Never Perfect

In this episode, Dr. Beth sits down with her friends Amanda (a business owner) and Stephanie (a therapist) to tackle a tough, real-world question: How do you talk about a diagnosis with someone who doesn’t want one—especially when daily weed, anger outbursts, or past substance use are in the mix? Through the story of a 30-something creative with possible bipolar disorder, they unpack self-medicati...

In this special role-reversal episode, Beth hands the mic to her longtime friend of 40+ years, OB-GYN Dr. Patricia “Tricia” McClelland—a familiar voice on the podcast from past episodes on hormones and menopause. This time, Tricia interviews Beth, asking the questions Beth usually asks everyone else. Together they dive into the values that quietly steer Beth’s life—love, kindness, community, authe...

What if your pain is real—and also not the whole story? In this episode, Dr. Beth sits down with two “pain whisperers” who bridge medicine and recovery: Dr. Matt McClanahan, an osteopathic physician (Neuromusculoskeletal & Family Medicine; Center for Insight Medicine), and Joe Timberlake, a 35-year sober addictions specialist and chronic-pain coach. Together, they explore how the brain processes d...

Parenting teens isn’t about perfection—it’s about presence, honesty, and learning to let go. In this conversation, Beth welcomes Randi Crawford, a straight-talking parenting coach who brings humor, vulnerability, and decades of life experience to the table. From co-founding a women’s health company with her father to becoming an empty-nester, Randi shares her journey of reinvention and what it tau...

Figs o’Sullivan and his wife Teale are marriage therapists and relationship experts who developed the Empathi method. They are the architects of the Empathi Method and they think of themselves as “wounded healers and fellow strugglers.” Figs takes a casual approach in his work with couples and see himself as “just another wounded person trying to make his own relationships work.” Figs believes tha...

Today Dr. Carol Stoney, Beth’s most frequent (and very likely one of the most popular ) podcast guests returns to the show to talk about marriage. She likes to encourage married couples to ask themselves the question regularly: “ Why did we get  married?” Like when things get hard  or when transitions happen, she urges them to sit down and have a conversation “What’s our purpose?” Sometimes couple...

What is the difference between unconditional love and conditional love? Does healthy love have to include approval of all choices? Are we showing love to our children or our loved ones even when we don’t approve of their choices, or when we grieve their choices? Is our love for them more selfish or more selfless? Are we wanting them to make choices that are good for US or for THEM? How do we handl...

What do we need to know about midlife and how to navigate it? How does wellness intersect with women’s experiences of midlife? Today Beth discusses these topics with counselor Elizabeth O’Brien, the author of “The Power in the Middle”. Check out links to her book at sign up for her monthly  newsletter at her website HERE Listen to this episode and more: ⁠⁠⁠⁠neverperfect.org⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow us on instag...

John Wang, a leadership coach, corporate speaker, Podcast host and book author, is on a mission to empower Asian Americans to break through external and internal limitations in order to reach their full potential professionally and personally. Many of them get overlooked for leadership positions in spite of their brilliance and conscientiousness. John’s book, “Big Asian Energy: An Unapologetic Gui...

Before becoming a high performance relationship coach and gender dynamics social scientist Katarina Polonska struggled in her own relationship journey, calling off her first engagement. And today, this Oxford, trained therapist and relationship coach specializes in helping people figure out when to stay or when to go. She helps individuals as well as couples identify blind spots in their relations...

Julie Baumgardner has spent 35 years helping guide people to create healthy vibrant marriage relationships. Almost 28 years ago, she helped launch First Things First, an award-winning nonprofit dedicated to helping people have healthy relationships. In this episode,  she addresses some common myths about marriage and shares some of her favorite research and advice, for walking through hard seasons...

Today Dr. Beth and her husband Remo experience the benefits of Enneagram coaching with Kat Smith, certified Enneagram teacher and co-host of the Enneagram + Yoga podcast.  Kat gives an overview of the Enneagram test and how it helps us in our journey of self discovery and understanding our loved ones better, and how it can help us reframe narratives. She then shares an overview of Beth’s type, whi...

