What makes it so that some of us can go with the flow in the face of stress while others get overwhelmed? The X Factor we are going to talk about is resiliency. In today’s episode, we will look at what it takes to create more resiliency to adapt to our changing world and recover more quickly from perceived setbacks. Hint: It’s about carrying hope and using experience to show us we can survive and grow from anything.

On today’s podcast, we will explore where anxiety comes from, how it’s trying to help us, and how to talk to our own anxiety so we can find calm. Anxiety will affect one in three people at some point in their life, it is the most common form of mental illness, and although it responds really well to treatment only half of those who suffer from anxiety ever get treatment. My hope is that through exploring anxiety, listeners will understand their own or someone else's anxiety and use this info to find relief or offer support.

Today’s podcast is about our personal dashboard, this is a concept I developed to help myself and my clients learn to check in with ourselves when we’re feeling stressed or off to determine where that stress is coming from and look for options to bring ourselves back to a good place. What’s a personal dashboard? Just like a car has a dashboard. Imagine you have a personal dashboard with different gages to monitor and measure different functions in your body, your environment, and the impacts on your emotional well-being. Look at the personal dashboard as a way for you to measure where you’re at and then to identify some paths to enhance your emotional well-being

On today’s podcast, “Understanding Mental Illness”, we will examine different forms of mental illness. This will not be an exhaustive list but an important place to start given ½ of all people will experience mental illness in their lifetime and at any given moment 1 in 4 adults and 1 in 10 children are experiencing some form of mental illness. Mental illness exists on a continuum sometimes there is the presence of strong symptoms and sometimes symptoms are mild, diagnoses are made when a certain number of symptoms are presented and have lasted over time. This information is meant to inform but not diagnose different forms of mental illness, only a licensed mental health professional can make a diagnosis after a formal evaluation.

On today’s podcast, I’ll be talking about trauma, the different types of trauma, how people react to trauma and trauma’s impact on our body and mind. Not all people exposed to traumatic events or circumstances will go on to develop Post Traumatic Stress. Still, most of us do change through our exposure to trauma and children are especially affected by their exposure to trauma growing up. For more information on the impact of childhood trauma, I encourage you to check out information from the Adverse Childhood Experiences (aka ACEs) research.

On today's podcast, we will look at different types of stress, how it affects people in different ways, and what you can do to best manage your stress wherever it is coming from.  Not all stress is created equal. There is stress that we have some control over and there is some stress that we have no control over. There is stress with serious consequences and stress where the outcomes aren’t a big deal. We will see that perspective is key to handling stress.

Today's podcast will explore the effort it takes to get the most out of therapy, what work it takes to heal, and how you can be active in your healing journey.

I created Caterpillar Nation because as a therapist I know there are a lot of questions about what therapy is, what mental illness is, how to get help, and more. I hope these conversations inform and lift the stigma allowing you to talk freely about these topics. Today's podcast is looking at how to know when you need help including the signs, patterns, and concerns and What to expect when you go to therapy or counseling.