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OKAY-ISH
OKAY-ISH episodes
- Time for some change: and it's going to be okay—no ish
As 2022 comes to a close, everyone is talking about their goals and resolutions; but we’re not going to talk about that here. Instead, Maryellen wants to talk about how freaking hard change is. She discusses:
- How we avoid change
- How she thinks change is difficult because it’s uncomfortable, and we don’t like feeling uncomfortable
- Some big personal news/personal change: she sold her therapy practice
- Needing time to sit with that change and recover
- How she’s dealing with change, including reminding herself that uncomfortable does not equal bad, and that taking a step back can be a good thing to propel you forward
Lastly, Maryellen explains that she needs to also take a step back from the podcast in order to properly rest and reconfigure. She truly believes this isn’t goodbye, but see you later. It’s all going to be okay—no ish.
If you haven’t already, please follow, rate, and review the podcast, and follow your host on Instagram @maryellendance. To submit questions or stories, send her a DM! Plus, be sure to check out maryellendance.com for more resources.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
17 min - It’s not all sunshine and sleigh bells: grieving during the holidays
For many of us, the holidays are full of joy and love. However, holidays where grief and sadness dominate are also a reality for many, yet far less discussed. As the holiday season approaches, Maryellen wants to talk about grief. She hopes this episode sheds light on all the different faces of grief, and how, even during the most wonderful time of year, it’s okay not to be okay. This episode highlights:
- Holidays without a loved one
- How people grieve more than death
- Grieving differences in family dynamics, and the reality of our expectations
- How holidays are ripe with traditions and pressure to be in the holiday spirit, which can trigger people
- What to do with our grief
- That grief needs time
- How, if we ignore our feelings, they don’t go away, but instead come out in different ways
- That grief looks different for everyone
- How, often people grieving want to be alone, but the number one thing we need when grieving is other people
- Common symptoms of grief
- That it’s okay to distract yourself from grief, too
- How grief is so much more complicated than just the 5 stages commonly identified
If you haven’t already, please follow, rate, and review the podcast, and follow your host on Instagram @maryellendance. To submit questions or stories, send her a DM! Plus, be sure to check out maryellendance.com for more resources.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
17 min - You should eat some green stuff every now and then
You’ve heard it a million times: your physical health is important for your mental health, and vice versa. But do you know why, or what exactly they do to one another? Today, Maryellen wants to talk about that link, and discuss a few more details that you may not think of, including:
- The importance of sleep
- Eating patterns
- Heightened autonomic nervous system = our brain releasing cortisol into our blood stream
- Parasympathetic nervous system being repressed
- Frustrations with the random gimmicks that promise to “cure all”
- Forgetting when we need to do the simple things for ourselves
- The value of therapy
Tired as F*ck: Burnout at the Hands of Diet, Self-Help, and Hustle Culture by Caroline Dooner- Knowing when your body needs rest
- How our bodies communicate to us, but it’s up to us to listen
- Taking the time to check in with yourself
- How, if we can start to be aware, we can take better care of ourselves
If you haven’t already, please follow, rate, and review the podcast, and follow your host on Instagram @maryellendance. To submit questions or stories, send her a DM! Plus, be sure to check out maryellendance.com for more resources.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
17 min - My trauma isn’t up to you
Trauma is serious, scary, and there are not enough services in place to support those suffering. Today, Maryellen wants to normalize it a bit more, show a different perspective, and explain why some people will suffer in situations that maybe you wouldn’t. In discussing trauma Maryellen covers:
- The subjective nature of trauma and how it lacks a clear definition
- DMing an influencer to correct them on a trauma comment
- Big T’s and little T’s
- How, for each person, different things can be traumatic and that’s okay
- EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing): a trauma therapy based off of Structural Dissociation Theory
- Excerpts from My Dark Vanessa by Elizabeth Russel (TW: sexual assault)
- The importance of recognizing the little T’s
- How little T’s affect us and change our behavior
If you’re struggling, please reach out to a therapist. Visit psychologytoday.com or therapyden.com for a good place to start.
