In The Messy Podcast
Welcome to In the Messy. In The Messy (in-ti-macy) is more than a play on words — it’s a podcast for people who want to heal their relationships from the inside out.
Hosted by Janette Chu, a Registered Psychotherapist (RP), this podcast explores the real, raw, and often messy parts of being human. Whether you're navigating anxiety, attachment wounds, relational conflict, or parenting struggles, you’ll find grounded insights, compassionate guidance, and practical tools rooted in therapy.
Each episode offers support for individuals, couples, and families—drawing from evidence-based approaches like Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), Internal Family Systems (IFS), EMDR, and more. Together, we’ll explore how your past may be shaping your present, how to move through disconnection with care, and how to build deeper, more secure relationships—with yourself and with the people who matter most.
You don’t have to have it all figured out. Just bring your willingness to be honest, curious, and kind to yourself. Healing doesn’t mean perfection—it means presence.
Subscribe and join me in the messy work of becoming more whole, more connected, and more integrated.
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From Insecure to Secure: What Actually Creates Healthy Relationships
If you've ever wondered which attachment style is the hardest to date, which attachment style takes the longest to move on, or whether certain attachment styles are doomed in relationships, this episode is for you.
In this honest and compassionate conversation, Jan explores some of the most common questions people ask about attachment theory—and challenges the idea that attachment labels determine your relationship destiny. While anxious, avoidant, fearful-avoidant, and secure attachment styles can help us understand our patterns, they are not life sentences.
You'll learn why the hardest relationships are often not about attachment styles at all, but about self-awareness, accountability, emotional regulation, and a willingness to grow. Jan also discusses how trauma, stress, burnout, grief, and life circumstances can influence the way attachment patterns show up in relationships.
Secure Love vs. Attachment Wounds: How to Choose Better Relationships
Secure love isn't about finding a perfect person. It's about learning to recognize emotional safety, consistency, accountability, and mutual care—and choosing relationships that don't require you to abandon yourself to be loved.
If healthy love wasn't modeled for you growing up, secure relationships may feel unfamiliar. But unfamiliar doesn't mean unsafe, and intensity doesn't automatically mean connection.
You don't have to earn love by chasing, proving, fixing, or performing. The healthiest relationships allow you to be fully yourself while growing together.
The Father Wound: Breaking Free from Old Relationship Patterns
If you grew up with a father, grandfather, teacher, or male caregiver who was inconsistent, emotionally distant, critical, unavailable, or unpredictable, you may find yourself carrying beliefs such as: "Men will disappoint me," "I have to earn love," or "I can't trust anyone to stay." These beliefs often operate beneath the surface, influencing who we choose, how we communicate, and how we respond to conflict, intimacy, and vulnerability.
Drawing from attachment theory, emotionally focused therapy (EFT), and the Secure Self framework, Jan explores how father wounds can show up as anxious, avoidant, or fearful attachment patterns—and why healing requires learning to separate the past from the present.
Stop Arguing About the Details: How to Find the Real Issue in Conflict
When emotions run high, our brains naturally focus on the surface details of conflict. We become fixated on criticism, defensiveness, silence, facial expressions, or past mistakes. But beneath most relationship arguments lies a deeper need: a desire for connection, reassurance, support, safety, understanding, or emotional closeness.
Drawing from attachment theory, emotionally focused therapy (EFT), and years of clinical experience, Jan explains how to identify the real target underneath conflict and why doing so can lead to faster repair, deeper understanding, and healthier communication. You'll learn how to recognize when you're getting pulled into the noise, regulate your nervous system, connect with your secure self, communicate your needs clearly, and repair conflict in a way that strengthens your relationships.
Religious Trauma Through the Lens of Attachment Theory
In this episode of In The Messy Podcast, Jan explores religious trauma through the lens of attachment theory, nervous system safety, shame, belonging, and the secure self. This conversation is not about attacking religion or telling you what to believe. Instead, it’s about understanding what happens internally when faith, family, fear, obedience, and love become deeply intertwined.
Jan unpacks how attachment wounds can shape our relationship with religion, authority, boundaries, and even our sense of self. If questioning your beliefs feels terrifying, if setting boundaries with family brings overwhelming guilt, or if you’ve struggled with the fear of losing love and belonging by becoming your authentic self, this episode offers compassion, insight, and practical reflection.
Breakups, Grief & Anxious Attachment: How to Heal Without Losing Yourself
In Episode 31 of In The Messy Podcast, Jan explores the painful reality of breakups, heartbreak, grief, and anxious attachment—especially when love still exists, but the relationship no longer feels emotionally safe.
If you’re struggling with a breakup, replaying memories, feeling abandoned, stuck in a shame spiral, or wondering “Was this my fault?”, this episode offers compassionate guidance for navigating the grief of losing someone you deeply cared about.
Mother’s Day, Anxious Attachment & the Need to Earn Love | Healing the Mother Wound
In Episode 30 of In The Messy Podcast explores the painful connection between anxious attachment, people-pleasing, and emotionally unavailable mothers—especially around Mother’s Day.
If you’ve ever felt guilty, resentful, unseen, or like you had to earn love through over-giving and caregiving, this episode will help you understand where those patterns began and how to start healing them.
Day 7: Expressing Needs As Your Secure Self
In Episode 29 of In The Messy Podcast, Jan walks you through Day 7 of the Secure Self Workbook for anxious attachment, focusing on how to express your needs clearly, calmly, and without losing yourself.
If you struggle with overexplaining, people-pleasing, or fear of rejection in relationships, this episode gives you practical tools to communicate with confidence and emotional safety.
Inspired by attachment theory and Sue Johnson, you’ll learn simple frameworks like CLEAR (what to say), KIND (how to say it), and TRUE (self-respect) to build secure communication.
Day 6: Practicing Secure Attachment in Real Life
In Episode 28 of In The Messy Podcast, Jan (registered psychotherapist) guides you through Day 6 of the Secure Self Workbook for anxious attachment, focusing on how to stop overthinking and build emotional stability in real-life moments.
Learn why anxious attachment is a nervous system response—not a knowledge problem—and how to shift from constant reactivity (“downstream”) to supportive daily habits (“upstream”).
Inspired by Sue Johnson, this episode introduces a practical framework to help you regulate emotions, reduce anxiety, and feel more secure in relationships.
Day 5: Becoming Your Secure Self
In Episode 27 of In The Messy Podcast, Jan guides you through Day 5 of the Secure Self Workbook for anxious attachment, focusing on how to build and practice a secure sense of self.
Learn how to move beyond awareness into action by defining your secure self, strengthening self-trust, and responding to relationship stress with more stability and confidence—using insights inspired by Sue Johnson.