On this week's Braving the Waves, Mikaela Brewer reads a poem that explores how to create a safe space in your mind—a place only for you.

It also discusses how difficult this can be among so many other thoughts, distractions, and constant content consumption. The poem in the episode is a sestina, which includes a repetitive echo by using the same six end words in different combinations and orders. Our thoughts also create echoes/repetition, so this episode can help us reclaim and create a healthy echo chamber in our minds. The poem allows us to unpack society’s sometimes invasive definition of safety and potentially brainstorm a new one.

Here's an excerpt of the poem (the full written & visually formatted versions can now be found & read at mikbrew.substack.com!):

Where can we be safe when ceilings & walls won’t share? Those in our own brain—not the boundaries of shelter but the exponentially spreading Rubik's cube boxes— apartments plugged with everything but joy. Could we keep just one free? For love? Listen to this week's episode to hear the full poem! If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves.

Disclaimer: This Podcast and all of our mental health learning and educational content is not therapy and is not a replacement for therapy. Noah and Simon do not take this therapist-client role in any way for Resolvve.

Please seek professional help if needed. Go to www.resolvve.ca to get the support you need.

Follow us on Instagram (@resolvvementalhealth), TikTok (@Resolvve), and Youtube (@resolvvementalhealth).

This week's podcast discusses therapist confidentiality and the extreme cases in which a therapist is legally obligated to break confidentiality. We also discuss how therapists navigate suicidal ideation, and whether these thoughts are also reported.

Disclaimer: This Podcast and all of our mental health learning and educational content is not therapy and is not a replacement for therapy. Noah and Simon do not take this therapist-client role in any way for Resolvve.

Please seek professional help if needed. Go to www.resolvve.ca to get the support you need.

Follow us on Instagram (@resolvvementalhealth), TikTok (@Resolvve), and Youtube (@resolvvementalhealth).

This week on Braving the Waves, Mikaela reads a poem about a long, brimming conversation between strangers on a long flight.

Near the end of the exchange, someone speaks the phrase, “stay with us,” which, out of context, can be interpreted many ways. In most, it’s an offer of comfort and hospitality, such as, “stay with us when/if you visit, stay at our hotel, or stay the night when there’s is a storm that makes driving dangerous. But in this episode, the poem’s narrator unwinds the words a bit further. As someone struggling with suicidal thoughts, they wonder if the extension of “stay with us” is an offering of safety—what’s requested is not only to stay, but to stay with us.

Here's an excerpt of the poem (the full written & visually formatted versions can now be found & read at mikbrew.substack.com!):

and so I gathered, if anything, that they’d heard, seen, felt, or breathed,

something in my voice or speech or careful anecdotes breaking, which made them repeat:

stay with us

(please don’t leave this world yet)

Listen to this week's episode to hear the full poem! If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves.

Disclaimer: This Podcast and all of our mental health learning and educational content is not therapy and is not a replacement for therapy. Noah and Simon do not take this therapist-client role in any way for Resolvve.

Please seek professional help if needed. Go to www.resolvve.ca to get the support you need.

Follow us on Instagram (@resolvvementalhealth), TikTok (@Resolvve), and Youtube (@resolvvementalhealth).

In this week's blog post, we wrote about the mental health meds that might make it harder for you to tolerate hot weather.

Disclaimer: This Podcast and all of our mental health learning and educational content is not therapy and is not a replacement for therapy. Noah and Simon do not take this therapist-client role in any way for Resolvve.

Please seek professional help if needed. Go to www.resolvve.ca to get the support you need.

Follow us on Instagram (@resolvvementalhealth), TikTok (@Resolvve), and Youtube (@resolvvementalhealth).

Mikaela's poem this week brings us alongside someone going for a walk after a harmful argument. As they process, they find themselves questioning the balance between necessary solitude and approaching apology with vulnerability and openness.

