This episode is for anyone who's tired of their own brain running the show and wants practical tools to stop getting stuck in the highs and lows of everyday life.

More info, resources & ways to connect & support - https://www.tacosfallapart.com/podcast-live-show/podcast-guests/saw-myint

Saw Myint didn't set out to become a mental health advocate. She needed help as a kid and nobody was there to listen. That experience shaped everything that came after.

Growing up in a big household with extended family, Saw was treated like a servant by one of her mother's sisters. She was just a child who didn't know how to speak up. Nobody noticed. Nobody helped. That absence created a drive in her that's lasted decades: she wanted to be the person for others that she never had for herself.

Now 52, the Burmese Australian mom of two has built a life around helping people. She started at 20 doing translation work for immigrants who needed help navigating schools and government departments. As she made money, she sent it back to Myanmar where there's no welfare system. When she turned 30, she got serious about Buddhism and started incorporating those teachings into how she showed up for people.

But Saw ran into a problem when she tried to share her approach on social media. People saw her as a woman who couldn't speak perfect English. They weren't listening to what she was saying. So she pivoted to podcasts, looking for credibility in a different format.

What Saw teaches is far from your typical meditation practice. She struggled with traditional meditation herself because it had to make sense to her first. Why should she sit and focus on breathing? She wanted to understand the why before the how. So she learned from monks' lectures and found one teacher about three years ago whose approach clicked.

The core idea is simple: we only have two main feelings. Satisfied or unsatisfied. Happy or unhappy. And neither one lasts. Good food, good sex, good drugs - they all fade. Same with the bad stuff. Life keeps moving. We're aging every second but only notice it every ten years.

According to Saw, science backs this up. Everything is mind and body, moving millions of times per second. By the time you feel something, whatever triggered it is already gone. You're having feelings about things that aren't even there anymore or about reflections and memories. So why get too attached?

This isn't about becoming a monk or a saint. Saw wants to help everyday people living normal lives. You don't need to sit down and meditate for hours. Just recognize that happiness doesn't last, unhappiness doesn't last, and neither is worth getting addicted to. Feel it, show it, then move on to what's next.

She acknowledges that this approach isn't for everyone. You need to be open-minded and realistic. You need to face facts. But for people who are ready to listen, the practice happens while you're living your life. It's about developing the right mindset so that whatever you face, good or bad, you'll be okay.

During our conversation, Saw led a brief meditation exercise. Instead of focusing only on breath, she asked us to notice everything that came to mind without judgment. Worries, memories, plans - just let them in and observe. Most of what fills our heads is either memory or imagination anyway. Only about 25% of our worries actually happen.

Her advice for anyone struggling: don't be shy or scared. Open up. Talk to someone. Half the problem gets solved just by letting it out.

This episode is for anyone who knows (or WANTS to know!) what it's like when your brain just works differently than everyone else's.

More info, resources & ways to connect - https://www.tacosfallapart.com/podcast-live-show/podcast-guests/trashladd

Emmett (TrashLadd) is 17 and from Canada. He graduated high school this year and knows what it's like to navigate school with ADHD and Asperger's. He got his ADHD diagnosis in third grade and his Asperger's diagnosis in seventh grade. That second diagnosis helped explain a lot about how he acted at school and at home.

Before his ADHD diagnosis Emmett couldn't focus in class. He was always moving around and couldn't sit still. His parents took him to see a specialist who tested him and started him on a path to getting the accommodations he needed. After being diagnosed he got extra time on tests, access to an iPad for notes and scribes when he needed them. Most importantly he started to understand the real struggles people face when living with mental disabilities.

The ADHD symptoms Emmett deals with daily include major anxiety and constantly jumping between tasks. He describes being very much in the now, losing track of time completely. He'll get home from school, start playing Xbox with friends and suddenly realize hours have passed. To combat this he sets tons of timers on his phone and tries to stick to schedules even though it's hard.

