Emotional Potty Training for Adults with Rachel Kaplan

In this episode of The Gently Used Human podcast, Dr. Scott Lyons sits down with psychotherapist and author Rachel Kaplan to explore her unique and powerful approach to emotional healing. Rachel is a psychotherapist, emotional educator, and host of the Healing Feeling Sht Show* podcast. She’s also the author of the amazing book Feel, Heal, and Let That Sht Go*, which introduces the concept of “emotional potty training” — and yes, it’s exactly as clever and transformative as it sounds. Rachel's method encourages us to reconnect with our feelings, process them in real time, and ultimately release the emotional backlog that so many of us have built up over the years. 

Rachel dives into the idea that just as we learned to manage our physical needs as children, we need to "train" ourselves to process emotions in a healthy way. With humor and a relatable perspective, she explains how most of us were taught to repress our emotions early on, leading to what she calls "emotional constipation." This buildup of unprocessed pain and feelings can manifest in our lives as stress, numbness, or even physical illness.

Dr. Lyons shares his own experiences of struggling to fully feel emotions, resonating deeply with Rachel’s insights on how avoiding feelings leads to greater suffering. Together, they discuss practical tools for releasing emotions, including how to "schedule" emotional release and why it’s essential to be with our emotions, rather than intellectualizing or bypassing them.

This conversation is filled with humor, wisdom, and practical guidance for anyone who feels emotionally stuck, numb, or overwhelmed. It’s about learning to move toward discomfort, release emotional baggage, and cultivate a deeper, more compassionate relationship with ourselves.

This episode is perfect for anyone seeking more emotional balance and resilience, and it will leave you inspired to reconnect with the parts of yourself you may have hidden away for too long.

Topics We Break Down

• How decades of unprocessed emotions affect our physical and mental health, and how to begin releasing them.
• The importance of reintegrating the parts of ourselves that we’ve hidden away and learning to let them express their pain.
• Dr. Lyons and Rachel explore why repressing emotions leads to greater suffering, and how facing them head-on can lead to lasting relief.
• How to schedule emotional release sessions, and techniques to allow emotions to move through the body naturally.
• Why healing isn’t just about trauma recovery, but about creating a sustainable relationship with your emotions so you can face life’s challenges with strength.