2: Bread for the Head with Mark Sephton - Episode 2

2: Bread for the Head with Mark Sephton - Episode 2

What are the common struggles and victories in addiction recovery? This conversation between host Mark Sefton and guest Bronwyn Sciortino shows how mental overload, self-betrayal and perfectionism can quietly run your life into the ground long before anything “big” goes wrong. Bronwyn, an international author and simplicity expert, shares how two decades of corporate pressure, two hours’ sleep a night and relentless self-criticism ended in a complete breakdown.

Her inner voice was brutal: “Not enough really drove my life constantly.” Even winning a major award triggered fear she’d be exposed as an imposter. That pattern, she explains, came from abandoning herself piece by piece to keep everyone else happy. Mark brings in his idea of “mind obesity”, asking what we’re feeding our heads.

Bronwyn runs with it, talking about consumption as everything we absorb – violent TV, toxic food, harsh environments, draining people – and how that shapes our cells every 90 days. Her simple test is whether choices nourish or deplete you, and she urges people to become their “greatest cheerleader” instead of their harshest critic.

You’ll hear them swap practical filters for everyday decisions, from whether to answer a phone call from a toxic person to choosing a walk over lunch at the desk. Bronwyn’s big shift was deleting “success” and “failure” from her vocabulary, replacing them with “adventure” and “explore”, so trying something new becomes feedback, not a verdict.

There’s a powerful section on self-betrayal where Bronwyn describes looking in the mirror after surgery and seeing “a monster” staring back, realising she no longer knew who she was. From there, tiny daily choices became her way back to herself. If you’re exhausted from caring for everyone else and running on emotional fumes, this chat might be the nudge to ask: what tiny choice could you make today that truly feeds your head?