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PODCAST

Emotional Badass

Nikki Eisenhauer

Hosted by psychotherapist Nikki Eisenhauer, M.Ed. LPC, LCDC. This show provides essential emotional education on Mental Health, HSP (Highly Sensitive People), Narcissists & Manipulative personalities, healing from Trauma and PTSD, calming your nervous system, inner child work, and setting healthy boundaries. Emotional Badasses are survivors, thrivers, seekers, and healers! Expand and awaken to your higher purpose, be more present and authentic, find strength in spirituality, quiet the monkey mind of

education self-improvement

All Episodes

43:13

We Need to Talk About Age Gap Friendships

Emotional Badass ·

2026/01/11

Loneliness chips away slowly, not like a crisis you can diagnose with an MRI. Making friends as adults feels impossibly hard because we don't realize childhood forced us together, creating friendships that seemed magical but were really just proximity. Age-gap friendships carry a weird taboo, like something's inherently wrong with befriending people outside your generation, yet these connections offer nutrients your soul desperately needs. I share a personal story about a 20-year-old waitress that

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33:13

Are you operating in the Light or the Dark?

Emotional Badass ·

2026/01/04

Archetypes carry light and shadow attributes that show up in your daily life. The Companion brings loyalty until it betrays confidences or loses identity in codependency. The Samaritan helps people you'd ignore until they're recording good deeds for social media validation. Servants give freely until they're carrying people with functional legs, building resentment. Mentors refine character until they stomp on students who surpass them. The Avenger balances justice until righteousness becomes cancel

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29:46

How to Stop Toxic Relationship Patterns in 2026

Emotional Badass ·

2025/12/28

Why do gut instincts about toxic people get ignored and talked away despite screaming warnings? Highly sensitive people exhaust themselves doing emotional calculus to predict what's happening in everyone else's heads while energy vampires drain them completely. That intelligent narcissist will never get it no matter how many perfect explanations get presented because low empathy means growth and self reflection stay permanently off the table. Playing small and dimming your light becomes automatic

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31:34

The HSP Brain and Holiday Loneliness

Emotional Badass ·

2025/12/21

Loneliness during holidays gets weaponized by shame in highly sensitive people, turning togetherness expectations into daggers stabbing at your worth. That fullness of isolation doesn't mean you're alone - billions are yearning for connection just like you. The dangerous pattern happens when loneliness runs to your head and creates cutting stories: "You must be the only person alone on Christmas." Society has zero positive templates for loners, confusing solitude with dysfunction. The shift requires

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51:42

True Confidence isn't Arrogance

Emotional Badass ·

2025/12/14

Confidence doesn't arrive before you do the thing, it shows up after your feet hit the ground. Nikki and Chris break down how insecurity actually works and why sensitive people often avoid confidence because they're terrified of becoming the arrogant narcissist who hurt them. They reveal the specific moments that built their confidence, from food poisoning disasters to stage fright at 17, and explain why pretending confidence actually creates real confidence over time. Chris shares the Tony Robbins

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23:36

Sleep Meditation: The Winter Bear

Emotional Badass ·

2025/12/07

A cozy guided sleep meditation to help you relax, unwind, and get in touch with your sleepy grizzly side. Perfect for a cold winter night tucked beneath the covers of your warm bed. Resources: PATTERNSCAPES DECK: https://getpatternscapes.com/ WORK WITH NIKKI 1:1: EmotionalBadass.com/coaching 30 Days to Peace Course EmotionalBadass.com/peace THE BI-WEEKLY WELLNESS NEWSLETTER EmotionalBadass.com/newsletter SUPPORT US ON PATREON Patreon.com/emotionalbadass Learn more about your

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28:10

This is What Confidence Looks Like

Emotional Badass ·

2025/11/30

Confidence isn't about being the loudest person in the room, it's about having faith in your own influence and ability. Using The Emotion Thesaurus as a guide, this exploration breaks down exactly what confidence looks like physically (strong posture, wide steps, relaxed muscles) and what it feels like internally (calm breathing, positive outlook, mental ease). Highly sensitive people often get their confidence knocked down by living in a world where 80-85% of people aren't wired like them, leading

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38:51

How to Scare Away Human Predators: PART 2

Emotional Badass ·

2025/11/23

Predators can detect trauma on highly sensitive people, and it on us to learn how to stop broadcasting vulnerability. Our body language, posture, and energy signals either invite predatory behavior or repel it, and you can shift this immediately. The signs are specific: shrinking to appear smaller, avoiding eye contact, over-apologizing, and moving through the world trying to be invisible. These patterns read as "easy target" to manipulators and abusers. The fix starts with practicing boundaries in

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38:45

How to Scare Away Human Predators: PART 1

Emotional Badass ·

2025/11/16

Predators identify trauma survivors in seconds flat just by watching how you walk into a room. A hunched posture, downward eyes, constantly saying "I'm sorry"... This is a neon sign that screams easy target. Fawning and tiptoeing around people's moods tells manipulators exactly what they want to know: you won't fight back. Predators smell that shift in the air and know they can rewrite reality on you. Love bombing feels like the meal you've been starving for your whole life, but it's just

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58:58

Your Social Media Algorithm is Harming your Nervous...

