ways it can manifest (not just in extreme cases), and what healing can entail. If you’ve ever wondered why…
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
This is the place for all things recovery, healing, and relationships. We explore a variety of topics with people in recovery and the professionals who help them through personal stories. This podcast will give you a broad look at the aspects of recovery that make a difference.
HOSTED BY
Jackie Pack
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Thanks for Sharing have?
Thanks for Sharing currently has 200 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Thanks for Sharing about?
This is the place for all things recovery, healing, and relationships. We explore a variety of topics with people in recovery and the professionals who help them through personal stories. This podcast will give you a broad look at the aspects of recovery that make a difference.
How often does Thanks for Sharing release new episodes?
Thanks for Sharing publishes regularly with 200 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
Where can I listen to Thanks for Sharing?
You can listen to Thanks for Sharing 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 Thanks for Sharing?
Thanks for Sharing is created and hosted by Jackie Pack.
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