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Episode 1: Why Am I Like This? (And Why It Actually Makes Sense)
- Jun 3
- 10 min read
Updated: 10 hours ago
Why Am I Like This? Understanding How Your Nervous System Shapes Your Life
Welcome to episode 1 of The Truth About Healing Podcast.
In this episode, we explore one of the most common questions people ask themselves: Why Am I Like This?
We discuss how trauma, life experiences, relationships, and nervous system patterns influence the way we think, feel, react, and connect with others. Dana shares the foundation of her work as an EMDR therapist and nervous system educator, helping listeners understand why many of the behaviors they struggle with are not signs of weakness or brokenness, but adaptations developed through experience.
Whether you're a therapist, helping professional, or someone navigating your own healing journey, this conversation is designed to provide education, encouragement, and real-world perspective.
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Episode Highlights
In This Episode
Why the question "Why Am I Like This?" often has a nervous system answer
How your experiences shape the way you think, feel, and respond
Why anxiety, burnout, people-pleasing, and relationship patterns make sense
How understanding your nervous system can reduce shame and increase self-compassion
What EMDR therapy teaches us about healing and unresolved experiences
Why symptoms are often solutions your nervous system created to keep you safe
Memorable Quote
"Your symptoms are not random. They're a solution. They're a strategy."
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Further Learning & Resources
Discover journals, workbooks, consultation resources, and recommended tools designed to support both personal healing and professional growth.
EMDR Therapy Progress Journal
The EMDR Therapy Progress Journal helps clients track healing progress, identify patterns, document insights, and stay connected to their therapeutic journey between sessions.
Perfect for:
EMDR clients
Trauma recovery work
Reflection between sessions
Tracking healing milestones
EMDR Coach Treatment Planning Workbook
Designed specifically for EMDR therapists, this workbook helps simplify case conceptualization, target sequencing, and treatment planning.
Ideal for:
EMDR-trained clinicians
EMDR consultation groups
Organizing complex cases
Strengthening treatment planning skills
Meet Dana Carretta-Stein, LMHC
Dana Carretta-Stein is an LMHC, EMDRIA Approved Consultant, founder of The EMDR Coach, and founder of Peaceful Living Mental Health Counseling (PLMHC).
Her work focuses on trauma, nervous system healing, EMDR therapy, and helping both clients and clinicians better understand the connection between experiences, emotional patterns, and the body.
Dana is known for blending neuroscience, trauma-informed education, and direct honesty in a way that feels both validating and deeply practical.
Her core belief is simple: When people understand why their nervous system reacts the way it does, healing becomes less confusing and far more possible.
Trauma-Informed Therapy Support Through PLMHC
At Peaceful Living Mental Health Counseling, Dana and her team provide trauma-informed therapy for children, teens, and adults.
Services include support for:
Anxiety
Trauma
Burnout
Relationship struggles
Nervous system dysregulation
EMDR therapy
Life transitions
PLMHC offers in-person therapy in Scarsdale and virtual therapy throughout New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Colorado and Florida.
If you’ve been looking for trauma-informed therapy in Westchester or EMDR therapy in Scarsdale, support is available.
Book a discovery call with our team to get matched with the right therapists.
Full Episode Transcript
Welcome to The Truth About Healing
Here we are everybody. Episode one of The Truth About Healing Podcast.
For anyone who knows me, I'm Dana Carretta-Stein, and I am an EMDR, neuro-informed therapist. I am a complete nerd when it comes to the nervous system and understanding how our experiences shape our brains, our bodies, and the way we move through the world.
So why are we here?
Why are we doing this podcast?
A few months ago, I started doing some podcast appearances with Claudio and some of the other hosts he works with. As we talked more, he kept encouraging me to start my own show.
And honestly?
My response was, "No."
I thought it felt weird. I wasn't sure anyone would want to listen to me.
But Claudio kept pushing me to think about it.
He told me I had a message worth sharing and that people connected with the way I explain things.
And that meant a lot.
Why This Podcast Exists
At the end of the day, I became a therapist because I wanted to help people.
Most therapists say that.
And while there are always layers underneath why we choose this profession, what has become increasingly clear to me over the years is that once you see patterns clearly, it almost feels wrong not to share what you know.
