Never Perfect

Author Sasha Saidman knows what it’s like to have struggles with learning and to question your intelligence. As a person with dyslexia and a high school dropout, Sasha is passionate about helping other individuals with learning disabilities discover their gifts and realize how intelligent they truly are, and embracing themselves as “outside the box thinners.” Today she shares her childhood story o...

Thanks to a conversation about licorice with a dental tech, Dr. Beth got to hear a wonderful story about a young woman’s struggles with severe anxiety. This woman, Erika Derryberry, she how she got her anxiety to a manageable level, from antidepressant medication to EMDR to neurofeedback, meanwhile developing a huge passion for holistic medicine and natural cures. Today Erika shares her story with...

Today Dr. Beth attempts to get some free counseling from her listeners as she processes some recent parenting mistakes in her own family. She discussed some of the components of executive functioning which she, and most parents with ADHD) are lacking in. these include skills, such as decision-making, prioritizing, planning ahead, and organizing. Beth shares a few examples how poor planning can cau...

Years ago, Beth came up with the term “Overfunctioner” and frequently talks about this with clients and friends who tend to overwork, overperform, do more than their share, and frequently have trouble being on the receiving end of things. There are a variety of potential reasons that people overfunction, including perfectionism, childhood trauma, feelings of insecurity or inadequacy, feeling that...

Today Beth records a spontaneous podcast on parenting, and shares her own personal struggles with it, as well a couple of client examples. She summarizes the parenting research on authoritative parenting and illustrates the principles using a fish tank/aquarium. In essence, parenting that is too strict and too much like a dictatorship doesn’t lead to optimal outcomes for children, but permissive a...

In this 10 minute episode, Beth shares a few examples of how perfectionism or overestimating a task/situation can lead to procrastination and all our nothing thinking. A common behavior and anxious, depressed or ADHD individuals is overestimating the difficulty of something and underestimating yourself. Analysis paralysis is similar. Beth shares three examples of this behavior in today’s episode....

In his mid 40s, Jeff Barry, an “oops” baby, became passionate about his life story, the heroes and the villains he’d encountered, and the life lessons along the way. His book “Go to Hell Ole Miss” is clearly a passion project, and one that he couldn’t sit down until he got it almost perfect. An editor told him it was ready to publish about a year into the process, but he spent another seven years...

Today, Beth asks dietitian Ellie, Paulauskaite for her top 10 pieces of nutrition advice. Ellie provides some amazing and simple guidelines to help with a big picture approach to giving our bodies what they need. Her advice includes: 1) eating whole grains instead of refined grains 2) making sure that half of your plate includes veggies and fruits, especially veggies 3) having small amounts of pro...

Chad talks about his journey as an Enneagram Four and coming into his own as an adult, recognizing his tendencies and passions, and how they affected his relationships. As a teenager and young adult, he was reluctant to pursue some of his passions, like poetry, that didn’t seem very welcomed in masculine culture. He also talks about his Enneagram subtype as a Sexual (One to One) type, and the way...

Today Matt Monahan returns for another interview with Dr. Beth, following a great conversation on the Never Perfect Faith podcast on 6/20/24 entitled “Allowing hard questions and honest answers.” So many men find it difficult to face their pain and be vulnerable, and Matt is willing to share his story of growing up with childhood abandonment and emotional neglect. He barely knew his father, and ha...

On today’s episode, Beth, interviews 2 brave and insightful teenagers (clients who are friends with eachother) who are willing to share their battles with mental health issues, body positivity struggles, etc. Charlie and Emie share their process of learning to value their package deal of strengths and weaknesses, managing social stressors and FOMO, discussing the impact of social media with these...

Scottie Bowman is an entrepreneur and restaurant owner today, but 22 years ago, after beginning her recovery from alcohol and drug addiction, she developed a passion for starting a rehabilitation center of some kind so that she could help women like herself. In 2019, her dream finally came true when she and her dream team of friends and colleagues, developed a 12-step based sober living home for w...

