David J. Schlosz

08/09/2026

What if the two things you've been told to choose between: accepting yourself as you are, and changing, were never actually in conflict?

In this episode, I sit down with my longtime colleague and friend Megan Yale, LMFT-S, LPC-S, LCDC, CCST-AC-T, RPT for a conversation about Dialectical Behavior Therapy that goes far beyond the acronym. Megan trained intensively in DBT at the University of Washington and with its creator, Marsha Linehan, and she tells the origin story most people never hear: how Linehan tried a change-only approach and it failed, tried an acceptance-only approach and it failed, and then built a therapy on the radical idea that two opposite things can be true at the same time.

We explore what that dialectic looks like in real life, why DBT is not just for any one diagnosis, and why the goal was never to get rid of emotions but to build a pause between feeling and action. Megan also shares two distress tolerance skills you can practice today (STOP and TIPP), and we wander into her other love, sandtray therapy, where the inner world gets built in miniature and people come face to face with their own truth.

What if the two things you've been told to choose between: accepting yourself as you are, and changing, were never actually in conflict?In this episode, I sit down with my longtime colleague and friend Megan Yale, LPC-S, LMFT-S, for a conversation about Dialectical Behavior Therapy that goes far bey...

03/09/2026

We like to believe we see ourselves and others clearly. Yet under stress, uncertainty, shame, or relational threat, the mind often reaches for simpler conclusions: good or bad, safe or dangerous, success or failure, worthy or unworthy.

Perhaps healing does not require us to decide whether we are good or bad. Perhaps it asks us to become spacious enough to recognize that we are complex, unfinished, accountable, and still becoming.

We like to believe we see ourselves and others clearly. Yet under stress, uncertainty, shame, or relational threat, the mind often reaches for simpler conclusions: good or bad, safe or dangerous, success or failure, worthy or unworthy.In this episode of Project I Am, Dr. David J. Schlosz explores al...

31/08/2026

Burnout is often described as the consequence of doing too much for too long. But sometimes, exhaustion is also the result of repeatedly leaving ourselves behind, or even a misalignment between our values and our work.

In this episode of Project I Am, Dr. David Schlosz explores the idea that burnout, in many cases, is prolonged self-betrayal. This is not an accusation or a suggestion of moral failure. It is an invitation to become curious about the adaptations that once helped us remain safe, useful, successful, or connected, but may now be asking us to disappear.

Burnout is often described as the consequence of doing too much for too long. But sometimes, exhaustion is also the result of repeatedly leaving ourselves behind.In this episode of Project I Am, Dr. David Schlosz explores the idea that burnout, in many cases, is prolonged self-betrayal. This is not....

28/08/2026

Burnout, in many cases, is prolonged self-betrayal.

Before you push back: this is not about moral failure. It is about sustained misalignment, the slow accumulation of moments where something in us said no and we answered yes.

Rest alone does not heal this. In my latest article, I explore why recovery may require realignment, not just restoration, and the questions that can begin that return.

Read on. Then tell me: what would you have to grieve if you stopped living this way?

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/when-burnout-prolonged-self-betrayal-david-j-schlosz-phd-ncc-lpc-s-zsygc

22/08/2026

I recently put myself out there regarding a project I have been working on.
It felt like a significant step. An expansion.

And then, almost immediately, I collapsed internally.

The thoughts arrived quickly:
“Who do you think you are?”
“Why do you think you can do this?”

I have been reflecting on how often this happens when we begin to gain ground. We reach toward a dream, take a meaningful risk, claim more space, or allow ourselves to be seen, and something inside us contracts.

Sometimes the resistance comes from people who are uncomfortable with our growth. But often, the loudest resistance comes from within us.

Expansion disrupts what is familiar. It challenges the identities, relationships, and protective strategies that once helped us belong. Fear then tries to return us to the safety of who we have already been.

But the contraction that follows a courageous step does not necessarily mean the step was wrong.

It may simply mean that something inside us needs time to adjust to the life we are becoming capable of holding.

In this episode of Project I Am, I explore what happens after we make ourselves visible and how we might listen compassionately to fear without automatically giving it authority over our direction.

The contraction deserves compassion.