If you haven’t already, please follow, rate, and review the podcast, and follow your host on Instagram @maryellendance. To submit questions or stories, send her a DM! Plus, be sure to check out maryellendance.com for more resources.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
17 min - Dear dumb diary...is this my gut or my anxiety?
Maryellen has had to make some big decisions lately, and a friend asked her how she was making them. That made her stop and question just how exactly she was making these decisions, and if she was listening to herself as much as she was to everyone around her. When people suggest you listen to your gut, it can be difficult; especially if you struggle with anxiety. What was helping Maryellen the most was actually journaling, something she’s gotten back in to recently, and speaks about today. She discusses:
- How we make decisions
- The ways we can journal in non-productive ways
- Her history with journaling
- Journaling as a tool to understand yourself and organize your thoughts
- Different types of journals
- Tips to avoid spiraling when journaling
- How we operate on autopilot
- Understanding what is a gut instinct vs. what is anxiety
- Processing events and making decisions
If you haven’t already, please follow, rate, and review the podcast, and follow your host on Instagram @maryellendance. To submit questions or stories, send her a DM! Plus, be sure to check out maryellendance.com for more resources.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
20 min - My swiss cheese memory: Adulting With ADHD with Sarah Snyder-Castañeda
Today the creative mind behind the brand Adulting With ADHD, Sarah Snyder-Castañeda, joins Maryellen to discuss what ADHD really looks like. When you hear ADHD, many people instinctively and stereotypically think of a young child who can’t sit still, but it’s far more nuanced and affects people of all ages. The two discuss:
- How Sarah came up with the brand
- What ADHD truly is
- The lack of diagnoses and treatment with adults
- The difficulty and grief that can come with being diagnosed at an older age
- Medication and the polarizing opinions surrounding it
- The importance of talking about your struggles
- Common ADHD symptoms in adults
- The relationship between ADHD and hormones
- Advice for adults being diagnosed for the first time, or for parents whose child is being diagnosed
- The importance of being careful with the information you consume…TikTok is not a reliable source
- Their Okay-ish moments of the week!
To learn more visit adultingwithadhd.com and check out The Adulting With ADHD podcast.
If you haven’t already, please follow, rate, and review the podcast, and follow your host on Instagram @maryellendance. To submit questions or stories, send her a DM! Plus, be sure to check out maryellendance.com for more resources.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
28 min - Leadership, Covid, and burnout with organizational psychologist Dr. Shanna Teel
Have you noticed a change in your workplace culture or your personal stress levels since the pandemic? Working from home has caused many organizational shifts, in both good ways and bad. Organizational psychologist Dr. Shanna Teel joins Maryellen to discuss leadership coaching, burnout, and more, including:
- What an organizational psychologist does
- If organizations are really willing to bring on an organizational psychologist
- Changes within organizations as a result the pandemic
- How leaders who practiced empathy prior to Covid succeeded at leading during the pandemic
- Dr. Teel’s thoughts on the quiet quitting trend
- The high expectations of the next generation in the workplace
- Misuse of stress vs. burnout
- Signs of burnout
- If burnout has changed with people working from home
- Cognitive fatigue and how it depletes us
Be sure to follow Dr. Shanna Teel on social media @drshannateel and visit drshanna.com
If you haven’t already, please follow, rate, and review the podcast, and follow your host on Instagram @maryellendance. To submit questions or stories, send her a DM! Plus, be sure to check out maryellendance.com for more resources.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
45 min - Private practice, insurance, and doing the things with Kelley Stevens
Licensed marriage and family therapist Kelley Stevens joins Maryellen on the pod this week to discuss being both a private practice therapist, and a consultant for therapists! This episode is as hilarious as it is informative, and we hope it inspires you to “do the thing!”—whatever that may be. Maryellen and Kelley get in to:
- Working remotely
- Opening a private practice
- The difference between private practices and settings such as hospitals or clinics
- Issues with insurance
- Everything that goes in to a therapist’s rate
- Advocating for yourself with your insurance company
- Marketing for therapists
- How the first therapist you meet might not be the best fit, but to not give up
- Advice Kelley offers to therapists the most
- The intimidation of making a business plan
- Okay-ish moments of the week (warning: they both involve poop...)