Sydney Guerette, founder of the Be The Change Youth Initiative, shares the reasons her family began a quest when she and her brother were teenagers of traveling the country, writing music and speaking to other teenagers about mental health issues and how they can make a difference in their everyday lives. Sydney believes that “all youth should be seen, heard, and loved,” as well as empowered “to b...

Today the hosts of Enneagram + Yoga, Christy Bonner and Kat Smith, return to the show to discuss the unique challenges of different Enneagram types to tune into their bodies. They describe each type briefly and how they can find ways to get centered and listen to their body. They also have a fun discussion about sex and intimacy related to embodiment and the enneagram types. Beth talks about the v...

In this short episode, Beth attempts to explain the impact of the nervous system on anxiety levels. She describes the speeding up (the sympathetic process) and the slowing down, a compensatory mode (parasympathetic) and how it relates to the fight flight and freeze responses that we have. Sometimes our nervous systems speed up because we encounter real danger or situations we fear and sometimes we...

This episode is more of an informational discussion on inpatient treatment and intensive outpatient treatment, for those who need more than just standard counseling and therapy . Beth interviews staff from local facility Erlanger Behavioral Health CEO Robin Weagley and Business Development Director Roberto Garcia, and they discuss the differences between inpatient treatment, partial hospitalizatio...

In this episode, dr. Beth interviews Brittanee Estes, a marriage and family therapist, who deals with autism spectrum disorders and ADHD. Brittanie describes the autism spectrum and the criteria/categories used to diagnose it. The first category relates to difficulty understanding and maintaining relationships, and trouble understanding, nonverbal cues. The second category relates to repetitive mo...

In this very short episode, Beth was so inspired immediately following a counseling session with a man in his late 60s that she wanted to record this podcast. Her client Joe is blind and has had two organ transplants and faced much adversity due to health problems. And yet he, a retired chemist and chef, continues to develop proactive ideas to help inner city and aging people get access to better...

Today Joe Timberlake returns to Never Perfect for a conversation about addiction recovery and recovery (previous podcast, was called “The Journey to Good Enough”). Joe has been in recovery for about 35 years, and he talks about his journey as a sponsor and a sponsee, and what that looks like. Beth and Joe talk about a little bit of everything related to Recovery. Including conversation about the a...

In this episode, Physical therapist and former NFL player Nic Colbert shares his life story and mental health of battling depression from early childhood through the present. Nic vulnerably shares his experience of shame, low self-worth, and self harm over the years and how he has grown and use therapy over the last seven years to get to his healthiest place.  Listen to this episode and more: neve...

Tiffany Dorizas, wife and mother of 5 adolescents, has a refreshing perspective on hospitality, and takes a casual approach to having people over and gives herself permission to never make it perfect. That’s why she posts videos on social media about how to make it easy. Very few people have the gift of hospitality, but maybe that would change if we shifted our view of it and the implications of i...

In the second episode with Jason, a middle aged carpenter, he shares his story about being on the brink of divorce, and how he and his wife turned things around in just a few short months. This was accomplished by starting to dialogue with his wife about the false assumptions and narratives, and gradually building a new connection Listen to this episode and more: neverperfect.org Follow us on inst...

Part 1 with Jason, a middle aged carpenter: In this episode, he describes how he benefited from therapy as an adolescent, and again in adulthood. Growing up, he developed a lot of false assumptions and unhealthy narratives; he often felt like a disappointment to his parents, and assumed they were more proud of his sisters, and of him. He realized, “I never developed healthy ways of communicating s...

After a comical discussion about “dry January” and the health benefits of not drinking, Beth and Kat (certified Enneagram teacher and co-host of the Enneagram + Yoga podcast) launch into a discussion about how the Enneagram helps us “ understand the motivations, the fears, and behaviors of people that you’re in relationship with, and have kindness and compassion for that because they are different...

Bethany Whitted, an expert in the psychology of organizations, team dynamics, leadership discusses authenticity and why it matters in individuals lives. She explains what authenticity is, and how it starts and what gets in the way of it.. essentially it is the degree to which one is true to their real self, including personality, spirit, and character.  Listen to this episode and more: neverperfec...