In Sanity: A piece of mind

Mindfulness is a critical part of DBT. There are three core skills which include Wise Mind, "what" skills (what you do when practicing mindfulness - observing, describing, and participating) and "how" skills (how you practice when practicing mindfulness - nonjudgmentally, one-mindfully, effectively). Listen to this week's podcast for explanations and examples on how to prac...

Mindfulness is a critical part of DB skills. Without it, it is difficult to change the long-standing patterns of thinking, feeling and acting that are not serving us. Among other things, mindfulness is the key to emotional regulation and to successfully resolving interpersonal conflicts. Learning how to be mindful isn’t complicated, but it  is  a commitment. Listen to this week's podcast to de...

There are reasons we do what we do, and there are reasons we don't do what we don't do. This is where analyzing the missing links in our chain analysis helps us. Why did we not do something that would have avoided the problem behavior? Why don't we do things to decrease our vulnerabilities? Listen to this podcast for answers to these questions and more. Check out the link below for wor...

There is always an underlying cause for a certain feeling or behavior, and it is important to figure out what that cause is. When we engage in unhelpful or problematic behaviors, we do it for a reason. The maladaptive behavior serves some kind of function that is important to us. However, there are usually unpleasant consequences associated with that problem behavior. Chain analysis is a process t...

I am taking a pause this week on DBT and having a conversation with a few of my kids about spirituality and mental health. We discuss different perspectives and have different ideas about how mental health practices can impact a person's spirituality. However, we all believe that practicing therapy, going to therapy, and doing work on the self are spiritual practices with the potential to brin...

Join me this week as we move away from DBT as a mental health therapy and discuss incorporating the skills into everyday living. The more you know about mindfulness, interpersonal personal effectiveness, emotion regulation, and distress tolerance, the better you can relate to other people. Win-win!

Welcome to 2024. Thanks for being here and joining me for another season and another year. This week is an introduction to a cognitive behavior therapy called Dialectical Behavior Therapy. Dialectic means to combine opposite ideas. For example, "I am scared, but I am going to do it anyway." DBT is a skills-based talk therapy created by Marsha Linehan.

This being Christmas day, I thought I would tell you my favorite Christmas story from the scriptures. I hope you enjoy and maybe gain a new perspective. Happy holidays and Merry Christmas to you all.

Instead of telling you how to use boundaries to keep people out, this podcast will help you see why, if you can, you should let people in. This podcast is an introduction to the idea of getting to know someone else's story and sharing your story with them. The vulnerability necessary for meaningful human connection can be scary, but it's a journey worth pursuing.

This podcast includes a refresher on boundaries using the Three Circles Communication Tool, more information on states and stories and ways to reflect on these concepts during the holiday season.

Neuroception is the process by which we assess our world for cues of safety or danger. It is an unconscious process that affects the biology of our autonomic nervous system. Once our body interprets the signals, we hear and see things differently depending on our autonomic state. Listen to this week's podcast to learn how our stories are created in our nervous system states and not the other w...

Come on a brief journey with me as I spend some time showing you all how to map your nervous system. What better way to do that than to use the experiences we have during the holiday season. Joy, peace, stress, anxiety, hopelessness, and dissociation are all words to describe our nervous system states; respectively, ventral vagal (socially engaged), sympathetic (fight or flight) and dorsal vagal o...

Join me this week as Denver and I talk about his experiences with what is most certainly neuroception and perception. It's deep and its wide and much like all mental health concepts, I could go on and on. Let me know your takeaways, and what else you'd like to know. The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals that Protect us from Violence

This podcasts continues the discussion about your nervous system, the vagus nerve and the theory of polyvagal. I am still pontificating about the miracle of the human body and its systems. I am eager for you all to understand this, and find value in it much the same way you find value in attachment, values, boundaries and parenting. Here is the book I refer to The Polyvagal Theory in Therapy: Enga...

There are two main branches of the nervous system; the sympathetic and parasympathetic. It responds to signals and sensations via three pathways and each has a different pattern of response. The autonomic nervous system utilizes three pathways for feedback to respond to sensations in the body and signals from the environment. The autonomic nervous system is the bedrock for our lived experiences. S...

The theory of the triune brain has been debunked with the new research showing that the brain is much more integrated that Paul MacLean's 1960s theory. However, it is useful in understanding the different functions of the brain and where in the brain they take place. Next week I will talk about some of the newer research and what overlaps and what is distinct. Also, Iain McGilchrist wrote the...

In this episode I talk about how precision of language can help reduce the way we use the adjective "good" to describe people and their behavior. Also, this language can help support highlighting any type of behavior by being a curious, like a detective, to find out how certain behaviors are working in the lives of our loved ones. Maybe sacrifice works great for one husband, but the othe...

Before I found C. Jung's quote, which you will hear at the end of this podcast, I had polled my family about the ideas of wholeness and goodness. Much like last week, I am brain dumping some deep and important thoughts on the perils of good and right. I brush up against some Internal Family Systems Therapy in an effort to identify the ways we lose parts of ourselves to needing to be "good...

Let's start this journey down the rabbit hole of "good" and "right". This podcast drops two or three things for you to consider about how the concept of good and right might show up in your relationships. Parenting, partnerships, friendships or employment - we live with the idea that being a good friend, or a right parent means something about us. Well, you are right, it do...

I want to provide as much information as possible to help you guys in your parenting journey. I also want my listeners to understand that when I am talking about parenting, I am talking about relationships. In this podcast, you will hear some new things and some old things about mindfulness, attachment, and healthy parenting. Parenting from the Inside Out: How a Deeper Self-Understanding Can Help...

Why do we yell? It's because our kids are making us crazy, pushing our buttons, making our life stressful, right? Well, no. It's a kids job to push our buttons, and test our limits. We control our emotions because that's our job. It's our responsibility to react in a way that is good for everybody. Parenting is hard, and it is important to mindfully attend to our triggers, when we...

Most of us live mindlessly. This is a natural adaptation to the demands of our daily lives. We are distracted from the moment we get up til the moment we go to bed. Our minds are always whirling with deadlines, errands, people, and thoughts we have about it all. Additionally, we are almost always multitasking. We have our music on while driving, checking our emails while on the phone, cooking whil...

This week I am joined by Lindsay and Kylee to talk about honesty, vulnerability, bravery and how to be a truth-teller. Being honest in our relationships is surprisingly difficult, and we find other ways to maintain the status quo, especially if everything is "fine." I think we have an obligation and a duty to be kind, compassionate, graceful truth-tellers. This is how we refine and impro...

What does it mean to be brave? Kylee joins me this week to talk about how to be authentic and true to yourself. You are not for everybody, and you don't need to be. What does that mean? What ways can you be brave? Be Brave Little One 57 Modern Manners for Today's Teens

Self-compassion is a skill and it needs to be practiced. If you don't know the benefits of self-compassion it's hard to commit time or energy in your day for this practice, especially if you are care taking or parenting. Don't worry, take a deep breath, notice your emotions, defuse from your thoughts, give yourself a hug, say a kind word to yourself and you are practicing self-compassi...