Let's take a moment to appreciate the journey we've undertaken this past year on the Finding Your Way Through Therapy podcast. We've been privileged to host an array of fascinating guests, including courageous first responders and brave individuals sharing their personal therapy experiences. Our milestone 100th episode week was a time filled with celebration and reflection. During this time, we not only introduced our fantastic co-host, Courtney Romanowski, but also witnessed a profound display of resilience in three powerful interviews with Lynn Key. And yes, yours truly, Steve Bisson, managed to overcome flight fear, a testament to the power of therapy.
As we transition into the festive season, it's time to wrap ourselves in the warmth of the holidays. Personally, I adore Christmas, but I also believe in respecting and cherishing all other holidays. Here's wishing you a safe, peaceful holiday season, filled with joy and love. Remember, if you are grappling with mental health or substance abuse issues, don't hesitate to get professional help. It's a brave step towards healing. Lastly, we want to extend a heartfelt thank you to you, our ever-growing community of listeners. Your support means the world to us. Please continue to share your love through likes, subscriptions, and reviews. As we say goodbye to the old and welcome the new year, let's do it with hope and positivity.
Let's take a moment to appreciate the journey we've undertaken this past year on the Finding Your Way Through Therapy podcast. We've been privileged to host an array of fascinating guests, including courageous first responders and brave individuals sharing their personal therapy experiences. Our milestone 100th episode week was a time filled with celebration and reflection. During this time, we not only introduced our fantastic co-host, Courtney Romanowski, but also witnessed a profound display of resilience in three powerful interviews with Lynn Key. And yes, yours truly, Steve Bisson, managed to overcome flight fear, a testament to the power of therapy.
As we transition into the festive season, it's time to wrap ourselves in the warmth of the holidays. Personally, I adore Christmas, but I also believe in respecting and cherishing all other holidays. Here's wishing you a safe, peaceful holiday season, filled with joy and love. Remember, if you are grappling with mental health or substance abuse issues, don't hesitate to get professional help. It's a brave step towards healing. Lastly, we want to extend a heartfelt thank you to you, our ever-growing community of listeners. Your support means the world to us. Please continue to share your love through likes, subscriptions, and reviews. As we say goodbye to the old and welcome the new year, let's do it with hope and positivity.
Hi and welcome to Finding your Way Through Therapy. The goal of this podcast is to demystify therapy, what can happen in therapy and the wide array of conversations you can have in and about therapy Through personal experiences. Guests will talk about therapy, their experiences with it and how psychology and therapy are present in many places in their lives, with lots of authenticity and a touch of humor. Here is your host, steve Bisson.
Speaker 2:Was that too gently, you're too kind and welcome to Episode 127. If you haven't listened to Episode 126, courtney Romanowski, my now replacement host for several episodes for the coming seasons, was interviewing Audrey Albert King and I hope you enjoyed that interview. I did and I'm just so happy to have Courtney on. Episode 127 was supposed to be an interview that I was looking really forward to with Dr Hayden Dugan. Unfortunately, because of planning very busy lives in the whole nine yards, we're not able to do that interview. So today I'm going to replace it. We're going to have him on. By the way, I'm not dismissing him. We're going to do an interview, probably air it on the first week of the year. So I'm looking forward to that.
Speaker 2:But a year I decided to do more of a year in review, and why do I do a year in review? Once in a while. It can pique your interest to go back to what I've already done. I think that what I really liked about this year is that I had a lot of first responders, I talked about substance use and I had different guests that I in the last few years I've been repeating some of the guests. This year I can say that I had new guests on a regular basis, which is really cool. Some of them stand out, obviously, and those are going to be the ones you're going to hear again in the best of the year review, as well as my favorite episode.
Speaker 2:One of the things I want to explain is my favorite episode. Sometimes it's not because it's the most important, most poignant, but rather the one I had the most fun with. And it's not that I don't have fun with other people, but there's some people you just connect. I think the conversation is fun and is rapid changing and it just goes with the flow. So for those of you who will say to me well, why didn't you choose? We'll use the mental men, for example. I really like the mental men, but I don't know if it's my favorite episode, because they meet those guys all the time and it's something that I deal on a day-to-day basis. Maybe you guys liked it the best, but it was the most downloaded, I think one of the seasons, but sometimes it doesn't work out that way. So I also had the special episodes for the 100th episode week and I had everyone from my girlfriend on and then I mishmashed a bunch of people that have never met, just so that they can chit chat and see where their conversation goes. So that was another one that was really fun to do, and I met a lot of people through the Cycraft Network, and the Cycraft Network is a bunch of therapists and I've met most of them now and they're all very nice. Gordon Brewer is the one who came up with this great idea. You'll even hear one of my sponsors on one of these spots right here but I really liked that group and I got to meet great new people that came onto the show. But I also had other people that I've known for a long time that came back. I've known Courtney for years and Courtney is now a co-host, which is really cool Not a co-host, but really replacing me when I'm not around. I also had Pat back with the Mental Men, which was really fun.
