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
The Y2K Cure: How Your Inner Teenager Can Heal Your Adult Self
What if the version of yourself you're trying to heal isn't broken—she's just forgotten?
In this nostalgic episode, Barbara explores something that's been at the core of her Mental Nesting brand from the beginning: using nostalgia as a healing tool. Specifically, how connecting with your inner teenager—that Y2K, MySpace-era version of yourself—can unlock healing that traditional "adult" self-care never quite reaches.
While writing her ebook "Healing with Nostalgia: Using Your Past to Comfort Your Present," Barbara noticed something profound: she feels most like herself when she creates content that teenage Barbara would love. When she follows what she "should" post, she scatters and loses herself. But when she leans into that early 2000s aesthetic, everything flows naturally.
This isn't just sentimentality—there's actual science behind why nostalgia works as a nervous system regulator. Your teenage years were a time of active identity discovery, when you were trying on who you were, finding your people, discovering what music spoke to you. And accessing those memories now isn't dwelling on the past—it's reconnecting with the version of yourself who knew what you loved before you learned to edit yourself for others.
You'll discover:
- The neuroscience of why nostalgia calms your nervous system
- The difference between inner child work (healing wounds) and inner teenager work (reclaiming joy)
- How artists like Bad Bunny and Young Miko use nostalgia to create collective healing experiences
- The power of cultural nostalgia for reclaiming parts of your identity you downplayed to fit in
- Five practical steps to connect with your inner teenager without getting stuck in the past
- A journaling prompt to access what your 15-year-old self wants you to remember
This is for anyone who's ever felt more authentic scrolling through old photos than doing "proper" self-care, people who've lost touch with what genuinely excites them, and sensitive souls learning that healing isn't just about resolving wounds—it's about reclaiming joy.
Because your inner teenager isn't a phase you outgrew. She's a part of you holding crucial information about who you are when you're not performing for anyone.
Brief mentions of childhood experiences and cultural identity
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
