Messages From the Middle | Mental Health, Anxiety, Depression, Late Diagnosed ADHD, Undiagnosed Trauma, Neurodivergence, PTSD, Complicated Grief,

What happens after everything falls apart—and how do you slowly find your way back?

Four years ago, I walked through the hardest season of my life. In 2022, after years of holding things together through stress, isolation, and the quiet weight of struggling mental health, everything finally fell apart. I found myself withdrawing from the world, barely functioning, and eventually leaving home for two months to enter a residential tr...

In this episode, I share a powerful experience I had meditating with Buddhist monks in Chiang Mai, Thailand. That time sitting quietly in a temple halfway across the world taught me something simple but profound about the way our minds work. I talk about meditation through the lens of ADHD—the wandering mind, the endless stream of thoughts, and the feeling that we’re “bad” at focusing. But meditation isn’t about having a perfectly ...

What do Gilmore Girls and my kindergarten meltdown over a happy face stamp have in common? I am glad you asked. Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria (RSD) From a kindergarten meltdown over not earning a double smiley-face stamp to the emotional landmines of high school and adulthood, I share personal anecdotes about how RSD has shaped my life. I discuss how RSD affects creativity, relationships, and even the way we interpret simple text...

In this episode titled "Mindfulness for a Busy Mind," I delve into the fascinating world of managing ADHD through mindfulness and meditation. One of the fun things that comes with ADHD is a busy mind, and I mean fun—like I'm never bored; my mind is always entertaining me. But this constant whirlwind of thoughts can be inconvenient when it comes to quieting intrusive and worrisome thoughts. The good news is, there's something that c...

In this episode, I’m talking about boundaries—the kind that don’t come from frustration, control, or emotional shutdown, but from love. I share why real boundaries aren’t a list of rules for other people to follow so we can feel okay. They’re about what we will do, what we will allow, and how we take responsibility for our own emotional well-being. When boundaries are rooted in love instead of fear, they protect connection instead ...

Feeling stuck is one of the most common experiences in mental health—and one of the hardest to explain. In this episode, we explore what it really means to feel stuck, numb, or frozen, and why those feelings often show up when our nervous system is overwhelmed. Through the lens of the motivational triad—our brain’s drive to seek pleasure, avoid pain, and conserve energy—we unpack how staying stuck can actually be a form of protecti...

Lately, it feels like everything is too much—too much information, too much suffering, too much emotional weight to carry. In this episode, I talk honestly about what happens when empathy turns into emotional overload, burnout, or numbness. As someone whose top strength is empathy, I explore how constantly absorbing the pain of others—especially in a world fueled by social media and 24-hour news—can quietly erode our mental health....

In this episode, I’m talking openly about how I’ve been feeling lately—overwhelmed, stuck, and quietly sad about the state of the world. I share how those feelings slowly turned into an excuse in my mind, not just for stepping back from the podcast, but from a lot of things that matter to me. Instead of a polished outline or plan, I did the thing I’ve been avoiding: I plugged in the mic and pressed record. This episode is raw, unsc...

The holidays can quietly amplify expectation pain—especially for parents of older kids. In this episode, I talk about how unmet expectations around Christmas traditions, family dynamics, and “how it’s supposed to feel” can lead to disappointment, grief, and emotional exhaustion. When the magic of little-kid Christmases fades and family life shifts, many parents are left wondering how to hold joy and sadness at the same time without...

In this episode, I dig into an idea from Deborah Adele’s The Yamas & Niyamas that completely shifted how I think about kindness: the difference between being nice and being real. We talk about why so many of us default to niceness as a way to keep the peace, avoid conflict, and manage how others see us—especially when we’ve been taught our whole lives that being agreeable makes us good. But beneath the surface, niceness often a...

Here are two polished paragraphs for your Apple Podcasts description, Wendy:

In this episode, I share a simple moment from my Thanksgiving break that opened up a much bigger conversation—finally discovering my seasonal color palette. What started as a fun activity with my sister and sister-in-law uncovered a powerful metaphor about being seen, understood, and supported. Just like the right colors help us look more like ourselves, ...

This week we’re diving into indulgent emotions—those sneaky feelings that look like healing and self-reflection but actually keep us stuck. Confusion, overwhelm, worry, self-pity… they can all feel responsible, productive, or even spiritual. But when they don’t lead to action, they trap us in motion instead of progress. I’ll walk you through how these emotions hijack your brain, keep you feeling “busy,” and quietly protect you from...

In this episode, I’m unpacking the truth about gratitude—what the research actually says, why it can support our mental health, and why it sometimes falls completely flat. Studies show that gratitude can reduce depression, lower stress, strengthen relationships, and even improve sleep and immune function. But those benefits only show up when gratitude is practiced in a grounded, realistic way. I break down how to avoid slipping int...

In this episode, I share what getting back into running has taught me about resilience, mental health, and the power of intentional discomfort. After years of injuries and setbacks, I finally realized that rebuilding strength—physically and emotionally—starts with choosing to push against resistance instead of avoiding it. From sprint intervals to glute work to nervous-system regulation, I talk about how training my body has direct...

In this episode, I revisit the idea of “big T” and “little t” trauma after hearing Dr. Frank Anderson discuss why these labels can sometimes get in the way of healing. I agree with him that trauma is defined by its impact, not the size or obviousness of the event. But I also share why naming my own experiences—especially the ones I minimized for years—was a crucial step in recognizing how my nervous system had been shaped. Without ...

For a long time, I thought trauma was something that only happened to other people — the big, obvious kind you see in movies or read about in books. But when I entered residential treatment in 2022, I discovered something I’d never heard of before: little t trauma. These are the smaller, often invisible experiences that still shape how we see ourselves and the world — infertility, rejection, chronic stress, loss, or simply years of...

In this episode of Messages from the Middle, I’m talking about a word that we may actually be underusing: grief. Unlike other therapy buzzwords I’ve covered in this series, grief is a word that usually gets used correctly—but not nearly enough. We’ve come to associate grief solely with death, and while grief absolutely belongs there, it also deserves space in so many other areas of our lives. I share how misunderstanding grief le...

We hear the word boundaries all the time—set them, hold them, respect them—but what do boundaries actually look like in real life? In this episode, I’m breaking down what boundaries are, what they’re not, and why so many of us get them wrong. I talk through common misconceptions, share real-life examples, and offer practical steps for setting boundaries that protect your peace without pushing people away.

If you’ve ever felt guilty...

In this episode of Therapy Talk Traps: Words We Misuse and How It’s Holding Us Back, I’m diving into the word "gaslighting"—a term that’s become part of everyday conversation, often without a full understanding of what it truly means. While gaslighting is a very real and harmful form of psychological abuse, we’ve started using it to describe everything from disagreements to memory lapses, and that’s a problem. Misusing the term not...