This week we’re slowing down, taking a breath, and stepping into a conversation that challenges one of the biggest fears people have about healing:
“I don’t want to talk about my trauma… because I don’t want to feel it again.”
Same. And also? What if you didn’t have to?
Today we’re bringing you a groundbreaking approach — and a deeply human story — from someone who is reshaping how trauma is understood, processed, and released.
📅 Episode drops: Tuesday, December 9, 2025 at 3 AM ET 🎧 Michael on Trauma Without the Pain: The Cortina Method That’s Changing PTSD Forever
Let’s get into it.
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🚗 What’s Up with G-Rex & Dirty Skittles
From G-Rex:
This weekend was electric in the best way — I taught my very first Learning AI Without Fear class at our small local library, and I’m still riding the high.
Seven curious minds (average age 60!) showed up ready to learn, ask big questions, and explore possibilities. Their enthusiasm was unreal — and their feedback made my damn heart smile.
And because the universe has jokes, I walked out with a new customer, inquiries from other libraries, and the joyful suspicion that I’ve created a group of adorable tech rebels.
A free online version is coming soon — because people deserve real, accessible AI education, no matter where they live.
From Dirty Skittles:
Dirty Skittles is thriving, vibing, and almost done building out her office (it’s ridiculously cool). Meanwhile, we’re both complaining about the weather like two old ladies on a porch swing because New York is giving January in December.
And a quick holiday programming update: 🎄 Christmas & New Year’s weeks → Tuesday episodes only. Take that time for your people. We insist.
🎉 Also… We’ve Been Nominated!
We’re thrilled to be nominated for Best Mental Health Podcast in the Podcast Tonight Awards — and this award is listener-driven. 👉 Cast your vote → https://www.podcasttonightawards.com/voteheads
Thank you for cheering us on.
🔥 Special Shout-Out to Women Supporting Women
🌟 Meet Angie Hawkins
Angie is an Inner Glow Coach helping high-achieving women stop shrinking themselves to be loved. She’s the author of Running in Slippers, a memoir of reclaiming life after emotional rock bottom. Learn more: https://www.runninginslippers.com/
💬 Mental Health Quote of the Week
“If they leave with hope, we didn’t finish the job. They should leave with excitement, energy, joy, gratitude, relief.” — Michael Cortina
Some episodes shift your mood. Some shift your thoughts. But every now and then, an episode shifts your entire understanding of what healing is supposed to feel like.
This conversation with Michael Cortina is one of those episodes.
Most people walk into therapy expecting pain — because that’s the story we’ve been handed. “You need to talk about it. You need to relive it. You need to sit in the worst moments of your life so the therapist can understand you.” But what if that’s not only unnecessary… what if it’s actually getting in the way of healing?
Michael takes us into that question with the clarity of a clinician and the heart of someone who once nearly left the profession because the suffering — his clients’ and his own — felt endless. He tells us about the Kleenex mountains, the burnout, the “just cope with it” messaging that therapists are taught to pass on, and the moment he realized the system wasn’t broken — it was simply outdated.
In its place, he created something radically different: The Cortina Method (TCM) — a brain-based trauma resolution approach where people don’t relive anything, don’t explain anything, don’t drown in their pain again.
They simply… heal. Often within a single session. Often permanently.
As Michael tells the story, you can hear the turning points — the questioning, the defiance, the compassion, the refusal to accept that trauma healing has to feel like walking barefoot over glass. You also hear something else: joy. Genuine joy.
Because this method isn’t just saving people from their past — it’s saving therapists from burning out under the weight of the stories they carry.
G-Rex opens up about a recent boundary she set — one that used to make her spiral for days — and how the tools she learned through a TCM-trained therapist helped her hold steady, breathe through it, and walk away proud instead of nauseous.
This is an episode about replacing fear with possibility. About trusting your brain’s brilliance. About discovering that healing doesn’t have to hurt in order to count.
If you’ve ever avoided therapy because you didn’t want to reopen old wounds… this conversation might be the lifeline you didn’t know existed.
