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
Transitions and the Curse of Incompleteness
What if the reason transitions feel so uncomfortable isn't because they're hard, but because we've been taught we're only allowed to feel settled once we reach some imaginary finish line?
In this vulnerable episode, Barbara shares her ongoing struggle with an unfinished move and the realization that she won't feel "at home" until every single box is unpacked and every task is complete. After pushing through exhaustion to clean for her father's visit, then staying up until 11pm cleaning again with her partner, she discovered a pattern that goes much deeper than organization.
If you've ever felt like you're living in limbo, waiting for the next thing to be finished before you can actually rest, this episode will help you see the "curse of incompleteness" for what it really is.
You'll explore:
- Why we tie our worth to completion and what that costs us
- How physical spaces mirror our internal states during transitions
- The myth that healing has a clear endpoint you can reach
- Why your body's signals matter more than your mental timeline
- How to create "home" in the middle of ongoing change
This is for anyone who's ever said "once this is done, then I can rest" and found themselves constantly moving the goalpost. Because maybe the real curse isn't incompleteness—maybe it's believing you have to be complete to deserve peace.
Perfect for people in the middle of life transitions, recovering perfectionists, and anyone learning that rest isn't something you earn through finishing everything.
Brief mentions of family dynamics and physical exhaustion
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
