Conscious Living Counseling & Education Center

11/18/2025

People don’t drop perfectionism because they suddenly stop caring — they drop it when they see others getting better results without it.

At some point, you realize you’ve been sacrificing something bigger (your health, peace, time, relationships) for something smaller (a perfect email, a flawless plan, the “right” moment).

Perfect is a small target. Small targets give you momentary, specific dopamine highs. Boring. GO bigger.

11/04/2025

It’s confusing, isn’t it? New treatments are marketed to you, then go away, ineffective products are over-priced, effective products are not researched…. Will you have the correct information when you need it the most?

Partner with your therapist to take the gold standard intervention and combine it with your own strategies and insights. Learn to listen and trust yourself. Your therapist can model what it’s like to live with a curious mind, adaptive brain, and balanced body… but the control lies with you. You must practice new things and see what’s real for you. This is more important than ever. Look inward. Acquire the right tools to create a resilient inner compass.

10/27/2025

Most of your deadlines come from you.

Wild, right? You actually have more control than you realize.

Anxious minds are wired for speed and eagerness. Try this experiment:
👉 Block off time in your schedule when you don’t want to work.
Notice what shifts.

You might get pushback (from others or yourself), but that’s your cue to ask:
Why does this feel urgent?
That pause opens space for better solutions.

The real trap is saying “yes” automatically and crunching your schedule — that’s how we stay stuck in a chronic state of urgency and overdrive.

Let your wellness set the pace.
Prioritize health, sleep, connection, and meaningful work.
That’s where the best results live. 🌿

10/21/2025

Friendly reminder. Make the most of 2025. Take some time to pull out your calendars, book those vacations, or optimize your time! We all need a booster this year. Also, remember that Democrats and Republicans have been neighbors for a very long time and have a long history of coexisting. Peace and joy to all as we head into this holiday season.

10/13/2025

Did you know IBS is no longer considered a mental health condition? If you've been told this, it's time to revisit this with an expert. With or without IBS, you should know that the gut is the center of your body's universe. The gut is the most impacted by food (or what's ingested) and stress. But your gut should be able to handle a lot of stress! There are other metabolic consequences at play here if you're struggling in this area, and you can find more answers to help. We're in a weird time right now, where hormones and gut education are coming from non-experts on social media. Some of this is helpful, but it isn't personalized! Hormone health and gut recovery 100% needs to be personalized! Where do you start? This book is a good start. AT CLC, K**a provides what she refers to as "metabolic mental health," which recognizes the impact that glucose metabolism, gut health, and hormone health have on mental health. Mental health improves when you heal these areas. These areas don't improve if mental health improves. Interesting right!

10/08/2025

🧠 As adults, our brains are constantly integrating past experiences and predicting the future.

When your brain makes too many false predictions or gets stuck in rumination loops, you start to distrust itself:

😰 You feel anxious about a future you can’t rely on.
🌀 You get stuck replaying a past you can’t learn from.
🚫 Learning in the present becomes harder.

✨ CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) can change this. It helps you become a better historian of your past and a more accurate predictor of future threats — giving your nervous system permission to settle into the present moment, where thriving happens.

09/11/2025

Premenstrual Exacerbation (PME) of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) has been reported in 20-42% of women, often occurring in the premenstrual phase and extending a few days past the beginning of a woman's period. For OTHER ANXIETY conditions, women can experience worsening social anxiety, panic attacks, and an increase in repetitive negative thinking.

Premenstrual exacerbation of an existing psychiatric disorder refers to the worsening of symptoms inherent to the condition during the premenstrual phase. Research consistently indicates that hormonal fluctuations during the menstrual cycle present ...

09/08/2025

"Do you ever find yourself staring at a half-finished project or pushing something important into the “someday” pile?
​
If so, it’s easy to think that you’re lazy or unmotivated; but the truth is that procrastination is tied to anxiety, overwhelming feelings, disconnection from your values, or perfectionism."

Podcast Episode · Well, hello anxiety with Dr Jodi Richardson · 08/19/2025 · 25m

09/03/2025

It's okay to be
confused.

08/21/2025

10 Things You Need to Do to Recover from an Anxiety Disorder.

Read below for 10 mental shifts you can make to support your anxiety disorder recovery. Keep in mind, this list doesn't even begin to look at nutrition, gut health, brain health, and sleep. Recovery from ANY BODY condition is THE BIG MESSY. When you set off to improve your mental or physical health, you're in the area of systems. Every complex system has at least 10 components. This is why we get so frustrated! This is my professional goal: to continue to provide stellar CBT care for patients while helping them identify gaps in their treatment plans.

Read below for core mental shifts you can make to fully support your anxiety disorder recovery:

1. Accept That Recovery Is Not Clean: Recovery is rarely linear.
2. Learn How to Feel Without Fleeing: Tolerating anxiety without needing to fix it is a core
skill for healing.
3. Stop Treating Your Thoughts Like Oracles: Not all thoughts are meaningful.
4. Expose Yourself: Face what you fear intentionally. Exposure helps rewire your brain.
5. Get Curious, Not Controlling: Ask what's happening vs how do I make this stop?
6. Create Safe, Non-Safe Spaces: Build environments that are supportive but not overly protective.
7. Nourish the Nervous System: Support your healing with sleep, movement, nature and other goodies.
8. Challenge Mental Filters: Catch and question your cognitive distortions, like catastrophizing.
9. Let Go of Perfectionism in Healing: Learn to flow, but metric (measure) anything you want to increase.
10. Find meaning bigger than fear: Identify one thing you want in life. Start working toward it while anxious.

08/19/2025

Hmm. Seems like more women are getting diagnosed with ASD. The diagnostic threshold has definitely shifted for some psychologists. Maybe it's time we take another look at this?

08/04/2025

https://www.treatmyocd.com/blog/10-must-listen-podcasts-for-people-with-ocd?psafe_param=1&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=NOCD_PM_US&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=14264737132&gbraid=0AAAAADEWRhZx68SsYPfMRG0THgRNnaxLb&gclid=Cj0KCQjwtMHEBhC-ARIsABua5iQeAFBx1cjlZaVrPXr9RGg4Y9XuPRozsLgpWIF-N93sbpnZUpCyK8oaAnrkEALw_wcB

Accurate representations of your experience can be life-changing. That’s especially true for those experiences that are commonly misunderstood or