Emotional Badass ·

2025/11/09

Rage bait pulls your strings and your nervous system pays the price. Social media algorithms thrive on making you angry, fearful, and activated because those emotions keep you scrolling longer, but most people can't spot when they're being manipulated. The internet runs on manufactured outrage that tricks your brain into thinking extreme opinions are everywhere when they're actually held by tiny fractions of people. Your caveman survival instincts make you hyper-focus on threats and problems instead

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58:19

What if You're Taught PTSD? How Fences Couldn't...

Emotional Badass ·

2025/11/02

Your brain splits off traumatic memories to protect you, but healing means discovering layers you didn't know were buried. A child taught to watch for kidnapping at school can't feel safe even behind fences while other kids play freely, and recording that memory decades later reveals the mind buried the worst part until feeling safe enough to remember. Real-time inner child work demonstrates how placing your hand on your heart and speaking directly to that frightened part creates the relief you've

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50:23

How to Feel Embodied After Trauma

Emotional Badass ·

2025/10/26

Dissociation isn't a personal failure, it's your mind's brilliant survival strategy when trauma overwhelms your system. The mind and body intentionally separate during abuse, creating distance like a referee stopping a brutal boxing match, but this protective mechanism can persist long after you're safe. You learn what it means when your body won't feel what your mind knows is true, why safer people trigger more alarm bells than dangerous ones, and how trauma flip-flops your natural safety detection

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56:47

Meghan Judge: Living with CPTSD & Misdiagnosis

Emotional Badass ·

2025/10/19

Complex PTSD doesn't show up like a broken arm - nobody opens doors for you when your nervous system is on fire. Meghan Judge shares how losing her sister at age two, then her father at twelve, then her best friend in her twenties created a lifetime of hypervigilance that looked like "something wrong with her" instead of what it actually was: a body that learned too early that people disappear without warning. The conversation gets raw about female friendships turning vicious (women can smile while

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31:13

What Makes the Female Mind Capable of Bullying?

Emotional Badass ·

2025/10/12

The female mind works like an intricate spider web - connecting threads across time, memory, intuition, and care - which makes women's capacity for love extraordinarily powerful, but when twisted into bullying becomes devastatingly cruel. The same mental architecture that creates profound nurturing can transform into covert psychological warfare that reshapes perception with five words or less, magnifies mistakes across decades, and undermines targets while smiling. The stark contrast between male

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61:09

Why Strong Boundaries are your Superpower

Emotional Badass ·

2025/10/05

Boundaries aren't walls to keep people out - they're your foundation for freedom, and most people get this completely wrong. Growing up in chaos teaches your nervous system that disappointing someone equals death, making you a gold medal people pleaser who manages everyone else's emotions while ignoring your own. Traditional boundary advice like "just say no" fails because it treats complex trauma responses like simple choices. Real boundary work starts with internal boundaries - learning to sit

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69:08

We Survived The Challenge Retreat: Why Pushing Limits...

Emotional Badass ·

2025/09/28

Nikki and Chris dive into their transformative experience at Emily Schromm's The Challenge Retreat Season 2, a wellness adventure in California’s stunning Teravana ranch, where they tackle grueling physical challenges and unexpected emotional breakthroughs. Despite personal grief and burnout, they push through steep hill races and puzzles, discovering resilience they didn’t know they had. Nikki’s horse therapy session sparks a vision for future retreats, with possible Donkey's, while Chris confronts

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64:06

Beyond Charlie Kirk's Assassination: Cultivating...

Emotional Badass ·

2025/09/21

Violence like Charlie Kirk’s assassination or the recent Evergreen school shooting hits hard, especially for sensitive souls, but you can shield your nervous system from trauma’s grip. Talk out the details with trusted people to release the tension—your brain’s snapshot isn’t meant to haunt you, it’s trying to keep you safe. Write it out, don’t chase drama’s addictive rush, and refuse to globalize horror into hopelessness. Send prayers or intentions for healing, even for those you disagree with, to

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27:55

Why Stubborn People Are Actually Genius

Emotional Badass ·

2025/09/14

Most empaths and highly sensitive people get labeled as stubborn, but this trait might actually be a superpower. Stubbornness gets reframed from negative to positive, examining how HSPs develop this quality as protection in invalidating environments. Narcissistic parents view stubborn children as threats, creating shame around boundaries and independent thinking. Childhood stubbornness often masks deeper needs like safety that adults miss. Positive stubbornness becomes tenacity, authenticity, and

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55:33

Positive Masculinity: Why Real Men Cry

Emotional Badass ·

2025/09/07

Chris shares the raw reality of losing his father suddenly at 72 and how grief reveals the power of positive masculinity. Traditional masculine norms taught men to suppress emotions and avoid vulnerability, but this episode demonstrates a different path by processing pain rather than bottling it up. The discussion covers how an older generation was conditioned to never seek therapy or discuss problems, leading emotions to emerge sideways. The intense three-day Italian Catholic funeral process is

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54:30

Daddy Issues and Father Figures: What Healthy...

Emotional Badass ·

2025/08/31

The term "daddy issues" points to what happens when you don't get healthy fathering. A good father figure provides grounding and stability - like being the kite string that keeps you tethered while you soar. They teach protection through boundaries, not control, and help you learn the difference between genuine care and manipulation. Healthy fathers mirror back your strength and identity, offer direction without forcing their views, and model accountability by showing that strength and vulnerability

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422 results

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