Sometimes I sit with someone and can clearly see the connection between what they're experiencing now and what they've lived through before.
I can see the dots.
And often they can't.
That is exactly what we're going to do on this podcast.
We're going to connect those dots.
We're going to answer the questions that so many people ask themselves every day:
Why am I like this?
Why do I keep repeating the same patterns?
Why do I understand something logically but still react emotionally in ways I wish I didn't?
Why do I keep ending up in the same kinds of relationships?
Why does my body react even when my mind knows better?
These are the conversations we're going to have together.
Understanding the Bigger Picture
We're going to talk with experts.
We're going to discuss the science.
We're going to explore trauma, healing, relationships, attachment, burnout, anxiety, and nervous system regulation.
And yes, we're going to nerd out a little.
Because understanding the science behind healing can be incredibly empowering.
At my core, I am fascinated by people.
I'm fascinated by the human nervous system and how experiences shape the way we think, feel, behave, and connect.
Over the years, I've worked with thousands of people asking essentially the same questions:
Why do I feel this way?
What can I do about it?
Why do I keep repeating these patterns?
Why do I know something intellectually but still struggle emotionally?
And what I've learned over and over again is this:
Most people are not broken.
They're operating on a nervous system that adapted to their life experiences.
When you understand that, healing begins to make a lot more sense.
What You Can Expect From This Podcast
One thing you can absolutely expect from me is honesty.
There is a tremendous amount of information online about healing, mental health, trauma, and wellness.
Some of it is helpful.
Some of it is not.
A lot of it is oversimplified.
There are quick fixes, viral healing tips, and catchy advice that sounds good but completely ignores how the nervous system actually works.
My goal is to cut through that.
I want to get to the point.
I want to talk about the things many people are already thinking but that few people are willing to say out loud.
So we're going to have those conversations.
You can also expect education that actually makes sense.
I love taking complicated concepts and translating them into language that feels practical and relatable.
We're going to talk about trauma, which is a word that gets thrown around constantly.
We're going to talk about what trauma actually means.
We're going to talk about nervous system regulation, attachment patterns, anxiety, burnout, and generational trauma.
These are topics I'm incredibly passionate about.
And we're going to discuss them in plain language, not clinical jargon.
My hope is that every episode leaves you thinking:
"Oh. That actually makes sense now."
Because so many people already have pieces of the puzzle.
They know therapy language.
They know coping skills.
They've developed self-awareness.
But nobody has helped them see how all of those pieces fit together within the nervous system.
That's the conversation we're having here.
Why Your Symptoms Are Not Random
One of the most important things I want people to understand is this:
Your symptoms are not random.
Your symptoms are solutions.
They are strategies.
Your anxiety is not random.
Your shutdown response is not random.
Your relationship patterns are not random.
Your people-pleasing is not random.
These are all responses from a nervous system that learned, at one point in your life, that these responses were necessary for survival.
Your nervous system is constantly asking one question:
Am I safe?
Every experience you've ever had helps shape the answer.
Your childhood environment.
Your relationships.
Family dynamics.
Stress.
Trauma.
All of these experiences teach your nervous system how to interpret the world around you. And many of the reactions people criticize themselves for today were once brilliant survival strategies.
They helped you get through difficult situations.
When people begin understanding that, something shifts.
Shame starts to decrease.
Clarity starts to increase.
And healing begins making a lot more sense.
How EMDR Therapy Helps the Nervous System Heal
So how did I end up doing this work?
I'm a therapist by training, and I specialize in trauma therapy.
One of the primary approaches I use is called EMDR therapy, which stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing.
That sounds incredibly technical, but the basic idea is actually pretty simple.
When something happens in our lives, our nervous system doesn't always have the ability to fully process the experience in the moment.
I often describe it like a funnel.
If too much enters the funnel at once, it gets jammed.
The experience can't move through the system the way it's supposed to.
When that happens, emotions, sensations, beliefs, and memories can remain stuck in their raw form.
The brain never fully gets the opportunity to digest and organize the experience.
As a result, that experience can continue influencing how we think, feel, and react long after the original event is over.
EMDR helps the brain reprocess those experiences so they stop triggering the same emotional and physiological reactions in the present.
Looking Beyond Symptoms
Something interesting happens when you work with people long enough.
