This week, we’re taking a walk on the haunted side of healing, and we promise, it’s not what you think.
Our guest, Brenda Ganske, is the creator and host of Horrifying History, the podcast where history, the supernatural, and science collide. A self-proclaimed “spookstoryian,” Brenda takes us deep into the dark corners of history to uncover what’s myth, what’s truth, and what our fascination with fear says about us.
📅 This episode drops Thursday, October 30, 2025, at 3 AM ET, “From Haunted Houses to Healing Minds: Brenda Ganske on Living with Anxiety.”
From Salem’s ghosts to modern-day anxiety, we explore how fear, empathy, and the unseen intertwine. This conversation reminds us that sometimes the scariest stories are the ones we tell ourselves, and that facing them can be its own kind of liberation.
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🔥 Special Shout-Out: Women Supporting Women
🌟 Meet Angie Hawkins
Angie Hawkins is an Inner Glow Coach who helps high-achieving women stop dimming their light to be loved, and learn to love themselves so deeply the world can’t help but reflect it back.
She works with women who’ve done therapy, read the books, tried the spiritual path, but still feel like something’s missing. Through deep inner work and identity transformation, she helps them break the cycle of not feeling “enough,” so they can experience real love, confidence, and peace without changing who they are.
She’s also the author of Running in Slippers, a raw and vulnerable memoir about finding resilience after emotional rock bottom.
✨ Ready to find your glow? Book a free Find Your Glow session or join her next Unshakable You masterclass to start shining from the inside out. 🔗 https://www.runninginslippers.com/
💬 Mental Health Quote of the Week
“Ghosts don’t scare me. People do.” — Brenda Ganske
Use this week’s worksheet to explore what “haunts” you, and how awareness and compassion can quiet the noise inside your own head.
🎤 Episode Spotlight: Brenda’s Story
What if your fascination with the dark wasn’t about fear at all, but about understanding it?
That’s where this week’s guest, Brenda Ganske, lives, at the intersection of curiosity and courage. As the creator of Horrifying History, she’s spent years unraveling the truth behind myths, hauntings, and the unexplained. But behind every eerie tale she tells is something much more human, the quiet, often invisible struggle with anxiety and hyper-awareness.
Brenda knows what it’s like to feel everything, to walk into a space and sense its energy before a word is spoken. In the episode, she talks about visiting Salem, Massachusetts, the weight of centuries-old grief in the air, the kind that makes your skin prickle and your heart ache. She explains how that same sensitivity that draws her to history’s ghosts can also make daily life overwhelming. Crowded malls, social events, even home renovations can trigger a flood of anxious energy.
And yet, she doesn’t run from it. She investigates it, with humor, empathy, and science.
In this conversation, Brenda opens up about living with generalized anxiety and OCD, the coping tools that changed everything (including EMDR therapy and the 5-4-3-2-1 grounding technique), and how her research became both a passion and a path to peace.
She reminds us that anxiety doesn’t make you fragile, it makes you observant. It’s not weakness, it’s attunement.
G-Rex and Dirty Skittles dive deep with her, trading stories about panic, empathy, and the way our bodies store fear. Together, they unpack the haunting truth: most of the ghosts we chase are really just echoes of our own unspoken pain.
Brenda’s episode is both spooky and deeply soulful, a reminder that when we learn to make peace with the things that scare us, we also learn to make peace with ourselves.
🧩 From the Conversation
💬 The heartbeat of this episode Anxiety isn’t weakness, it’s sensitivity turned inward. What feels haunted may just be your nervous system asking to be heard.
🫂 A quote that stuck with us “You can’t control your triggers, but you can control your reaction.” — Brenda
🎙️ Real Talk from Us “When Brenda said ghosts just want their story told, I realized, so do we. That’s all anxiety really wants too.” – G-Rex
“She turned fear into fascination. Listening to her made me want to face my own ghosts, without apology.” – Dirty Skittles
📓 Reflection Prompts to Sit With • What stories or fears still feel “unfinished” for you? • Where does your body hold anxiety, and what soothes it? • How can curiosity replace fear the next time you feel that heaviness?
🌱 Gentle Reminder Feeling deeply isn’t a flaw. It’s a form of intuition.
👻 Meet Our Guest — Brenda Ganske
If you’ve ever binged Horrifying History, you already know Brenda Ganske is not your average paranormal storyteller. She’s a researcher, an investigator, and an empath with a mission: to find the humanity in every haunting.
Raised in Alberta, Canada, Brenda’s curiosity about the supernatural started early. But instead of settling for folklore, she sought facts, earning degrees in analysis and investigation before turning her skills toward the mysteries that keep us up at night. Her show blends historical evidence with the psychology behind fear, making Horrifying History both chilling and strangely comforting.
But beyond the mic, Brenda’s story is one of resilience. Living with generalized anxiety and OCD, she’s learned to transform her racing mind into a source of insight. Research and storytelling became her self-regulation tools, ways to bring order to chaos, meaning to unease, and laughter to the darkness.
In her world, fear isn’t something to escape, it’s something to understand.
When she’s not writing or recording, Brenda can usually be found exploring historic sites with her partner and her “co-host,” Gizmo the Shih Tzu, who takes his guard-dog duties (and background snoring cameos) very seriously.
Her show has grown into a global community for curious minds, listeners who, like Brenda, believe that sometimes the most healing thing we can do is turn toward what scares us and ask it to tell its story.
You don’t have to silence your sensitivity to find peace.
Preparation is powerful, but so is letting go.
Ghosts aren’t always dead things. Sometimes, they’re just old thoughts.
💪 Actionable Steps
Try the 5-4-3-2-1 grounding exercise when anxiety spikes.
Journal about one fear that still feels “unfinished.”
Get outside, movement + fresh air = nervous system reset.
Reframe “too sensitive” as “deeply tuned in.”
Tell your story, even if your voice shakes.
💬 Listener Engagement
What did this episode stir up for you? Reply to this email or tag us on Instagram @grex_and_dirtyskittles with your favorite moment or takeaway. We read every message, really.
⭐ Subscribe, Rate & Review
If Brenda’s story made you think, breathe, or laugh, please take a moment to subscribe, rate, and review the show on your favorite platform. Your words help new listeners find us, and they keep these conversations alive.
❤️ Closing Remarks
Not all ghosts live in old houses. Some live in our memories, in the fears we keep tucked away, in the stories we were too scared to tell.
But here’s the truth Brenda left us with: when you finally face what’s been haunting you, you stop being the hunted and start being the healer.
Maybe your ghosts are anxiety, self-doubt, or the pressure to hold it all together. Maybe they’re past versions of you that still ache to be understood. Whatever they are, they lose power when you shine light on them.
So this week, take a breath. Let the quiet in. Ask your ghosts what they’ve been trying to teach you, and then thank them for the lesson.
You’re not broken. You’re becoming.
With love, G-Rex & Dirty Skittles Changing the way we talk about mental health, one real convo at a time.
G-Rex & Dirty Skittles
It's ok to be not ok, just make sure you're talking to someone
