In Your Right Mind

with Monique Rhodes

A Bite-Sized Podcast Packed with Inspiration and Wisdom

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Emotions, Grief, Relationships Friendships and Community

The Hidden Cost of Being “The Strong One” in Your Family

If you are the person everyone calls when they’re falling apart — who do you call?

This episode is for the strong ones.

You know who you are. You’re the eldest daughter, the friend everyone leans on, the person who keeps the family together, the one who organised the funeral. And you’ve been wearing that role so long you might not even realise it’s a costume.

In this conversation, I want to talk about the hidden cost of being the strong one. The way it gets handed to you so early you don’t remember putting it on. The slow, quiet loneliness of always being the giver and never quite knowing how to receive. And the strange panic that can rise up when someone genuinely asks how you are — because you’ve been so fluent in everyone else’s pain you’ve lost the language for your own.

I share a story about my friend who organised her father’s funeral and then spent months crying in supermarket car parks. I share my own honest experience of trying to put the costume down. And I offer one small, slightly terrifying invitation: tell one safe person you’re not okay. Just one. One crack in the door is enough.

You are allowed to fall apart. You are allowed to need things. You are allowed to be held.

Emotions, Stress and Anxiety, The Mind

You’re Not Lazy. You’re Emotionally Depleted.

If you’ve been calling yourself lazy lately, this episode is going to gently change something for you.

We’ve been taught to read exhaustion as a character flaw. Can’t get off the couch? Lazy. Can’t reply to the message? Lazy. Skipping the workout? Lazy. But what most of us call laziness is actually emotional depletion. They are not the same thing, and treating one like the other is making people sicker.

In this episode, Monique walks through the difference between lazy (“I don’t want to”) and depleted (“I literally cannot”), the way emotional debt accumulates without us noticing, and what to do when your body is sending you a signal that your mind keeps trying to override.

If you’ve been waking up tired, snapping at people you love, or staring at a task you “should” be doing and feeling absolutely nothing — this conversation is for you. You’re not broken. You’re depleted. And those are two very different roads.

Habits, Self Mastery, Stress and Anxiety

Why Your Morning Routine Is Making You More Anxious

If you wake up and immediately start running through a 12-step morning routine — cold plunge, journal, gratitude list, supplements, workout — and somehow still feel anxious before you’ve even made coffee, this episode is for you.

I’m a meditation teacher and I’ll tell you something honestly: there are still mornings I wake up anxious before my feet hit the floor. After decades of practice. So if that’s you too — if you’ve worked at a morning routine and you’re still waking up tense — please hear that you’re not failing. Something else is going on.

In this episode, I unpack why so many of us are quietly performing wellness instead of actually feeling well. The 5 AM club. The perfect morning routine. The optimisation stack. None of it is making us calmer. In a lot of cases it’s making us more anxious, more self-critical, and more disconnected from what our bodies actually need.

I’ll share my own honest morning — the dog, the kettle, the small thing I’ve settled into after years of trying everything. The one question I ask myself before the day starts running me. And what a real, embodied morning practice can look like (it’s much smaller than you’ve been told).

If you’ve been feeling exhausted by your own self-improvement, take this as your permission to do less.

Habits, Relationships Friendships and Community, The Mind

Why Your Phone Is Quietly Stealing Your Happiness

MIT researcher Sherry Turkle found that just placing a silenced phone face down on a table between two people reduces the depth of their conversation and their empathy for each other. In this episode, Monique explores what our phones are actually doing to our happiness baseline, why we reach for them so compulsively, and shares real stories of people who made small changes to their phone habits and saw their relationships and their wellbeing transform.

Emotions, Self Mastery, The Mind

Why “Think Positive” Is the Worst Advice You’ve Ever Been Given

“Think positive” is the most common advice in self-help. It’s also one of the most damaging. In this episode, Monique breaks down the science of why forcing positivity actually makes things worse, what toxic positivity really does to us, and what to do instead. Drawing on her own journey and decades of happiness research, this is the conversation you wish someone had had with you years ago.

Emotions, Relationships Friendships and Community, The Mind

Everyone Says Get Out More. Here’s Why That Won’t Fix Your Loneliness.

The Surgeon General declared loneliness a public health epidemic. But the advice we keep hearing — “get out more, join a club, be more social” — isn’t working. In this episode, Monique explores the crucial difference between isolation and solitude, why introverts experience loneliness differently, and why you don’t need more friends. You need deeper ones.

