Minds Made Steady

What happens in your brain and body when you pray? Mental health practitioner, Larissa, walks through the mental and emotional benefits of prayer. Starting with Jeremiah 29:11, learn why daily prayer is good for your mind, body, and relationship with God.

In this episode:

• What brain scans show when Christians pray, including the Lord's Prayer

• Your Anxiety Pathway and Prayer Pathway, and how they work in your thoughts, brain, and nervous system

• Why the hope end of the Prayer Pathway works

• The benefits of prayer for your body, mind, relationships, physical health, and spirit, in bullet points

• Why prayer feels dry or distracted, and what to do about it

• Prayer as a coping tool for your tool belt, and why it is more than a tool

• Rest and digest, the vagus nerve, and the soothing rhythm of prayer

• Research on people who pray compared with people who don't, for anxiety, depression, loneliness, and pain

• What the Harvard Global Flourishing Study says about faith and flourishing

• Six reasons to pray every day, with Scripture

• A five minute daily prayer practice and a script for dry days

If this encouraged you, follow so you don't miss what's next, and share it with someone who needs hope today.

Work with Larissa at www.prospercounsel.com

Download the free anxiety reset guide: https://prospercounseling.myflodesk.com/anxiety-reset-guide

The information shared on this podcast is for educational purposes only. It is given with the understanding that neither the host of the show, its guests, publishers, or producers are giving legal, financial, professional, or clinical advice. Consult with your own licensed professional before implementing.

www.prospercounsel.com

Overstimulated and touched out in motherhood? You are not a bad mom, you are not crazy, and you are not incapable. Mental health practitioner, Larissa, explains what overstimulation is, why constant caregiving keeps your nervous system on high alert, and what recent research says, then gives you practical tools to build tiny bits of margin into a busy day.In this episode:-What overstimulation is and the symptoms to watch for in your body, emotions, and behavior-Why constant demands work like hypervigilance and can keep a mom in fight or flight, causing irritability, a short temper, and frustration-What recent research says: a 2025 parent survey, the 2024 Surgeon General advisory, and a 2026 systematic review-How overstimulation affects a mom's mental health, and why struggling does not make you a bad mom-Why needing a break is not selfish-Tiny margin practices for when there is no break, including breath prayers, glimmers, and a midday reset-Product ideas like Loop earplugs, white noise, sunglasses, and a weighted blanket-A three step tool, Name it, Narrow it, Settle it, plus scripts for yourself and your kidsIf this described your Tuesday, follow so you don't miss what's next, and share it with a mom who needs permission to step outside for five minutes.Links:Work with Larissa: www.prospercounsel.comDownload the free anxiety reset guide: https://prospercounseling.myflodesk.com/anxiety-reset-guideProsper Counseling blog posts mentioned:From Spiraling to Steady: 10 Tiny Practices to Calm Your Body: https://www.prospercounsel.com/blog/spiraling-to-steadyFinding Peace in the Chaos: https://www.prospercounsel.com/blog/finding-peace-in-the-chaos-a-missouri-womans-guide-to-nervous-system-regulationHow to Be the Thermometer When Your Child is Boiling Over: https://www.prospercounsel.com/blog/a-christian-parent-guide-to-co-regulationGlimmers and Microblessings: https://www.prospercounsel.com/blog/glimmers-and-microblessings-small-shifts-that-change-everythingSources:Lurie Children's Hospital, Nearly Three in Four Parents Report Sensory Overload (May 2025): https://www.luriechildrens.org/en/news-stories/nearly-three-in-four-parents-report-sensory-overload/Parental sensory processing patterns and parenting: a systematic review (McClenaghan et al., 2026): https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/developmental-psychology/articles/10.3389/fdpys.2026.1842441/fullU.S. Surgeon General advisory on the mental health and well being of parents (August 2024), news coverage: https://muschealth.org/patients-visitors/news/2024/08/29/surgeon-general-gives-advisory-on-mental-health-and-wellbeing-of-parentsFindling, Barnoy, and Itzhaki, parental burnout in mothers, Frontiers in Psychology (2023): https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1259670/full

Disclaimer:

The information shared on this podcast is for educational purposes only. It is given with the understanding that neither the host of the show, its guests, publishers, or producers are giving legal, financial, professional, or clinical advice. Consult with your own licensed professional before implementing.

Is your good fruit going to waste on the branch? Therapist Larissa uses the biblical image of overripe fruit to explain two hidden reasons Christians feel stuck: burnout from producing without rest, and perfectionism that keeps us waiting for the perfect moment until our gifts spoil.