You start seeing patterns.
You see how trauma shows up in relationships.
You see how childhood environments influence adult reactions.
You see how anxiety, burnout, and people-pleasing often develop because the nervous system is trying to protect someone.
Over time, I became less interested in simply treating symptoms and more interested in helping people understand the system underneath those symptoms.
Because when people understand their nervous system, their reactions stop feeling mysterious.
They begin making sense.
I've noticed throughout my work that insight alone isn't the entire healing process.
But people become much more willing to do the deeper work when they understand why they're struggling in the first place.
Understanding creates a foundation for change.
The Nervous System Shapes More Than You Think
One of the major themes we'll continue exploring on this podcast is how experiences shape our mental, emotional, and physical health.
Because the nervous system doesn't separate those things.
It's constantly influencing how you interpret situations.
If you've followed me for a while, you've probably heard me say:
Story follows state.
The state of your nervous system influences how you perceive the world around you.
It affects how your body reacts to stress.
It affects how you connect with other people.
It affects whether you feel safe or unsafe.
If you're operating in a dysregulated fight-or-flight state, you're not in a state of connection.
You're in a state of protection.
And when you're in protection mode, it becomes easier to reinforce narratives that may not actually be true.
Our experiences don't just affect memories.
They affect biology.
They affect emotional responses.
They affect relationships.
They affect physical health.
When people talk about the mind-body connection, this isn't just a feel-good concept.
The science supports it.
Research continues to show how experiences shape the way our bodies function and how stress, trauma, and relationships influence health outcomes.
When you understand that, healing starts making more sense.
From "What's Wrong With Me?" to "What Happened to Me?"
One of the most powerful shifts people make during healing is changing the question they're asking.
Instead of asking:
What's wrong with me?
They begin asking:
What happened to me?
And even deeper:
Why did my nervous system learn to react this way?
That question opens the door to understanding.
It opens the door to compassion.
And most importantly, it opens the door to change.
This is one of the reasons I believe understanding the nervous system is so important.
When we understand why we're reacting the way we are, we stop viewing ourselves as broken.
We start seeing ourselves as human beings whose nervous systems adapted to experiences.
That perspective changes everything.
Healing Is Simpler Than We Think
At its core, this podcast is about helping people understand how the nervous system works.
It's about helping people make sense of the patterns that often feel confusing.
Healing is often much simpler than people think.
As human beings, we tend to overcomplicate it.
If you've ever felt like you're working incredibly hard to heal but still feel like something is missing, you're in the right place.
The missing piece is often understanding.
Understanding your nervous system.
Understanding your patterns.
Understanding how your experiences shaped the way you navigate the world.
That is the journey we're taking together.
What We're Exploring in Future Episodes
In upcoming episodes, we're going to dive deeper into:
Anxiety and survival mode
Burnout and chronic stress
Attachment and relationships
Generational trauma and inherited patterns
Nervous system regulation
Healing strategies that actually make sense
One of my favorite topics is generational patterns.
When you begin zooming out and looking at the generations that came before you, incredible patterns start to emerge.
You begin understanding that many of the things you're carrying didn't start with you.
The nervous system plays a huge role in all of it.
We're also going to focus on practical applications.
Real advice.
Real education.
Real conversations.
Not just theories.
Not just trendy social media soundbites.
But meaningful discussions about how healing actually works.
Truth Bombs and Truth or Bullshit
We're also planning some fun segments along the way.
One of those is something we're calling Truth or Bullshit.
If you know me, you know I have opinions.
And sometimes my mouth gets me into trouble.
But we're going to have conversations where people send in questions, myths, and common pieces of advice they've heard.
Together we'll sort through what's accurate, what's misunderstood, and what's complete nonsense.
Because learning doesn't always have to be serious.
Sometimes the best way to understand healing is to laugh a little while doing it.
Closing Thoughts
I am incredibly grateful that you're here for Episode One.
You are our day-one listeners.
Our ride-or-dies.
And I genuinely appreciate you spending your time with us.
I'm excited to continue these conversations.
I'm excited to help connect the dots.
And I'm excited to build a community where healing, nervous systems, trauma, and growth can be discussed honestly and openly.
Thank you for joining me.
And I'll see you in the next episode of The Truth About Healing Podcast.
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