When big feelings are a huge feature of your life, how do you understand the people in your life who experience their emotions in different ways? And how might we communicate better so they can understand the weird emotional ways we operate?

We chat about:

• Needing responsible role models of people who feel big feelings
• Questions to ask the non-neurotics in your life when you’re tearing your hair out wondering what’s going on for them
• The illusion of empathy and how making assumptions about other people’s emotional states can be a slippery slope
• Our desperation for resolution, and learning to sit with uncertainty

Show notes:

We love hearing from you! We’re active on Instagram @ashking & @daronlarson (find us, DM us!)

Be part of the conversation via our Instagram Channel here:

https://www.instagram.com/channel/AbaBFH6hH-ALvmgB/?igsh=cHQwcDIwOWRidTZv

You can also find us on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter?X and TikTok

Or reach us via email: ash@ashking.com.au & daron@daronlarson.com

Subscribe to Daron’s Substack: https://daronlarson.substack.com/

Check out Ash’s shop (with mental health and mindfulness goodies. Heavy Mental merch and any upcoming courses or workshops): https://www.heavymental.com.au/shop

Music by @nikitakarmen

Being emotional is often synonymous with instability, drama and difficulty. How might we create a new narrative for emotionality that doesn't leave us branded as walking disasters?

Coming up, we dive into:

• Ash’s mindfulness spa experiment and how marathon training is like a meditation retreat
• People’s discomfort with your discomfort and the agony of being reminded “You Got This”
• Becoming emotionally bilingual with a partner whose love language involves spreadsheets
• Taking responsibility for our big feelings and exploring the quest to become more emotionally elegant

Show notes:

We love hearing from you! We’re active on Instagram @ashking & @daronlarson (find us, DM us!)

Be part of the conversation via our Instagram Channel here:

https://www.instagram.com/channel/AbaBFH6hH-ALvmgB/?igsh=cHQwcDIwOWRidTZv

You can also find us on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter?X and TikTok

Or reach us via email: ash@ashking.com.au & daron@daronlarson.com

Subscribe to Daron’s Substack: https://daronlarson.substack.com/

Check out Ash’s shop (with mental health and mindfulness goodies. Heavy Mental merch and any upcoming courses or workshops): https://www.heavymental.com.au/shop

Music by @nikitakarmen

We're often encouraged to "feel our feelings" as a route to healing and greater self-awareness, but what does it even mean? And exactly how does one go about it?

This episode explores:

• The difference between feelings and emotions
• How to tease apart physical vs emotional sensations
• Why sense-making gets in the way of us feeling feelings in our bodies
• Ash's dating life, and how it feels - literally
• And we leave you with a mini-challenge to try out in your own life, to work at becoming a better emotional connoisseur

Show notes:

“You Aren’t at the Mercy of Your Feelings—Your Brain Creates Them,” TED Talk by Lisa Feldman Barrett

“Mapping Emotions On The Body: Love Makes Us Warm All Over,” Michaeleen Doucleff, Dec. 30, 2013

100 Days of Rejection Therapy from Jia Jiang

Misattribution of Fear for Arousal (the scary bridge study), Dutton & Aron (1974) chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://sanlab.psych.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/31/2016/03/Dutton-Aron-1974-arousal.pdf

Follow along with Daron's guided exercise, Emotional Meteorology: https://daronlarson.substack.com/p/emotional-meteorology

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Follow Ash & Daron on IG: @ashking @daronlarson

Music by @nikitakarmen

Why are we drawn to sharing our inner worlds, and is it more urgent and more complicated when you're neurotic?

This episode explores:

• The urge to take our private journaling public
• The personality types that have an easier time keeping it real
• The benefits of spilling your guts online
• If living mindfully is incongruent with doing it “for the plot”?
• Performance anxiety - but the role is ‘acting human’
• And we leave you with three key things to consider before sharing your inner world elsewhere

Show notes:

What Do I Know?: Essential Essays by Montaigne: https://www.amazon.com.au/What-Do-Know-Essential-Essays/dp/1782278818

Ash’s Thesis: https://hdl.handle.net/2123/32466

The appeal of “real” in parasocial interaction: The effect of self-disclosure on message acceptance via perceived authenticity and liking by Hye Soo Nah: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0747563222001522

'I was ashamed of myself when I realised life was a costume party and I attended with my real face' - Franz Kafka

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Follow Ash & Daron on IG: @ashking @daronlarson

Music by @nikitakarmen

This is Interfering Neurotic with me, Dr Ash King, and mindfulness coach, Daron Larson - where we navigate a life lived with the curses and blessings of big feelings.

Coming up, we explore:

• The reality show that is US politics and how we feel about it
• The Big 5 Personality Test and what ingredients make for a neurotic individual
• Art and creativity as a safe space for the emotional experience
• The benefits of being more objective to our subjective experiences
• And the pro’s and con’s of sharing our feelings and struggles with the wider world

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Show notes:

Educated - Tara Westover [Book]

How 'Poor Things' actor Emma Stone turns her anxiety into a 'superpower' [Interview with Terry Gross] https://www.npr.org/2024/03/08/1236564681/how-poor-things-actor-emma-stone-turns-her-anxiety-into-a-superpower

The Big 5 Personality Assessment https://www.idrlabs.com/big-five-subscales/test.php

Is neuroticism really bad for you? Dynamics in personality and limbic reactivity prior to, during and following real-life combat stress [Journal Article] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352289521000692

Follow Ash & Daron on IG: @ashking @daronlarson

Music by @nikitakarmen

Welcome to our first ep of Interfering Neurotic with Dr Ash King, and Daron Larson - where we navigate a life lived with the curses and blessings of big feelings. Together, we explore why we think, feel and act the ways we do (sometimes against our better judgement) and the deranged pursuits we embark upon to find ourselves, fix ourselves and keep fooling ourselves.

In Episode 1, we tackle:

• What to do when break ups leave us devolved to wet slimy slug-form
• Recommendations for meditations and movies
• What it means to be neurotic and the first moments in our lives we thought we might be
• The nature of endurance and resilience in a world full of unknowns.

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Show notes:

Daron’s TEDTalk: https://youtu.be/Ze6t34_p-84?si=dTLDEQJ_g0Xddt0p

The Wonder (2022) Sebastián Lelio: https://boxd.it/v3uY

Loving Kindness With Self-Compassion. Kristin Neff https://insig.ht/r7J9wfOY4Nb

Friendliness Resistance Training. Daron Larson https://insig.ht/MoSjSRHY4Nb

The Big 5 Personality Assessment: https://www.idrlabs.com/big-five-subscales/test.php

“I can’t go on, I’ll go on” - Samuel Beckett

Follow Ash & Daron on IG: @ashking @daronlarson

Music by @nikitakarmen