Live Well with Laci

06/25/2025

It’s hard to watch our teens in distress—but it’s important to remember that reacting to upsetting situations with strong emotions is actually a sign of mental health. Our job is to support them as they learn to navigate and manage those emotions effectively.

04/17/2025

ADHD Motivators

What motivates you? If you are neurotypical you are motivated by rewards, importance, and consequences. You can function in that motivational space well.

What if you are neurodivergent? Your motivators are much different, they are:

Interest
Novelty
Challenge
Urgency
Passion

Consequences do not motivate the ADHD person. They are motivated more my urgency. Have a project due in three weeks? Perfect. You will work on it the night before because urgency has set in. Unless the project is interesting or stimulating, then you have a higher chance of working on it before urgency shows up.

Knowing the motivators for people with ADHD help you decode how to support them. They are not lazy or unmotivated, they are motivated by a different motivational system.

04/16/2025

REST

R-Relax: Stop what you are doing, freeze, take a breath, pause, step away from the situation
E-Evaluate: Ask what is happening in this situation. What are the facts? Quickly scan.
S-Set an Intention: Find your target, goal, or plan. Pick a coping skill or distraction.
T-Take Action: Put your plan or skill in motion.

Why should you rest? To remind yourself you want to respond differently to the situation than you have before. You are working to tolerate uncomfortable situations and emotions.

Sometimes you will find you need to REST multiple times through a situation. RESTing is only the first step in gaining tolerance skills.

04/09/2025

ADHD

Vitamin C - Connection

For a person with ADHD connection is key. Connection to family, friends, and even strangers. Feeling connected to the world around them is healing to the inner imposter and creates an environment for them to thrive.

If you are a person with ADHD how do you create connection? Here is a list (definitely not comprehensive) of ideas:
Eat with your family or close friends.
Unless you or a family member is allergic - get a pet.
Daily stops at coffee shops, gas stations, yarn shop, your regular haunt with hellos and smiles from all there is helpful.
Clear yourself of pent-up anger or resentment - “They were a jerk but I will not spend one more minute of my energy on them (or the situation).”
Take a daily inventory of gratitude. Find the things you are grateful for, not the happy things that happened.
Be on the watch for mentors. Find the person to help you along your journey.
Connect with two friends regularly.
Spiritual practice to help you connect mind and body.
If you are a parent to a kiddo with ADHD all these same suggestions apply for them as well.

04/07/2025

Distraction vs Avoidance

Pain is powerful and we will do what it takes to make it stop. For some, physical and emotional pain are so severe they feel they are being taken out by a tsunami and will stop at nothing to make the pain stop.

At times, this need to make pain stop can drive some to use unhelpful and, at times, unsafe coping mechanisms. So what should be done?

Here is a great start point - distraction. The goal of distraction is to allow the emotions to recede to a manageable level and then engage with problems solving to relieve the pain. You distract yourself in order to manage the painful event in the future.

However, psychoanalytic theory suggests humans are preloaded with defense mechanisms to help us out. Avoidance is one of those mechanisms. Avoidance is exactly what it sounds like - avoiding everything to do with the pain and having no intention to figure it out.

What is the difference between the two?

Avoidance = Not dealing with the pain at all and completely ignoring it (P.S. It will grow if you do this).
Distraction = Giving yourself a break from the emotional overwhelm in order to let the emotion decrease and having the intention to deal with the pain in the future.

03/27/2025

What an excellent resource!!

02/08/2025

This!

Being a teenager—or raising one—can be challenging. The good news? Taking the time to connect, understand their perspective, and offer support can make a big difference in their mental health.

01/11/2025

New office arrangement!

Something needed to shift and this is how it ended!

A huge thank you to for helping with the space planning and moving furniture pieces.

12/25/2024

We celebrate Christmas at the Warby residence. No matter what or how you celebrate take the time to feel love and find support.

12/20/2024

One good way to survive the holidays is to REST.

R-Relax
E-Evaluate
S-Set an Intention
T-Take Action

Let’s chat this for a moment. When you feel activated and out of sorts it is almost impossible to decision make or problem solve. So, what do you do?

Relax - step away, gain new perspective, pause, take a breath. Give yourself the chance to see you can choose how to respond to the situation.

Evaluate - Ask yourself what is happening, what are the facts. You are not problem solving here. You are observing only.

Set an Intention - Set a goal, pick a target, create a plan of action based on the observations you made during your evaluation.

Take Action - Do the thing. Now you act on your intention. Do it slowly and intentionally to ensure your awareness is on point.

Remind yourself the goal here is to manage not always solve.

08/22/2024

Have you seen it yet? Go! Especially if you or someone you love struggles with worry or anxiety. You see how to ground, why all of our emotions are necessary, and how connection is healing!

08/22/2024

Connection is one of the most powerful treatments!

For kids, a new school year can bring new worries about fitting in socially. It can be helpful to reassure them that when it comes to having friends, quality always beats quantity.