Tiny Topics™ — a themed series that builds clarity, one topic at a time

Tiny Topics™ are short, live, human conversations designed to clarify what’s been made complex — especially in mental health.

Each Tiny Topic can be attended on its own, but they’re intentionally designed as a themed series where each session builds on the last, helping insight actually land and stick.

Here’s how series 1 unfolded:

Tiny Topic 1 — Money Stress
We reframed money stress as a survival response, not a personal flaw.
When the nervous system is under pressure and were in fight-flight-freeze-fawn mode, safety comes first — and clarity goes offline. Were literally not using our full brain when were operating in survival mode. It explains why it makes absolute sense to make calm our #1 strategy to solving problems. Let me be clear: this is not new science; it’s explaining what we already in a way real people can understand, so that we can collectively navigate out of the mental health crisis and cost of living crisis more smoothly.

Tiny Topic 2 — Connection
We explored connection as the nervous system state we want to be in most of the time (it’s the opposite nervous-system state to survival mode), and why feeling alone in a room full of people is evidence of disconnection. We learned that disconnection happens progressively not suddenly, and that reconnection isn’t something you force — but something that naturally returns when the system feels safe. We explored the concept of reverse engineering disconnection to restore connection: it typically happens in three stages starting with reconnection with yourself, with nature, and finally with others.

Tiny Topic 3 — Feeling
We explored what’s missing from most current mental-health approaches: FEELING.
Why mental health isn’t just about your head (thinking).
Why we’ve over-focused on thinking and under-focused on feeling — noting when I say ‘feelings” I mean emotions and bodily sensations such as goose bumps or a ‘gut feel’, both of which are felt in the body.
And why, if we truly want to master our minds, we need to bring back feel. A simple, sticky little phrase was introduced that has the potential with the right backing to scale and transform the way we live our lives, for the better: Think - Feel - Do Authentic You. It is aligned with the ‘CBT wheel’ many people will be familiar with, but emphasises paying attention to our feelings, and taking action aligned with our core values.

Tiny Topic 4 — Orientation (Why You Feel Lost, and the Simple Way Back)
Building on TT3, we turned toward orientation.
Feeling “lost” is one of the most common — and least understood — human experiences. Often it’s not a crisis, but a quiet sense that something is off.

TT4 reframed feeling lost as a signal, not a failure, and introduced a practical way to re-orient using My Inner Compass™ — a simple framework that moves authenticity from “good in theory” to lived practice.

Together, TT1–TT4 create a clear progression:
from survival → to connection → to feeling → to orientation.

Tiny Topic 5 (TT5): The Empathy Spectrum

Saturday 24 January | Live Online | Free

What’s one human trait where too much and too little are equally damaging?

One of the most misunderstood — and most impactful — human traits is empathy.

In Tiny Topic 5, we explore The Empathy Spectrum — not as something you either have or don’t have, but as something that exists on a continuum.

At one end are people who feel deeply, often taking on too much emotional responsibility — sometimes at their own expense.

At the other end are people with very limited access to empathy, where others’ feelings carry little weight, and harm is frequently justified, denied, or blamed elsewhere.

This session is not about judgement or diagnosis.
It’s about awareness.

Session times (AEDT)

• Saturday 24 January — 9:00am

• Saturday 24 January — 5:00pm

Each session runs for up to approximately 90 minutes.

You’re welcome to listen quietly or contribute — whatever feels right.

Using the same calm, structured what / how / why framing as earlier Tiny Topics, this conversation explores:

• what the Empathy Spectrum is

• how empathy imbalances can show up in everyday relationships

• and why understanding these dynamics matters, particularly for long-term wellbeing

This conversation may resonate if you’ve ever felt:

• misunderstood

• emotionally exhausted

• unsure how much empathy is “healthy”

• or confused by other people’s emotional responses

It’s a grounded, human conversation designed to help you understand yourself — and others — more clearly.