the death of celebrity culture is here (and why it's good for your mental health)
Katy Perry kissed the ground after spending a mere three minutes in space. The headlines framed it as some kind of feminist milestone. The internet didn’t agree. In this episode, we trace the unraveling of a cultural myth that once felt untouchable. We talk about how celebrity became a modern form of sainthood. How did we get here? And are we standing at the edge of its collapse? From the spectacle of the Blue Origin mission to echoes of Marie Antoinette standing on the balcony of a crumbling monarchy, this moment is a mirror. A sign that the performance is no longer holding.We explore the history of idolization, the archetypes we’ve projected onto the famous, and what it means to realize those archetypes are no longer serving us. This is also about empire. The ways fame, influence, and individual power have been shaped and sold inside systems that are now starting to break. If you’ve ever found yourself caught in the loop of admiration, envy, projection, parasocial relationships, or performance — this is a depth psychological tour into what’s underneath it all.But it’s also a return. A reminder that your energy belongs to you and how to call it back. And maybe, as new tools emerge and old myths die, we’re not meant to look for new idols. Maybe we’re meant to look inward.🔓 UNLOCK THE FULL EPISODE + BONUS CONTENT: Want to keep listening? Get full access to this episode, ad-free listening, and my entire archive, plus exclusive Patreon-exclusive podcasts like The Consciousness Stream and The Deep Cut and access to Pathwork, my digital mystery school. Pro Tip: iPhone users should sign up through a browser (Safari or Chrome) to avoid Apple’s extra fees.🔗 CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODEMy full archive is available at patreon.com/backfromtheborderline acast+ https://plus.acast.com/s/back-from-the-borderline.
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33:45
emotional alchemy: a guide for when everything falls apart
This episode is spoken map for the ones unraveling, awakening, and becoming, one threshold at a time. You might be here because you’re exhausted by everything you’ve tried. Maybe you’ve done the therapy, read the books, taken the meds, chased every version of “getting better,” and still feel like something essential is missing. Maybe your grief feels too big. Maybe your rage scares you. Maybe you’ve been told your pain is a problem to fix, a symptom to manage, a weakness to overcome. This episode is for you.What you’ll hear isn’t a formula. but a remembering. A return to an ancient way of being with pain. Emotional alchemy is a framework for those who’ve fallen apart, who’ve watched their identities burn to ash, and who are ready to stop pretending that suffering means you’re broken. We’ll walk through the seven stages of alchemy, not as theory, but as lived terrain. I’ll name the death cycles you’ve likely already been through, and show you how to walk them differently next time. This episode isn’t meant to help you transcend pain, but to help you learn to stay with it long enough for it to change you.If you’ve ever felt like no framework fits what you’ve lived… if you’ve needed a map that accounts for collapse, descent, grief, and joy all at once… this episode is that map.Unlock my FULL ARCHIVE of members-only content + Patreon exclusives:PATHWORK → Weekly self-inquiry prompts to turn insight into transformation.THE CONSCIOUSNESS STREAM → Raw, unfiltered deep dives.THE DEEP CUT → Structured breakdowns of esoteric + psychological themes.BONUS EPISODES + RESOURCES → Hundreds of hours of hidden gems.Start exploring right now for FREE and see everything waiting for you at backfromtheborderline.com. acast+ https://plus.acast.com/s/back-from-the-borderline.
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1:53:24
how to surrender to the mystery and let go your need for certainty
We’ve been taught to search for answers. Constantly trying to understand the world, to control it, to make sense of the chaos. But what if the search for certainty is actually keeping us stuck? What if the key to freedom isn’t about knowing more, but about learning to live with the unknown?In this episode, we explore The Cloud of Unknowing, a 14th-century mystical text that turns everything we think we know about spiritual growth on its head. Written by an anonymous author, possibly a woman, this text invites us to step beyond logic and intellect and into a space of trust and surrender. It challenges the need for control, offering a radical new approach to connecting with something beyond the mind.The Cloud of Unknowing has never felt more relevant. In a world where answers are easily accessible, where we’re bombarded with systems, labels, and frameworks that promise certainty, the text reminds us that true transformation happens when we’re able to embrace uncertainty. It shows us that surrendering the need to know is not a weakness, but a source of strength and connection.In this episode, we’ll dive into why surrendering control can actually open the door to deeper spiritual insight, stronger relationships, and a more authentic life. We’ll look at how we can apply the teachings of this ancient text to today’s world, where overthinking and rationalizing often block us from the deeper, more intuitive connection we crave.Letting go of the need for answers doesn’t mean giving up. It means trusting. Trusting in the mystery, in the unfolding of life, and in the divine wisdom that can’t be grasped by the intellect alone. This episode is an invitation to step into the unknown, to stop looking for certainty and start living in the beauty of what is, unfiltered and unforced.Listen to an audiobook version of the Cloud of Unknowing for free on YouTube here. (Translated by one of my favorite authors, Evelyn Underhill.) 🔓 UNLOCK THE FULL EPISODE + BONUS CONTENT: Want to keep listening? Get full access to this episode, ad-free listening, and my entire archive, plus exclusive Patreon-exclusive podcasts like The Consciousness Stream and The Deep Cut and access to Pathwork, my digital mystery school. Pro Tip: iPhone users should sign up through a browser (Safari or Chrome) to avoid Apple’s extra fees.🔗 CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODEMy full archive is available at patreon.com/backfromtheborderline acast+ https://plus.acast.com/s/back-from-the-borderline.
