Repetition gets a bad reputation.

Growing up autistic, I often repeated thoughts, behaviors, routines, conversations, phrases, and ways of regulating myself—and for a long time, I assumed that if something kept coming back, there must be something wrong with me that I hadn't figured out yet.

So I kept digging.

Eventually, I realized repetition itself wasn't the problem.

In this episode of Imperfectly Better, I explore the different roles repetition has played in my life: emotional regulation, predictability, rehearsal, learning, processing change, building skills, and sometimes simply enjoying something enough to do it again.

But repetition can also become a trap.

I talk about the difference between genuinely processing something and what I call “orbiting”—restarting the same question over and over while hoping one more insight, perspective, or explanation will finally give you certainty.

Along the way, we get The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, mining for ore, stirred-up lakes, treating myself like a data analytics project, and the question that has helped me become much more discerning about my own loops:

Does this repetition help me return to life—or does it keep asking me to escape it again?

This is the next episode in my seven-part series inspired by Kaelynn Partlow's Life on the Bridge, exploring her experiences alongside my own life as an autistic person.

Learn more about Life on the Bridge

Explore Kaelynn Partlow’s YouTube channel

Podpage Website

For Feedback, Questions, and Recommendations

What happens when social interaction feels like a play where everyone else got the script except you?

Growing up autistic, I spent years trying to figure out the rules of conversation, dating, and connection. Every mistake became another rule. Every awkward interaction became something to troubleshoot. And for a while, scripts genuinely helped—but eventually, trying to find the “right” response started getting in the way of actually connecting with the person in front of me.

In this episode of Imperfectly Better, I talk about what helped that change: learning through failure, reflection, curiosity, and experience; becoming more comfortable saying “I don't know”; and eventually treating conversation less like something to solve and more like improv.

Along the way, we get a terrible teenage jazz-band romance idea, Data trying to engineer small talk on Star Trek: The Next Generation, Kaelynn Partlow's wonderful flying-dolphin analogy, five simultaneous baseball pitchers, and the realization that uncertainty doesn't have to mean you're doing something wrong.

Learn more about Life on the Bridge

Explore Kaelynn Partlow’s YouTube channel

Podpage Website

For Feedback, Questions, and Recommendations

What happens when overwhelm becomes so intense that your usual coping skills are no longer accessible?

In the first episode of a seven-part series inspired by Kaelynn Partlow’s Life on the Bridge, Cody explores his experiences with autistic overwhelm, shutdowns, and meltdowns. Using Kaelynn’s sinking-boat analogy, he examines how capacity can deteriorate in stages—from “I want to get away,” to “I have to do something,” to the feeling of being completely trapped.

Through stories from middle school and a recent convention, Cody considers why the middle of a meltdown is not the time for a lesson, how stepping away can make it possible to return more fully, and the important difference between protecting your capacity and automatically avoiding discomfort.

The episode ultimately asks: What are your earliest signs of overload—and what might help you act before your boat goes underwater?

Learn more about Life on the Bridge

Explore Kaelynn Partlow’s YouTube channel

Podpage Website

For Feedback, Questions, and Recommendations

Why do we keep returning to habits and identities that we genuinely want to leave behind?

After listening to Mark Manson’s episode on change, I began reflecting on the roles my old patterns had played in my life—especially my past use of THC. It had helped me relax, speak freely, and escape some of the rules and filters I had placed around being myself. Understanding those functions mattered, but awareness alone was not enough to create change.

In this episode, I explore how an old behavior begins to lose its hold when we challenge the story that makes it feel necessary and build a life that supports a different response. I discuss the difference between replacing a habit and developing the capacity we once borrowed from it, why change pursued for acceptance often collapses, and why not every reward needs to be recreated in a healthier form.

I also share a four-step framework—function, story, response, and support—for understanding what keeps a pattern alive and helping a new way of living survive.

Change is not always a dramatic conquest. Sometimes it becomes real when the absence of the old behavior finally feels ordinary.