The Asperger's shows up differently. When something goes wrong or doesn't happen the normal way, Emmett starts to panic. If he can't find his book or phone or charger he feels that wrongness immediately. His solution is keeping things visible. As his mom put it, out of sight means out of mind. His room might look messy to others but everything is in places where he knows he can find it.

Emmett originally planned to go into coding after high school but realized he hated it. During a co-op placement at an elementary school he discovered he loved helping kids in the classroom. Now he wants to become a developmental service worker. He knows what it's like to struggle with learning and memory. He wants to use those experiences to advocate for kids going through the same thing and help them get what they need to succeed.

His advice for other young adults struggling with mental health is straightforward. Find something that motivates you. For him it's talking with friends every morning and asking how they slept. Get into a routine and stick with it until something new happens. Join random Discord servers and make new friends. Find people you can count on.

Emmett is big on calling out people who self-diagnose or compare mental illnesses like they're all the same. Just because someone has anxiety once doesn't mean they understand what it's like for someone who has it way worse. He wants people to inform themselves, learn what's actually going on and figure out how they can help. And if someone doesn't want help then leave them alone.

The biggest takeaway from talking with Emmett is that living with ADHD and Asperger's means constantly adapting. It means finding systems that work even if they look weird to other people. It means having friends who have your back. And it means being willing to reach out for help when you need it.

If you've ever found yourself with 82 browser tabs (mental or literal!) open while simultaneously achieving nothing, this conversation is for you.

Ways to connect, more info & resources - https://www.tacosfallapart.com/podcast-live-show/podcast-guests/albert-bramante

Dr. Albert Bramante joined me to talk about why performers and educators are especially vulnerable to self-sabotage and what we can actually do about it. As a performance psychologist and talent agent who's spent over 20 years working with actors and teachers, Albert has seen the patterns that keep talented people stuck.

The conversation got real pretty quickly when Albert pointed out something most of us don't want to admit: that nervous feeling before you perform or teach is physiologically identical to excitement. Your body can't tell the difference between stage fright and anticipation. The only thing that changes is the story you tell yourself about those butterflies.

Albert explained that chronic procrastination and perfectionism are just two sides of the same coin. When you want something to be perfect and you know it never will be, you just never start. Or you start so late that failure becomes inevitable. It's a beautiful self-fulfilling prophecy that keeps you safe from ever really trying.

Teachers and performers face unique pressure because there's rarely immediate feedback. You might impact someone's life and never know it. A student might not realize what you taught them until years later. An audience member might be deeply moved but never say a word. That absence of validation feeds impostor syndrome like nothing else.

We also dug into the myth of multitasking. Spoiler: it doesn't exist. What we call multitasking is actually just rapid task-switching, and it's killing our productivity. Albert recommended the three to five tab rule (yes, I felt personally attacked), and pointed out that when you have too many choices or too many things open, you get paralyzed and accomplish nothing.

One of the most powerful moments came when we talked about trauma and grief. Albert made it clear that if you can't talk about a traumatic event the way you'd describe what you had for breakfast last week, you still have work to do. And that's okay! Healing isn't linear! You can get all the way to acceptance and wake up the next day right back in anger.

His advice for anyone caught in the self-sabotage cycle is to remember that you are enough. Most people walk around thinking they're not worthy of success or happiness, and that belief becomes the script they follow.

The practical takeaway that hit hardest: if opening your email makes you feel like you're drowning, if you're always tired but never resting, if every year feels the same as the last one, you're probably holding yourself back. And the first step to changing it is just noticing that it's happening.

Because self-sabotage isn't usually conscious. Nobody wakes up and decides to ruin their own day. But once you see the pattern, you can start to change it.

This conversation was a reminder that getting in your own way isn't a character flaw. But it IS a protection mechanism that's outlived its usefulness. Your brain thinks it's keeping you safe by convincing you to wait for the perfect moment or do more research or tell yourself you're too tired. Safe and stuck look pretty similar from the outside. If you're a teacher wondering if you're making any difference, or a creative person tired of your own excuses, or just someone who's spent too many years in the same place wondering why nothing ever changes, this episode might be the wake-up call you didn't know you needed.