In this episode:

• Why your desire to grow and bear fruit is God's design, not vanity

• What burnout looks like when good fruit is never harvested or received

• How perfectionism and waiting for the right moment keep your gifts stuck

• Why spiritual fruit comes from abiding in the vine, not hustling

• How rest, regulation, and boundaries keep you connected

• A weekly Harvest Check to receive what you've grown and pick what is "ripe enough"

Follow Minds Made Steady so you don't miss the next episode, and share this one with a friend.

Work with Larissa: book a free consultation at www.prospercounsel.com/free-consultation

Book Larissa to speak:

www.prospercounsel.com/speaking

Free Anxiety Reset Guide: https://prospercounseling.myflodesk.com/anxiety-reset-guide

The information shared on this podcast is for educational purposes only. It is given with the understanding that neither the host of the show, its guests, publishers, or producers are giving legal, financial, professional, or clinical advice. Consult with your own licensed professional before implementing.

What is a boundary, and how do you set one without the guilt spiral afterward?

A boundary is a limit you set on your own behavior, on what you will do, allow, and participate in, to protect your wellbeing, your values, and your capacity.

In this episode, therapist Larissa Darter explains what a healthy boundary looks like, when to use one, and how, then gives you three practical tools for the guilt, the racing heart, and the words you can't find.

In this episode:

• What a boundary really is, and what it isn't
• Rigid, porous, and healthy boundaries
• Signs you need a boundary, including resentment, dread, and exhaustion
• Guilt versus conviction, with a three question check
• The fawn response and a three breath pause
• Ready to use boundary phrases for family, work, friends, and kids
• Scripture on boundaries as stewardship, not selfishness

If this helped, follow so you don't miss what's next, and share it with someone who needs permission to say no.

Work with Larissa: www.prospercounsel.com

Free Anxiety Reset Guide: https://prospercounseling.myflodesk.com/anxiety-reset-guide

The information shared on this podcast is for educational purposes only. It is given with the understanding that neither the host of the show, its guests, publishers, or producers are giving legal, financial, professional, or clinical advice. Consult with your own licensed professional before implementing.

Community doesn't just happen to you, most of the time you have to take initiative to seek it out. This week I sit down with my friend Anne McCormick, a wife, mother, and marketing professional, to talk about what community has actually looked like for her across completely different seasons of life, and how serving others ends up being the doorway to connection, not a distraction from finding it.In this episode:Anne's real examples of finding community in different seasons and capacities of life:-Community looks different in various life stages-Serving others opens the door to real connection, and sometimes leadership roles you never went looking for-How to discern when it's time to step into a role, and when it's time to step back out of oneHave you noticed community looking completely different for you depending on the season you're in? You're not alone in that, and this conversation might name exactly why.If this resonated, click follow so you don't miss what's next, and share it with a friend who's been feeling a little disconnected lately.Links: Work with Larissa: www.prospercounsel.comAnne McCormick:https://marketingandmore.co/IG: @mccormick_marketing_moreMoms in Prayer: https://momsinprayer.org/

The one passage I use again and again with clients in their hardest seasons, grief, fear, waiting on news they can't control. This episode walks through what Psalm 23 actually meant in its original hard, dry setting, the real neuroscience behind why reading it calms your brain, not just your spirit, and the exact three step practice to use it themselves.

In this episode:

• What to hear if you're in the valley right now, before anything else
• How regularly reading scripture measurably reduces amygdala activity, the brain's alarm center
• Why prayer and scripture engagement activate your parasympathetic nervous system
• What "green pastures," "still waters," and "the valley of the shadow of death" actually meant
• The three step Valley Practice used in real client sessions
• The connection between the shepherd's daily provision and the Lord's Prayer's "daily bread"

This is where faith and psychology meet. Follow so you don't miss what's next, and encourage someone else by sharing this episode.

Links: 

Work with Larissa at www.prospercounsel.com 

Download the free anxiety reset guide: https://prospercounseling.myflodesk.com/anxiety-reset-guide

Disclaimer: 

The information shared on this podcast is for educational purposes only. It is given with the understanding that neither the host of the show, its guests, publishers, or producers are giving legal, financial, professional, or clinical advice. Consult with your own licensed professional before implementing.

A real, unfiltered conversation on motherhood, postpartum, and learning to let go of control. Larissa sits down with her best friend Monique, a family nurse practitioner, for an honest talk between two women, two careers, and one shared season of figuring out motherhood in real time.