Emotions, Self Mastery, The Mind

How to Stop Taking Everything Personally

I was mid-song, spotlight on me, when Chuck Berry waved me off the stage — and in two seconds flat, my brain went straight to: it’s me, I’m not good enough. In this episode, I share what that moment taught me about why we take things personally and why it has absolutely nothing to do with weakness. I walk you through three practical tools to help you stop letting other people’s storms become your story.

Emotions, Self Mastery, The Mind

What Your Emotions Are Really Trying to Tell You

I spent years trying to override my emotions — pushing past the anxiety, dismissing the anger, powering through the sadness — until I finally stopped and listened to what they were actually trying to tell me. In this episode, I share that turning point and what I discovered about the real purpose of our emotions. Your anxiety isn’t a malfunction, your anger isn’t a problem, and your sadness isn’t weakness — they’re all messengers. And when you learn to listen to them instead of fight them, everything changes.

Self Mastery, Stress and Anxiety, The Mind

Signs You Have High-Functioning Anxiety

I spent years looking completely fine on the outside while my nervous system was quietly running on overdrive. No panic attacks, no avoidance — just an endless to-do list, guilt every time I tried to rest, and a body that had been screaming at me for years. In this episode, I walk you through six specific signs of high-functioning anxiety — including the quiet, invisible ones that are so easy to mistake for ambition, responsibility, or just being a hard worker. If you’ve ever felt exhausted behind a perfectly composed exterior, this one is for you.

Self Mastery, Stress and Anxiety, The Mind

The Real Reason You Can’t Be Present

If you’ve ever tried to be present and found your mind halfway across the week fifteen seconds later, this episode is for you. Monique explores the real reason presence is so hard — from the brain’s default mode network to the way trauma creates hyper-vigilance that looks like awareness but isn’t — and shares three gentle doorways back to the here and now. No forcing, no performing. Just coming home.

Self Mastery, Stress and Anxiety, The Mind

How to Stop Worrying About Things You Can’t Control

This week on In Your Right Mind, Monique digs into one of the most common sources of unnecessary suffering: worrying about things outside our control. Drawing on her time riding a motorcycle through India, a teaching from the Dalai Lama, and years of working with people on happiness and mental wellbeing, she walks through a practical two-list framework and a three-step process to interrupt the worry cycle — for real. If your mind won’t stop running worst-case scenarios, this one’s for you.

Emotions, Self Mastery, The Mind

Why You Feel Empty Even When Your Life Looks Fine

This week we’re talking about something a lot of people feel but very few say out loud — that hollow, empty feeling that shows up even when your life looks completely fine from the outside. Monique walks through the three real reasons inner emptiness appears, including values misalignment and emotional disconnection, and offers three practical

Emotions, Stress and Anxiety, The Mind

Why You Can’t Stop Worrying About Things That Haven’t Happened

Does your brain constantly play worst-case movies about things that haven’t happened? In this week’s teaching video, I break down why your mind does this — it’s actually a survival mechanism that’s badly misfiring — and share the one technique that helps me stop the spiral. If your brain won’t quit playing “what if,” this one’s for you.

Emotions, Self Mastery, Stress and Anxiety

How to Stop Comparing Yourself to Everyone Else

Why do we keep comparing ourselves to other people — even when we know it makes us feel terrible? In this episode, I’m getting into the real reason comparison hurts, and it has nothing to do with what the other person has. We talk about the neuroscience of social comparison, what’s actually happening when you scroll through someone’s Instagram and feel suddenly hollow, and a simple tool called the values audit that can stop comparison in its tracks. If you want to understand what’s driving your comparison anxiety and finally get some relief from it, take my free Happiness Quiz at www.iintendtobehappy.com — you might be surprised by what you find.

Habits, Self Mastery, Stress and Anxiety

Why You’re Always Exhausted (It’s Not What You Think)

If you’re always tired — even after a full night’s sleep — this episode is for you. We’re getting into the real reason so many people experience that bone-deep exhaustion that rest just doesn’t fix: a nervous system that never got the signal it was safe to stop. I’ll also walk you through a simple energy audit you can do today, and tell you about the free Happiness Quiz that can show you exactly where your energy is leaking. This one might change how you see your whole relationship with rest.

Self Mastery, Stress and Anxiety, The Mind

5 Signs Your Nervous System Is Dysregulated

If you’ve ever snapped at someone over something tiny and then stood there thinking “why did I just do that?” — this episode is for you.