Today Dr. Beth and one of her clients (a man in his 70’s) spontaneously record their conversation about nonverbal communication and its impact on relationships. Researchers suggest that nonverbal communication is more important than verbal communication, and comprises 70 to 93% of communication. Today’s conversation stemmed from a comment he made about two tour guides on a trip who didn’t seem to...

This is what happens when 3 therapists get together for coffee, and spontaneously invite Beth’s dietician friend Ellie Paulauskaite to join them. Today’s episode is a recording of this fun and informative discussion about body image, fat shaming, and nutrition. Things include societal perceptions around nutrition and body image, emphasizing that being thin does not equate to being healthy. It high...

Today Dr. Beth interviews Jordanne Sculler, a therapist who specializes in relationships, approaching her clients with a “ tough yet compassionate style”.  She challenges her clients to look in the mirror at themselves rather than pointing their finger at others in an effort to “bring the work back to them.” She also challenges the delusion that relationships can be perfect. For her, the heart of...

In relationships, conflict is universal and unavoidable because we all have different viewpoints, opinions, needs and irritable moods and poor affect regulation often exacerbate these issues. Conflict itself is not the problem, but how we manage it can cause the problems. Today Dr. Beth shares several examples of common everyday conflicts and issues. She also includes several examples, including o...

Judith Belmont, best selling author of the TIPS series, has been practicing as a psychotherapist for more than 40 years, has recently published her favorite book with 110 cognitive behavioral therapy tips. It’s called 110 CBT Tips and Tools. Cognitive behavioral therapy is an empirically validated treatment for common mental health issues, such as anxiety and depression. Today Beth and Judith shar...

Alicia Jones, who developed the program Over Fifty Fit & Fabulous, went through some pivotal experiences with her own mental health and the physical health of her loved ones, which lead her to a life, dedicated to healthy living at any age. In her early adulthood, Alicia was motivated to lose weight because she thought it would make her more beautiful or worthy, but eventually she realized that th...

Today Stephen shares his story of living with cerebral palsy, explaining what it is, and what he wishes “normies” understood about it, such as how much mental energy it takes to simply live with pain or maintain physical balance, in the sense of walking without falling. At a young age, his mother instilled in him the importance of working as hard as possible to stay strong, and he describes how th...

After serving as a judge in Los Angeles for 26 years, Anthony pursued his passion for writing and decided to write a book about growing up in a blended family in the 50’s and 60’s, going back-and-forth between his father‘s house and his mother‘s house. He describes “ living in the shadow of two larger than life men”, both of whom mentored and influenced him in distinctive ways. His father was a Ho...

Today Dr. Beth has a fun discussion with her daughter, Cullie, and Cullie‘s boyfriend Bennett, who were both diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder about a year ago. After sharing some of the strengths and weaknesses of individuals with ADD, Beth asks them to share some a little bit about their experience with getting diagnosed, learning struggles, and reflecting on which traits they can and ca...

Today relationship expert Dr. Carol Stoney returns to Never Perfect to deliver more phenomenal nuggets on how to improve relationships and communication. She focuses on the importance of developing agreements on the front end rather than expecting your loved ones to read your mind or do guess work (Dr. Stan Tatkins developed this concept of agreements). Carol brings up a powerful exercise from Dr....

Are your life and work aligned with your purpose? Are your efforts making a positive difference? These are questions posed by Annette Gulick in her latest book. She states “In a world overflowing with options—from which product to buy, to which job to take, and for how long—it can be overwhelming to figure out what truly matters. And even harder to know if our choices will foster our well-being.”...

Today Vanderbilt trained physician Patricia McLelland addresses 10 common questions about menopause and hormones. Topics include how to know when you need hormones, how to decide which hormones to take, the benefits of hormones, the safest way to take them, etc. Patricia approaches medicine from an integrative standpoint, recommending holistic and botanical tools whenever possible. She focuses on...

After raising two daughters with allergies and working in the health and beauty industry for over 20 years, Kim Grustas founded  Good For You Girls, the first clean skincare company for girls in the United States. Kim has spent many years studying puberty and views it as a miraculous phase to be celebrated. Today she shares her views on puberty and how she talks about it with young girls and paren...