🧩 From the Conversation
💬 The heartbeat of this episode
Healing from trauma doesn’t require walking back into the fire — and that’s the radical truth Michael brings forward. Traditional therapy often asks people to relive their worst moments, believing that storytelling equals healing. But as Michael explains, the brain doesn’t work that way. Protection isn’t resistance. Avoidance isn’t weakness. It’s the nervous system trying to keep you alive. And when trauma is reprocessed at the root — without revisiting the pain — people don’t just leave with hope. They leave with joy, relief, and a sense of completion many never thought was possible.
He reminds us that coping isn’t the goal. Resolution is. And that we deserve models of healing that don’t break us in the process.
🫂 A quote that stuck with us
“Don’t let them leave with hope. Let them leave with excitement, energy, joy, gratitude, relief.” — Michael Cortina
🎙️ Real Talk from Us
“When Michael said trauma doesn’t have to be dragged through the mud to be healed? My whole chest lit up. So many of us were taught we had to hurt to get better. Hearing otherwise feels like permission to breathe again.” — G-Rex
“The way he reframed ‘resistance’ as protection? Whew. That hit deep. Imagine how different healing could feel if we stopped blaming ourselves for having survival instincts.” — Dirty Skittles
📓 Reflection Prompts to Sit With
What stories have you inherited about what healing “should” look like?
When has your body tried to protect you in ways you misunderstood as resistance?
If healing didn’t have to hurt, what would you allow yourself to face?
Where have you been coping… when what you truly need is completion?
🌱 Gentle Reminder
You are not “too much.” You are not broken because your body protected you. And you never have to relive your worst memories to deserve a lighter life.
But his story didn’t begin with success. It began in frustration.
Michael spent years doing therapy “the way it had always been done” — long sessions, painful retellings, emotional overwhelm on both sides of the room. He watched clients suffer through memories they already lived once. He watched progress stall. He watched colleagues burn out. And he felt something inside him say: This cannot be all we have to offer people.
So he started questioning everything — the labels (“resistance,” “avoidance”), the dogma, the belief that healing requires re-traumatization. He dove into neuroscience, alternative modalities, and out-of-the-box masterminds. He sat in library back rooms, conference corners, and anywhere people were daring to imagine something better.
What emerged became The Cortina Method: A neuroscience-rooted process that resolves trauma without reliving anything, without endless sessions, and without emotional flooding. Clients often walk out changed — lighter, freer, unburdened. Therapists walk out energized instead of depleted.
Michael’s work has now reached:
4 continents
8+ countries
35+ states and Puerto Rico
Veteran programs, where the method has literally saved lives
Frontiers in Psychiatry, where his trauma protocol was published in 2024
He’s an international speaker, a trainer of what he calls the TCM Army of Healers, and a practitioner whose mission is simple and fierce: Make real healing possible — and make sure no one has to hurt to get there.
Your brain is always trying to protect you — not sabotage you
“Resistance” is a myth that needs to die
Boundaries can be healing, not terrifying
Therapists deserve emotionally sustainable tools
Joy — not hope — is a sign that healing is complete
✅ Actionable Steps
Identify one belief about healing that you’re ready to challenge.
Practice a grounding ritual before tough conversations.
Look up TCM practitioners if this resonates → michaelcortina.com
Notice where you label your reactions as “resistance” — and reframe it as protection.
Choose one tiny boundary to honor this week.
Ask yourself, “What would healing feel like if it didn’t hurt?”
🙌 Listener Engagement
Did this episode shift something in you? We want to hear it. Hit reply or tag us @grex_and_dirtyskittles on IG and share your reflections.
⭐ Subscribe, Rate & Review
Your reviews help this podcast reach the people who need conversations like this. Find us on Apple, Spotify, or leave a written review here: goesoninourheads.net/add-your-podcast-reviews
❤️ Closing Remarks
If you’ve made it here, take a breath — the slow, grounding kind. This episode is a reminder that healing isn’t supposed to destroy you on its way in. It’s supposed to meet you gently, honor your pace, and help you reclaim the parts of yourself that pain tried to take.
Whatever you’re carrying… you don’t have to carry it alone. And you don’t have to walk through fire to leave the burning building.
We’re right here with you. Always.
— 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
