The Lee Counseling Podcast
by Matthew Lee, LPC
The Lee Counseling Podcast explores emotional health, nervous system regulation, and relational healing through a grounded, compassionate lens. Drawing from neuroscience, counseling practice, and faith, each episode offers practical insights to help listeners respond to life with greater clarity, calm, and connection.
Episodes
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18. Guilt, Shame, and Dignity
How does our behavior shape our identity? This episode explains why shame keeps us stuck, why guilt is a messenger and not a verdict, and how being known and loved makes honest change possible. In this episode 0:17: The "guy who spills things" and defining ourselves by our worst moments 5:12…
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17. What do you really want?
Most of us try to change by focusing on what we need to stop: stop overeating, stop drinking, stop scrolling, stop looking at pornography, stop reacting. But there may be a better question: What do you really want? In this episode, Matt explores seven deeper rewards that can motivate meaningful...
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16. Practicing a New Way (TT: #026)
Understanding why you struggle is an important step—but insight alone doesn't create change. In this episode, Matt shares a personal story about anxiety and explores the third stage of growth: conscious competence. You'll learn why healing requires both attention and intention, along with…
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15. The Hardest Part of Healing (TT: #025)
This episode expands on Therapy Thoughts #25: The Hardest Part of Healing. What happens when you finally realize something isn't working—but you don't yet know how to change it? In this episode, Matt continues the conversation on Noel Burch's Four Stages of Competence by exploring the often most...
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14. When you don't know what you don't know (TT: #024)
What if the patterns keeping you stuck are the very patterns you can’t see? In this episode of the Lee Counseling Podcast, Matthew explores the Four Stages of Competence and how they can help us understand emotional growth, trauma, relationships, and even family or organizational systems.…
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13. When we Tell the Same Stories (TT: #023)
This episode is an expansion of Therapy Thoughts #023. If you'd like to receive my free weekly Therapy Thoughts email in your inbox, you can subscribe at www.leecounselingks.com/resources. Why do we keep telling the same painful stories? And why do we sometimes find ourselves repeating the same...
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12. Life to My Years: Cultivating Healthy Relationships
What does it mean to live a life that is not just longer, but fuller? In this episode, Matthew reflects on the phrase, "I want to add years to my life and life to my years," and explores how the quality of our relationships profoundly shapes the quality of our lives. Drawing from attachment…
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11. Virtue Formation Part 2: Inside Out
What happens inside of us doesn’t stay inside of us. In this episode of The Lee Counseling Podcast, Matthew explores how our inner formation eventually shapes the atmosphere around us—our marriages, families, friendships, churches, and communities. Drawing on Galatians 5, virtue formation, and...
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10. What a Simple Challenge Taught Me
In this short bonus episode, Matthew shares a simple April workout challenge—and how it became a powerful picture of how virtue is actually formed. Through small, daily reps that gradually increased over time, he discovered something many of us miss: lasting change doesn’t come from big moments,...
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9. Virtue Formation Part 1
Why would a counseling podcast spend time talking about virtues and vices? In this first episode of the Virtue Formation series, Matthew explores the surprising overlap between modern clinical psychology and ancient spiritual wisdom. Drawing from interpersonal neurobiology, habit science, and…
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8. Friends that Heal: Part 2 (with Jon Kreutzweiser)
Healthy friendships don’t just support us — they help shape us. In Part 2 of Friends that Heal, Matthew and Jon explore what makes relationships truly transformative. Moving beyond vulnerability alone, this conversation highlights the importance of both encouragement and challenge — what…
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7. Friends that Heal: Part 1 (with Jon Kruetzweiser)
In this guest episode, Matthew sits down with longtime friend Jon Kreutzweiser to explore what healthy male friendship actually looks like. Their relationship developed over many years but deepened during a difficult season when Matthew reached out for support while his late wife Jill was…
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6. Learning to Stay in the Room
Can attachment patterns actually change? In this episode, we explore how real change happens—not simply through understanding our patterns, but through experiencing something different in relationships. Using the story of “Mark,” a leader in a high-demand role, we see how a simple conversation...
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5. Anxiety Explained
This bonus episode was originally recorded as a video training, designed to help clients better understand anxiety. In it, I walk through anxiety from two complementary perspectives: cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and Polyvagal Theory. If you’ve ever wondered why anxiety feels so powerful…
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4. Healing Through Connection: Part One
Over the next few episodes, we’re focusing on something foundational: healing through healthy connection. This episode lays the groundwork by exploring why we often try to carry life alone—and why that strategy, while protective, may be costing us intimacy and peace. If you’ve ever thought, “I...
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3. Formation Over Time: How Practice Shapes Our Response
In this episode of The Lee Counseling Podcast, we move beyond what to do in the moment and explore how emotional regulation is formed over time. While performance matters in real-life situations—conflict at work, tension at home, pressure in leadership—lasting change comes through practice.…
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2. Overcoming Unwanted Behaviors
Why do we keep doing things we know we don’t want to do? Late-night junk food. One more drink. Habits that don’t align with who we want to be—yet somehow feel irresistible in the moment. In this bonus episode, Matt slows the conversation down and offers a grounded, compassionate framework for...
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1. Understanding Emotional Regulation
In the first episode of The Lee Counseling Podcast, Matt introduces the show's heart and sets the tone for practical, grounded conversations about mental health, faith, and connection. This episode explores emotional regulation—why we sometimes react in ways that don’t reflect who we want to be...
About this show
The Lee Counseling Podcast explores emotional health, nervous system regulation, and relational healing through a grounded, compassionate lens. Drawing from neuroscience, counseling practice, and faith, each episode offers practical insights to help listeners respond to life with greater clarity, calm, and connection.
Hosted by
Matthew Lee, LPC