Speaker 2:I didn't get to talk too much with my buddy, jay, this year, but Jay is always going to be invited to these shows. We talked a lot about first responder stuff my neighbor in the office, megan, who's always there but I never get to talk to her. She got to. You know there's a great interview, I think the most poignant one. This was a recommendation from a long time ago bringing clients who've been through stuff, and Lynn Key had not one but three interviews this year and she shared her whole story and if you want to go back to listen to her whole story, in order and they weren't recorded. They were recording that order but they weren't recorded back to back Episode one, nine, one ten and one twenty and you know I'll give you the heads up that there's a lot of traumatic stuff that's our that are discussed there. So I really want to make sure that you guys know about it before you go and listen to it. I shared my flight fear and what happened in March with a flight that I was on. Good news. What is it today? We're recording in November and I'm doing fine. Knock on wood. I'm hoping that it continues to go in that direction. I haven't been on a plane yet. I'm going on a plane probably next year with my kids and my girlfriend, so looking forward to that and hopefully I'll go well.
Speaker 2:One of the other things that I want to share about this year is that it's been quite a journey. I have a new intro, I have a new editor and I know that the audience has grown and I really want to thank you for that. I hope you continue following me and I know this is going to be gratuitous in some ways Just write a review, and even if you don't want to write a review, I think Apple Podcast will let you get away with just doing five stars, and I think Spotify will do the same thing. So put in those reviews. It really helps me, I promise and let's all of my small ask for this season and this year is for you guys to go in and do a review. I know that I never ask for anything in return for the work I do here, but reviews really help. Obviously, you know sponsorship helps and it also helps when people say out of boy and I know I don't need an out of boy all the time, but having those kind of like it keeps me going.
Speaker 2:You know I have plenty of things planned for season 10, which is going to be the whole year next year. Courtney is going to host a few episodes herself. I'm going to have Dr Hayden Dugan that I talked about are Dougan. I always like I get that right before the interview right and I have a couple of more guests that are lined up, including returns of other guests that I really liked, including Liz Kelly, who was on recently. Liz was on episode 125. She's going to be talking about her book and I can't wait and I really, really can't wait to hear more.
Speaker 2:You know, and the tendencies for my podcast I know. You know one of the things we talk about, if you've heard me on scaling your therapy practice on a different podcast I talk a lot about you know how to manage this more efficiently and you know my message is very general in the sense that I just want people to go to therapy. I just want to, even if it's once a year, make therapy as important as a physical. That's really my message since day one. And obviously I have a few things that I really enjoy, like talking about first responders. Never went into working with first responders. It kind of fell on my lap, so to speak, and I don't see myself ever stopping that. Trauma is going to be another thing that I like to talk about, because trauma is everywhere and grief is everywhere and I definitely will be talking about that stuff. I know it's a little quote woo for people, but talking about some of the spirituality, talking about stuff like that, is also very important to me because that's part of life. When we are able to center ourselves, I think we handle everything much better.
Speaker 2:I'm also hoping to do a lot more episodes that are solo, and I'm exploring a few possibilities there. So if you have any ideas of what you want me to talk about, please write to me. The one thing that is frustrating and I know most of you are listening in your car, because that's what I do in my podcast I listen to my car mostly. I do listen to them when I'm working outside and stuff like that, but mostly I'm in my car, so sometimes you don't think about, oh, I should send a note to Steve and all that. But please send me a note. I know that it's like I feel like I'm begging here. I am a little bit, but sometimes talking I'm talking to a mic, looking at a screen in a very empty room, so to speak, because it's just padded so that the sound sounds amazing, and I want to just tell you how I enjoy doing it. It's not going to stop getting a pat in the back. That will help, definitely. So I please. I would love to hear from you guys Now that I've said all that episode 128 next week will be what I chose.
Speaker 2:What I chose. I didn't actually choose it because you downloaded it the most. This is going to be for season 10. The most downloaded episode. I already know who it is and I'm not surprised because she has a big following Jenny Helms, and I hope you come in. If you haven't heard our interview, hey, join me next week and if you heard it, hear it again because it's really cool. But otherwise, I wish everyone a good holiday season. I think it's something like 25 holidays and I don't want to forget any of them, but this is my time of year that is both the hardest and the easiest for me, because I love Christmas. Christmas has always been my favorite, but I know there's a bunch of other holidays and I don't want to be disrespectful to any of them. I'm just telling you my favorite. But I do hope you have a safe, peaceful holiday, you enjoy your time with whoever you decide you spend your time with or not, and I hope that you join me for the next episode.
Speaker 1:Please like, subscribe and follow this podcast on your favorite platform. A glowing review is always helpful and, as a reminder, this podcast is for informational, educational and entertainment purposes only. If you're struggling with a mental health or substance abuse issue, please reach out to a professional counselor for consultation. If you are in a mental health crisis, call 988 for assistance. This number is available in the United States.