I walk through five signs your nervous system is stuck in overdrive: overreacting to small things, the “wired but tired” paradox, brain fog, unconscious body tension, and the one almost nobody talks about — losing the ability to feel genuinely good.

I share my own experience — how childhood trauma kept my body stuck in survival mode for years, even while I was living in the Himalayas doing daily meditation. My mind had healed, but my body hadn’t gotten the memo.

Then I give you three tools: the physiological sigh (the fastest science-backed way to calm your nervous system — 30 seconds, free), a daily practice that physically rewires your brain over time, and a perspective shift that changes everything: you don’t need more discipline. You need more safety.

Your nervous system isn’t broken. It adapts to protect you. Now it’s time to teach it that you’re safe.

Emotions, Habits, Self Mastery, Stress and Anxiety

The Happiness Baseline — Why Your Happiness Feels Stuck

There’s a number inside you that determines how happy you are — and most people go their entire lives without knowing it exists.

In today’s episode, I explain what your happiness baseline is, why it keeps pulling you back to the same level no matter what happens in your life, and why that’s actually the best news you’ve heard in a while.

I walk through the famous 1978 study on lottery winners and accident survivors, the 50/40/10 happiness model, and the four daily practices that research shows genuinely raise your set point over time.

I also share my own story — how I went from a suicide attempt at 19 to spending 13 years traveling the world studying happiness, and what I found that changed everything. Today, my 8-week course The Happiness Baseline has a 100% success rate in raising students’ happiness scores. That statistic still moves me every time I say it.

If you’ve been wondering “why am I not happy?” even though your life looks fine on paper — this episode answers that question.

How to Meditate When Your Mind Won’t Shut Up

“I tried to meditate, but I can’t do it — my mind won’t shut up.”

It’s the number one thing people say to me. And after twenty years of teaching meditation at more than seventy universities around the world, I can tell you: it’s based on a complete misunderstanding of what meditation actually is.

In today’s episode, I break down why your busy mind is not a sign of failure — it’s the raw material. I share the Harvard research on why our minds wander nearly half the time, what meditation really is (not the Instagram version), and four practical techniques you can start using today: The Puppy Method, Name It to Tame It, The Anchor Shift, and The 10-Minute Agreement.

I also tell the story of how a group of women in India who wouldn’t take no for an answer accidentally inspired what became The 10 Minute Mind — my meditation program now used at 70+ universities worldwide.

If you’ve ever believed you’re bad at meditation, this one’s for you.

Self Mastery, Stress and Anxiety

Perfectionism Isn’t Your Superpower — It’s What’s Making You Miserable

Perfectionism is the most socially acceptable form of anxiety — and most of us have been wearing it like a badge of honour without realising the cost. In today’s episode I’m breaking down the psychology behind perfectionism, the direct link to anxiety and procrastination that most people miss, and the shift from perfectionism to excellence that actually makes you feel better. If you’ve ever felt like nothing you do is quite good enough — this one is for you.

Self Mastery, The Mind

Why Your Brain Won’t Switch Off at Night(And How to Fix It)

It’s 11pm, you’re exhausted, and your brain is wide awake running through everything. Sound familiar? In today’s episode we’re diving into brand new science that explains exactly why some brains can’t switch off at night — and it’s not a willpower problem. I’m sharing what’s actually happening neurologically, and three things that are genuinely backed by research to help you finally rest.

Self Mastery, Stress and Anxiety

Why You Can’t Stop People Pleasing (And What It’s Really Costing You)

If you’ve ever said yes when you meant no, apologised for things that weren’t your fault, or shaped yourself around other people’s moods without even realising it — this episode is for you. Today we’re talking about people pleasing: what it actually is, where it comes from, and what it’s quietly costing you every single day. This one might change the way you see yourself.

Here are a few of my most popular podcast episodes:

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Everything Will Be Alright : Manifesting Reality With Your Thoughts

This can be so hard for us to believe. However, when we do, we end up making wiser problem-solving decisions.

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Fly Me To The Moon : Why Small Gestures Matter

It can be easy for us to think that we have to contribute in significant ways to make a difference. It couldn’t be further from the truth.

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A Reflection On Depression

This podcast is about coping with negative emotions and thoughts. However, it also discusses depression. It is in response to a question. I hope it is helpful.