In this episode:

• Monique's perspective on postpartum, both clinically and personally
• Why letting go of control might be the hardest and most important part of early motherhood
• What balancing a demanding career with motherhood actually looks like day to day
• Honest moments postpartum
• Encouragement for any mom trying to hold a lot at once
• Lessons learned from "making guacamole"
• Helpful tools from the book "Prosper in Motherhood"

If this conversation feels like chatting with a friend. Monique is the big sister you didn't know you needed!

www.prospercounsel.com

Download the Anxiety Reset Guidebook

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Leave a rating if you found the episode helpful.

The information shared on this podcast is for educational purposes only. It is given with the understanding that neither the host of the show, its guests, publishers, or producers are giving legal, financial, professional, or clinical advice. Consult with your own licensed professional before implementing.

#Motherhood #Postpartum #WorkingMom #ChristianMentalHealth #MindsMadeSteady

How to release stress and anger from your body, practical, faith-integrated tools. The final episode in our three part emotion regulation foundations series gets practical, what do you actually do once you notice mobilized emotional energy in your body.

In this episode:

• What it means to metabolize an emotion rather than suppress it
• A callback to Dan Siegel's flipping your lid model, and why movement reaches what talking alone can't
• Specific, doable movement techniques for a flight response
• Specific, doable movement techniques for a fight or anger response
• A gentler approach for the freeze state
• Why grief and sadness need movement too
• What to do when you truly can't move (a meeting, driving, a checkout line)
• A practical tool for matching movement to whatever your body is actually asking for
• An exact script to give yourself permission
• A closing breath prayer, and the scriptural roots of embodied emotional expression

If this series helped you, follow the podcast, leave a rating, and share this episode with someone who needs a tool to work with today.

 #MentalHealth #StressRelief #Faith #ChristianMentalHealth #MindsMadeSteady

Links:

• Work with Larissa at www.prospercounsel.com 
• Download the free anxiety reset guide: https://prospercounseling.myflodesk.com/anxiety-reset-guide

Disclaimer : The information shared on this podcast is for educational purposes only. It is given with the understanding that neither the host of the show, its guests, publishers, or producers are giving legal, financial, professional, or clinical advice. Consult with your own licensed professional before implementing

Parenting Stress & Relationship Survival: 4 Tools for the Early Years (30-60-90, Tap In/Tap Out, 1–10 Scale + Softened Startup)Mental health therapist Larissa Darter introduces a four-part relationship series on Minds Made Steady with her husband Will, sharing psychology- and faith-informed strategies that helped them through the high-demand early parenting years marked by constant caregiving and sleep deprivation.

Tools:

1) 30/60/90 goal plan paired with a brief Sunday night preview to align calendars, budgets, priorities, and expectations;

2) “tap in/tap out” high-five system for handing off infant and bedtime stress without judgment;

3) 1–10 battery scale to quickly communicate capacity and decide what to drop or delegate. They discuss shifting connection toward teamwork, lessons from later parenting stages, and challenging seasons

4) The Gottman “softened startup” script to raise concerns without blame.

00:00 Welcome and Series Intro

01:52 Parenting Stressors Overview

03:22 Tool One 30 60 90 Plan

06:44 Sunday Night Preview

11:21 Tool Two Tap In Tap Out

18:14 Tool Three 1 to 10 Check In

23:36 Lessons in Older Kids Years

28:02 Hardest Seasons and COVID

33:26 Gottman Softened Startup

35:08 Wrap Up and Next Episode

Book a free consultation to work one on one.

Leave a rating, and click follow so you never miss an episode!

Disclaimer: The information shared on this podcast is for educational purposes only. It is given with the understanding that neither the host of the show, its guests, publishers, or producers are giving legal, financial, professional, or clinical advice. Consult with your own licensed professional before implementing.

Part two of our foundations series on emotion regulation goes deep into the body, what's actually happening inside you when an emotion hits.

In this episode:

• The autonomic nervous system, explained in plain language
• The real difference between fight and flight
• What the freeze and fawn responses actually are
• The traffic light analogy for adults, green, yellow, red
• The owls, watchdogs, and possums framework, a kid-friendly version you can use at home
• Dr. Dan Siegel's flipping your lid model
• Why self control, a fruit of the Spirit, requires your thinking brain to actually be online
• The window of tolerance and co-regulation
• A practical tool: the physiological sigh
• An exact script for the moment you notice activation
• What Psalm 131 teaches us about a settled body and soul

Links:

Work with Larissa at www.prospercounsel.com

Download the free anxiety reset guide

Disclaimer:

The information shared on this podcast is for educational purposes only. It is given with the understanding that neither the host of the show, its guests, publishers, or producers are giving legal, financial, professional, or clinical advice. Consult with your own licensed professional before implementing.