Listen here: https://rss.com/podcasts/project-i-am-with-dr-david-j-schlosz/3088776/

What happens after you do the brave thing?You send the proposal, share the idea, apply for the position, set the boundary, or finally allow yourself to be seen. For a moment, it feels like expansion. Then the adrenaline fades, doubt rushes in, and a familiar voice asks, “Who do you think you are?....

03/08/2026

There are moments in life when we abandon ourselves in order to protect ourselves.

We stay silent instead of speaking honestly. We disconnect from our feelings to avoid conflict, rejection, shame, or discomfort. And afterward, something painful lingers: the feeling that we betrayed ourselves.

In this episode of Project I AM, Dr. David J. Schlosz explores the hidden cost of self-abandonment and why so many of us learned to disconnect from ourselves in order to survive. Drawing from relational therapy, trauma work, somatic psychology, and personal experience, David unpacks how self-protection can quietly become self-betrayal and why choosing ourselves in healthy, grounded ways is one of the most courageous acts we can make.

If you’ve ever felt exhausted from performing, people-pleasing, caretaking, or disappearing inside relationships, this conversation is for you.

You do not have to disappear to be loved.

(Link in comments).

31/07/2026

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."

The episode ends with a short guided practice. You are not broken. You were adapting. Come as you are.

Link in comments.

28/07/2026

Nobody dreams bigger than their relationship with themselves will allow.

In this episode, Dr. David Schlosz explores why the size of our dreams is a measure not of imagination but of self-concept, the quiet, adaptive answer we carry to the question who am I allowed to be?

Drawing on NARM's insight that we disconnect from ourselves to stay connected to others, Carl Rogers' conditions of worth, the possible-selves research of Markus and Nurius, Bandura's work on self-efficacy, and Snyder's hope theory, this episode reframes small dreaming as an old act of protection and shows where present-moment agency lives. For clinicians: what it means to hold a client's possibility in trust until their self-concept can hold it themselves. For everyone: a guided somatic practice called Breathing Room, making a quarter-inch more space in the self.

Nobody dreams bigger than their relationship with themselves will allow. In this episode, Dr. David Schlosz explores why the size of our dreams is a measure not of imagination but of self-concept, the quiet, adaptive answer we carry to the question who am I allowed to be? Drawing on NARM's insight t...

20/07/2026

What if the most important thing a therapist brings into the room isn't a technique, intervention, or perfectly timed question, but themselves?

In this conversation, I sit down with licensed marriage and family therapist Kim Fry to explore how our relationship with ourselves shapes every relationship we have with others. Together we talk about the transformative power of curiosity, why therapists don't heal people by fixing them, and how our own unresolved stories inevitably show up in the therapy room.

Kim shares the profound story of a single voicemail from her own therapist that forever changed her relationship with anger, authenticity, and what it means to truly be seen. From there, our conversation unfolds into an exploration of presence, supervision, vulnerability, and why healing begins when we stop performing and start showing up as fully human.

What if the most important thing a therapist brings into the room isn't a technique, intervention, or perfectly timed question, but themselves?In this deeply personal conversation, I sit down with licensed marriage and family therapist Kim Fry to explore how our relationship with ourselves shapes ev...

09/07/2026

An invitation to stay with yourself.

We've spent two episodes digging the well and learning how to draw water.
Now it's time to drink.

The final episode in The Well series is unlike any previous episode of Project I Am. Rather than another teaching, this is a guided experience, a gentle invitation to slow down, and reconnect with your body.

Through reflection, visualization, and somatic awareness, Dr. David Schlosz guides listeners back to the place where healing begins, not by becoming someone different, but by finally learning how to stay with themselves.

You don't have to earn rest.
You don't have to earn compassion.
You don't have to become perfect before you deserve love.

The deepest wells are not filled by striving.
They're filled by relationship.
They're filled by grace.
They're filled by the courage to keep coming home to yourself.

If you've journeyed through Parts One and Two, this final episode brings the series to its emotional and spiritual conclusion.

Take a deep breath.

Come to the well.

The water is waiting.

An invitation to stay with yourself.We've spent two episodes digging the well and learning how to draw water.Now it's time to drink.The final episode in The Well series is unlike any previous episode of Project I Am. Rather than another teaching, this is a guided experience, a gentle invitation to s...