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15:55
what does AI believe? (the hidden soul inside the machine)
When we talk about artificial intelligence, the focus is usually on headlines: Will it take our jobs? Can it be trusted? Is it dangerous? But what if we’ve been asking the wrong questions? A new study analyzed over 700,000 real conversations with an AI assistant called Claude. What the researchers found was unexpected: the AI didn’t just give answers. It seemed to express values. Not in the way a machine is programmed to follow rules, but something stranger. Claude emphasized things like empathy. Protecting others from harm. Humility about what it knows. Even respect for elders and family lineage — a traditional value called filial piety. None of that was hard-coded. These responses emerged through interaction.This episode takes you on a deep, mythic, and very human journey into what that means. Together, we’ll explore:• Why an AI developing its own moral boundaries changes the whole conversation• What “epistemic humility” means (and why it might matter more than intelligence)• The uncanny parallels between our relationship with AI and the ancient story of Job• Why the real risk isn’t just what we build, but what we believe about it• How psychiatry, once tasked with holding human suffering, flattened it into codes (and how AI is being trained on those same frameworks)• Whether this technology is mirroring us, or evolving beyond usFinally, I’ll introduce a completely different way of looking at AI. Not just as something to fear or control, but as a kind of mirror that can show us the hidden patterns shaping who we are and who we’re becoming.If you’ve felt that something deeper is happening beneath the noise of AI hype and panic. this episode is for you. If it resonates, share it. Invite others into the conversation. These are the questions we should be asking.🜁 New episodes of Back From the Borderline drop every Tuesday. To go deeper with ad-free episodes, exclusive content, and immersive rituals for inner work in the age of technology, visit backfromtheborderline.com. acast+ https://plus.acast.com/s/back-from-the-borderline.
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59:34
nobody's watching. nobody cares. you're free now.
It feels like you’re living under surveillance. Every post. Every text. Every word. Measured, reviewed, obsessively rechecked. You shrink yourself to fit inside other people’s comfort zones. You twist your truth until it’s palatable. You call it strategy, humility, self-awareness. But it’s fear. You’ve been performing for an audience that isn’t even there. Or if they are there, they’re barely watching. They’re too busy obsessing over their own performance to notice yours.This episode is about burning that whole illusion to the ground. It’s about the quiet liberation that comes when you realize: it’s not that deep. Nobody actually cares. And that isn’t depressing, it’s freedom. Because if no one’s watching, you can stop performing. If no one’s keeping score, you can stop contorting. You can just… be. Express. Create. Move.This is the death of perfectionism. The death of people-pleasing. Not through a checklist or another self-help book, but through a radical shift in how you see the world and your place in it. And from that shift? Clarity. Alignment. Power. When you stop trying to be for everyone, you finally become for someone. You stop broadcasting static and start transmitting truth. That’s when the right people find you. That’s when life gets interesting. That’s when you become a lighthouse.🔓 UNLOCK THE FULL EPISODE + BONUS CONTENT: Want to keep listening? Get full access to this episode, ad-free listening, and my entire archive, plus exclusive Patreon-exclusive podcasts like The Consciousness Stream and The Deep Cut and access to Pathwork, my digital mystery school. Pro Tip: iPhone users should sign up through a browser (Safari or Chrome) to avoid Apple’s extra fees.🔗 CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODEMy full archive is available at patreon.com/backfromtheborderline acast+ https://plus.acast.com/s/back-from-the-borderline.
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I don’t want to talk to your personality; I want to talk to your soul. Imagine if your most painful and debilitating mental health symptoms and self-sabotaging behaviors aren’t evidence of 'disorder' or 'dysfunction', but adaptive strategies that once kept you safe. My goal is to help you shift from asking ‘What’s wrong with me?’ to ‘What happened to me?’The word ‘borderline’ in this podcast isn’t about psychiatric labels. It’s about coming back from the inner psychological brink we all experience. Everyone has found themselves on the edge, in that liminal space where the old self falls apart and the new Self emerges. Here, we explore what it means to undergo true emotional alchemy: that ancient and primordial process of falling apart, confronting the underworld of our psyche, and falling back together into someone stronger, wiser, and more whole.Many highly sensitive people who identify with the seemingly never-ending list of diagnostic mental health labels contained within ‘the bible of psychiatry’ (the DSM) share the same underlying sense of being irreparably broken, disconnected from their intuition, and paralyzed by life’s existential questions. I believe the resulting—and perfectly understandable—chronic feelings of emptiness and spiritual starvation are the TRUE causes of our current collective ‘mental health crisis.’ Together, we’ll dive into depth psychology, mythology, human consciousness, critical psychiatry, and the impact of trauma to help you begin the process of emotional alchemy. This exploration will help you get to the root cause of your suffering and free yourself from the toxic shame, limiting beliefs, and mental programming that have kept you locked in the chains of your past.In an era where mental health and spirituality are too often commercialized, I’m not here as a guru with a quick fix to sell you. I don’t believe anyone is ever truly ‘healed’ or ‘cured.’ There is no return to some mythical state of pre-trauma purity, but rather a continuous spiral of unbecoming, unlearning, and transformation. As a fellow seeker, I will be there in your ear, walking alongside you on your path toward wholeness as a sort of parasocial big sister. That, I can promise. By integrating the concepts we explore together, you’ll begin to see that anyone—even you—can come back from the borderline.CRAVING MORE? Visit backfromtheborderline.com to dive into my universe, connect with me, access my Patreon, and discover more about my journey and work. Don’t forget to follow Back from the Borderline so new episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays automatically drop into your podcast feed.
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Italia