There is something to be said for needing alone time and space after a disagreement, especially in reaching the conclusion that we’re the ones who need to apologize, but there is also vitality in re-entering a space with someone heart-first or spirit-first post-argument, even if you don’t have perfectly rehearsed words. Words do matter. Harm matters. Intent does matter (though not to gaslight harm). Love—how we balance these in space and community with others—needs imperfect willingness and courage, keeping in mind that imperfect is not synonymous with flawed, damaged, or defective.

Here's an excerpt of the poem (the full written & visually formatted versions can now be found & read at mikbrew.substack.com!):

& I know that if I hug my body into a curly coil where I can only see myself, I might find solitude but also dark stillness.

If I open my chest & unfurl, I will see light in daring to cross the sidewalk bridge, moving from stillness to slowness.

Listen to this week's episode to hear the full poem! If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves.

Disclaimer: This Podcast and all of our mental health learning and educational content is not therapy and is not a replacement for therapy. Noah and Simon do not take this therapist-client role in any way for Resolvve.

Please seek professional help if needed. Go to www.resolvve.ca to get the support you need.

Follow us on Instagram (@resolvvementalhealth), TikTok (@Resolvve), and Youtube (@resolvvementalhealth).

Mikaela Brewer’s poem and episode this week are a bit of a mantra/reminder to carry in your pocket, especially as things feel heavy. The month of June is celebratory in many ways, including Pride, Juneteenth, Indigenous History Month, and Men’s Mental Health Month, among many more. And we know it’s important for joy and advocacy to coexist, especially in our student communities.

With this, comes many emotions, and right now, to put it in the simplest terms: things are hard for all of us, and in many ways, feel like they won’t ever change. This poem doesn’t say “It’s going to be okay” but my hope is that it offers you hope, and a new way to imagine/dream—our most powerful skill.

Here's an excerpt of the poem (the full written & visually formatted versions can now be found & read at mikbrew.substack.com!):

Don’t let anyone tell you that imagining & dreaming is only for children— these are perhaps most powerful when we remember how to wield them as young adults.

The greatest gift you can receive or bestow (upon anyone or anything) is to be believed in.

Listen to this week's episode to hear the full poem! If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves.

Disclaimer: This Podcast and all of our mental health learning and educational content is not therapy and is not a replacement for therapy. Noah and Simon do not take this therapist-client role in any way for Resolvve.

Please seek professional help if needed. Go to www.resolvve.ca to get the support you need.

Follow us on Instagram (@resolvvementalhealth), TikTok (@Resolvve), and Youtube (@resolvvementalhealth).

This week's blog introduces the concept of neurodiversity.

Disclaimer: This Podcast and all of our mental health learning and educational content is not therapy and is not a replacement for therapy. Noah and Simon do not take this therapist-client role in any way for Resolvve.

Please seek professional help if needed. Go to www.resolvve.ca to get the support you need.

Follow us on Instagram (@resolvvementalhealth), TikTok (@Resolvve), and Youtube (@resolvvementalhealth).

This week’s Braving the Waves poem and episode explore the feelings associated with reconnecting with a mentor, friend, coach, teacher, or anyone who offered guidance to you as a kid or teenager.

The poem takes place after lost contact and many years have passed between these two people, which I think happens more often than we admit. This episode conveys what it means to reach out again (if appropriate and safe, of course), and specifically that remembering doesn’t just mean “not forgetting”—it means saying “thank you” wherever and however we can.

Here's an excerpt of the poem (the full written & visually formatted versions can now be found & read at mikbrew.substack.com!):

What does it mean to remember someone? Not someone who’s passed away, but someone we haven’t spoken to in years who was once a reason we survived? Of course, it means to not forget them, which is to say ‘thank you’ fiercely. Listen to this week's episode to hear the full poem! If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves.

Disclaimer: This Podcast and all of our mental health learning and educational content is not therapy and is not a replacement for therapy. Noah and Simon do not take this therapist-client role in any way for Resolvve.

Please seek professional help if needed. Go to www.resolvve.ca to get the support you need.

Follow us on Instagram (@resolvvementalhealth), TikTok (@Resolvve), and Youtube (@resolvvementalhealth).