If you don’t want to use your insurance but need a lower rate, be sure to check out Open Path Psychotherapy Collective at openpathcollective.org.
Be sure to follow Kelley on Instagram @theprivatepracticepro and visit theprivatepracticepro.com.
If you haven’t already, please follow, rate, and review the podcast, and follow your host on Instagram @maryellendance. To submit questions or stories, send her a DM! Plus, be sure to check out maryellendance.com for more resources.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
39 min - Mindfulness: time to take a beat!
This week is all about mindfulness! And before you roll your eyes and pause the podcast, bear with us. Maryellen used to feel the exact same way! But since she’s come to understand it more, she really appreciates the value it can bring to your life. However, mindfulness is something she’s been letting fall to the wayside lately, so she wanted to make a conscious effort (hey, mindfulness!) to discuss it today. This episode gets into:
- The definition of mindfulness
- How it started in religious beliefs
- Jon Kabat-Zinn bringing it to the western world
- How one of his books helped to change her view on mindfulness
- What mindfulness means to Maryellen
- How our brains filter information in order to keep moving
- How, in order to de-stress, sometimes we actually need to notice everything around us
- How mindfulness helps people with anxiety by bringing them in to the present
If you haven’t already, please follow, rate, and review the podcast, and follow your host on Instagram @maryellendance. To submit questions or stories, send her a DM! Plus, be sure to check out maryellendance.com for more resources.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
18 min - @ Having Bipolar with Tatyana Frost
TW: self-harm, bipolar disorder, psychosis, suicidal thoughts
Today Maryellen is joined by a special guest, bipolar advocate Tatyana Frost. Tatyana runs the popular Instagram account, @havingbipolar, and opens up to the OKAY-ISH community about her journey of acceptance and advocacy. The two discuss:
- Tatyana’s first experience talking about her diagnosis
- Starting her Instagram during quarantine
- How she felt when she was first diagnosed
- Her parent’s reaction to the diagnosis and their relationship
- How disorders such as depression, anxiety, and ADHD are widely accepted and discussed, but bipolar didn’t make it on the “acceptance train”
- How, while a lifelong condition, bipolar disorder is still treatable
- The importance of taking your medication when you have bipolar disorder
- How Tatyana keeps herself stable
- How the introduction of lithium changed the game for bipolar disorder
- What psychosis means and how it can manifest
- Advice for someone who was just diagnosed with bipolar disorder
- Advice for family members of someone who was just diagnosed with bipolar disorder
Be sure to follow Tatyana on Instagram @havingbipolar.
If you haven’t already, please follow, rate, and review the podcast, and follow your host on Instagram @maryellendance. To submit questions or stories, send her a DM! Plus, be sure to check out maryellendance.com for more resources.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
41 min
About OKAY-ISH
From the publisher's feed
Sometimes, we're not thriving and girl-bossing our way through life... we are just trying to make it through the day as best as we can. OKAY-ISH is all about getting honest when it comes…
to mental health, therapy, and the shit show we call life. Host and mental health counselor Maryellen Dance is on a mission, not to help you be perfect, but to get you feeling okay-ish. You're in for honest, raw, and emotional insights from a licensed specialist, as she covers topics ranging from co-dependancy and narcissism, to anxiety, sex, media, and more. Plus, she gets real about being a therapist, dating as a therapist, and "turning the therapist off" when it's time to unwind. Join us every Monday! You're not going to want to miss it... those cancellation fees are no joke.