Note: This episode has been marked as explicit, due to mentioning drug use.

Mark Manson's "How to Change Your Life, Solved" ~ https://open.spotify.com/episode/6vgdtETFrsxnazLmJaobAE?si=nl-m3H3dSdufcyXw3WIf5Q

Website ~ https://www.podpage.com/imperfectly-better/

For Feedback, Questions, and Recommendations ~ https://forms.gle/PZa3q96CmFmkuPzN7

What happens when something you genuinely care about refuses to stay with you?

While exploring a listener-recommended podcast episode, I found myself unable to confidently explain what I had learned. Instead of questioning my approach, I began questioning my intelligence, my curiosity, and whether I was capable of building a podcast centered on learning and personal growth.

In this episode, I explore how I turned curiosity into coursework, overloaded myself with more questions and assignments, and eventually realized that I had been searching for the wrong evidence of learning. I share the process that helped me move from perfect recall toward meaningful understanding, the difference between productive difficulty and unproductive repetition, and a four-question “One-Bite Check” for when something you are studying refuses to click.

The wall was not proof that I could not learn. It was showing me where the process needed to change.

Website ~ https://www.podpage.com/imperfectly-better/

For Feedback, Questions, and Recommendations ~ https://forms.gle/PZa3q96CmFmkuPzN7

In this episode of Imperfectly Better, Cody reflects on “Good Day” by Surfaces, and the way music can become a spark for noticing what we are already experiencing.

This episode is not a lyric breakdown. It is a reflection on ordinary goodness, enoughness, rest, and the difference between truly resting and simply numbing out. Cody talks about how a song helped him recognize a simple but important truth: A good day does not have to be amazing for it to be enough.

Through thoughts on creativity, podcasting, paint-by-the-numbers, mindful rest, gratitude, and the small moments that make a day worth appreciating, this episode explores how we can notice the good without pretending everything is perfect.

Not every day is easy. Not every day feels good. But when something good is present, even in a small way, it is worth learning how to recognize it.

Sometimes enough is a clean space, a little progress, a song that meets you where you are, and a moment of rest that brings you back to yourself.

Website ~ https://www.podpage.com/imperfectly-better/

For Feedback, Questions, and Recommendations ~ https://forms.gle/PZa3q96CmFmkuPzN7

The first episode is out — so what changed?

In this episode of Imperfectly Better, Cody reflects on the strange shift that happens when something you’ve been imagining finally becomes real. The podcast is no longer just an idea or a plan. It exists now, and that has already started opening new doors.

This episode gets into quiet accomplishment, uncertainty after taking action, the difference between “ready enough” and perfect, and why creation matters before metrics.

Website ~ https://www.podpage.com/imperfectly-better/

For Feedback, Questions, and Recommendations ~ https://forms.gle/PZa3q96CmFmkuPzN7

In the first episode of Imperfectly Better, Cody introduces the heart of the podcast: Growth without perfectionism.

This episode is about what it means to become better while still being human — messy, uncertain, reflective, and learning in real time. Cody shares where the podcast came from, including his experience with burnout, perfection-based standards, self-reflection, shadow work, emotional growth, and learning how to approach himself with curiosity instead of judgment.

He also explains what this podcast is not: Not a guru platform, not a trauma dump, not fake positivity, and not a place for one-size-fits-all advice. Instead, Imperfectly Better is meant to be an honest, thoughtful space for asking better questions, exploring hard emotions, studying life from different angles, and learning how to support ourselves more clearly.

The central question of this episode is simple but powerful:

What if I’m wrong?

Not as self-attack. Not as self-doubt. But as a flashlight.

Because sometimes our emotions tell the truth about our pain, but not the whole truth about reality.

You do not need to become perfect before you are allowed to become better.

Podpage Website ~ https://www.podpage.com/imperfectly-better/

For Feedback, Questions, and Recommendations ~ https://forms.gle/PZa3q96CmFmkuPzN7