Project I Am

There is a particular kind of loneliness that has nothing to do with being alone. You can be loved, married, surrounded, texted-back-within-the-hour, and still feel that no one in the room is meeting the real you. Just the version you sent ahead. The easy one. The capable one. The one who's fine.For a lot of us, that gap wasn't an accident. We built it. Because somewhere along the way, being seen stopped feeling safe. In this episode, Dr. David Schlosz explores the need to be seen: why it's biology rather than neediness, why we run from it even as we ache for it, and what happens in the body when someone finally stays long enough to witness us and doesn't look away. As he says, "We were made for the dance."Three lenses: your inner life, the therapy room, and the one who does the seeing. The episode ends with a short guided practice. You are not broken. You were adapting. Come as you are.

Most of us move through life solving, fixing, performing, and managing.We answer emails. We check boxes. We handle problems. We get things done.But somewhere along the way… we forget how to truly meet each other.In this reflective and deeply human episode of the Project I AM Podcast, David explores the work of philosopher Martin Buber and his timeless idea from I and Thou: that there are two ways of relating in the world.I–It: where people become roles, problems, or tasks to manage. I–Thou: where we slow down and encounter each other as whole, sacred human beings.This is an invitation to slow down. To soften. To listen differently. And to remember that healing often happens not because we said the perfect thing… but because we stayed.Come sit for a while.Because sometimes the most powerful words we can offer another person are simply:I’m here.

The inner critic often disguises itself as responsibility and “honesty,” but it runs on threat. This episode helps you spot the disguise, understand what the critic is protecting you from, and practice nonviolent truth — the kind that leads to change without humiliation.In this episode:How to tell the difference between wisdom and threatWhy urgency + contempt are big “tells”A simple real-time practice: name it, locate it, ask what it’s protectingThe CFT “three systems” frame (threat, drive, soothing)Why self-compassion is not indulgence, it’s a different nervous-system strategy

In this episode of the Project I Am Podcast, David invites you into a compassionate conversation about the stories you tell yourself, especially the ones shaped by shame. Together, you’ll explore the difference between what happened to you and what you made it mean about you, and how those old meanings can quietly run your life in the present.David normalizes the deeply human experience of carrying harsh internal narratives like “I’m too much,” “I’m not enough,” or “I’m the problem,” and helps you trace where those stories came from (families, culture, relationships, faith communities) and how they once functioned as survival strategies. With humor, warmth, and shared humanity, he offers a new way to see your shame story: not as proof that you’re broken, but as a script you’re finally allowed to rewrite.By the end, you’ll feel less alone, more understood, and more empowered to say:“My old story made sense once… but it is not the whole truth of who I am. I’m allowed to write something new.”

In this episode, we name a kind of grief that rarely gets spoken aloud: not grief for what happened, but for what couldn’t happen. The unlived life. The version of you that never got to thrive. The dreams that never had safe ground. The tenderness that had to go quiet just to survive. This is grief without ritual and often without witnesses—yet it shapes how we carry ourselves, love others, and imagine our future. Together, we slow down enough to honor what was missing, to tell the truth about what was lost, and to soften the shame that can form around invisible sorrow. And in the naming, something gentle opens: not a way to “move on,” but a way to make room for what is still possible. If you’ve ever felt an ache you couldn’t explain, this episode is for you—an hour of quiet companionship, remembrance, and hope.