Mental Nesting
Mental Nesting is the gentle space for sensitive adults who've outgrown the "hustle through your healing" mentality. Hosted by licensed therapist and writer Barbara Guimaraes, this podcast explores the messy, nonlinear reality of rebuilding your life after trauma, heartbreak, and the kind of personal upheaval that leaves you questioning everything.
If you're someone who's done therapy, read the books, and tried all the self-help strategies but still feel like you're figuring it out as you go—this podcast is for you. Barbara brings both her clinical expertise and lived experience of navigating bipolar disorder, relationship trauma, coming out later in life, and the quiet courage it takes to choose yourself when no one taught you how.
Each episode feels like a conversation with your most emotionally intelligent friend—the one who sees your sensitivity as a superpower, not a flaw. Through vulnerable storytelling, practical frameworks, and her signature "soft but unfiltered" approach, Barbara helps you reconnect with your inner child, build unshakable self-trust, and create a life that feels authentically yours.
This isn't about optimizing or fixing yourself. It's about learning to be human—messily, beautifully, exactly as you are. Because sometimes the most radical thing you can do is slow down, turn inward, and remember that healing doesn't have to hurt to be real.
Perfect for highly sensitive people, therapy graduates, late bloomers, and anyone who's ever felt "too much" in a world that demands you be less. Welcome to your emotional homecoming.
Mental Nesting
When Peace Feels Boring: Adjusting to Life After Chaos
What happens when your nervous system has been living on high alert for so long that peace feels like a problem to solve?
In this deeply honest episode, Barbara shares the unexpected challenge of adjusting to calm after a lifetime of chaos. After moving back home following grad school, she found herself in the strangest predicament: finally safe, finally stable, and completely uncomfortable with both.
If you've ever felt guilty for having a good day, wondered who you are when you're not constantly overcoming something, or found yourself looking for problems when there aren't any—this episode will make you feel so much less alone.
You'll discover:
- Why your nervous system treats peace like a threat (and how to gently retrain it)
- The difference between thriving under pressure and just being addicted to stress
- How to tolerate good feelings without waiting for the other shoe to drop
- Why boredom might actually be a sign that you're finally safe
- Practical tools for adjusting to the life you've worked so hard to build
This is for anyone who's done the hard work of creating stability and now feels lost without the familiar rhythm of crisis. Because sometimes the most radical thing you can do is learn how to just... be okay.
Perfect for therapy graduates, recovering perfectionists, and anyone who's discovered that getting better comes with its own surprising challenges.
Brief mentions of chronic stress symptoms and past trauma
Connect with Barbara: @mentalnesting_ on Instagram
Thank you for being here, beautiful soul.
If this episode resonated with you, I'd be so grateful if you'd leave a review—it helps other sensitive souls find this gentle space we're creating together.
Connect with me:
- Instagram: @mentalnesting_
- Substack: mentalnesting.substack.com
- Email: hello@mentalnesting.com
Join The Nest
The Nest is my free community where we have conversations like this and you don’t have to explain yourself as much.
Want to work together?
I offer gentle, nervous-system-informed support for therapy-experienced and sensitive adults. Learn more about coaching and community offerings at homecoming.mentalnesting.com.
Remember: Messy healing is still healing. You don't have to be done to be enough.
Mental Nesting Podcast: For sensitive adults who've outgrown the hustle
