The Better Living Collaborative

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The Better Living Collaborative

Get started with my free self-compassion guide at radicalself.ck.page

I'm committed to providing individuals and organizations accessible tools (not rules!) for ‘Radical Wellness' - the art and science of being okay, even when things around us aren't.

03/06/2026

I have a habit of binge watching TV dramas... especially the ones about hospitals, politicians, or lawyers. It's something I was doing long before 'streaming' was an option. I just lived for those TV marathons! 📺

And, especially in those early years, I was binging those shows to transport me away from my own life. Anything to get out of my own head, away from my feelings, and forget about my situation. 🧠

Sound familiar?

There's really nothing wrong with the occasional escape - in fact, it can be a much needed respite from time-to-time. But I want to tell you - it's not helping you. Escaping is a delay-of-game and nothing more. ✨

That's why Intention Matters -
And that's never more true than when we are doing something for ourselves (whether we call it 'self-care' or not).

You must be in collaboration - in connection - with yourself. Your intentions must align with what you really need and, truth be told, what you need is never going to be to bury those feelings and escape. 🌈

Can binge-watching be self-care? Sure - but only with intention.

Eating your favorite food can be self-care - if your intention is to have a beautiful sensory experience, or to engage in nostalgic recall it certainly may be. But if it's to numb you to what is happening around you, that's just not going to work. 🍚

Like the honeybee, you have to take and give to yourself in collaboration with your own needs - to feed you, not starve you. 🐝

03/05/2026

It doesn't do anyone good to have resources that are out of reach. That's why I'm working on a revamp of the Radically Well Academy to include a host of very low-cost, self-driven, self-paced tools. I know all-too-well how difficult it can be to access help and support, within a budget and a schedule, especially in the aftermath of those really tough moments.

Download my free guide (the link is in the comments) and get on my mailing list so that you can get access to these tools for yourself and for those you love.

03/04/2026

We have to talk about the power of weaponized words for a minute - even without recognizing it, we can fall into the trap of using/welding words to exert control or elicit feelings of worth, value, etc.

I've done it. I've even done with the word on my post - Victim.

I have hated that word for the duration of my time 'inside' the category. In fact, I think I wrote about how disempowering that word is for a trauma-informed post and have railed against its presence on things like the 'Victims of Crime' paperwork I was once forced to fill out.

Now, I'm not wrong about the word being disempowering - it is. BUT, it's disempowering because of the way it's been weaponized, not because the word itself is a problem. We use the word 'victim' as a tool for shame and for silence. We use the word TO disempower. And that's the actual weaponization of it.

Think about it - if you can convince someone (me, for example) that sharing abuse, or sharing an injustice, or calling out a systemic wrong, makes me someone who is weak, or manipulative, or failing to take responsibility, you'll likely shut me up. And even if you don't, if you can paint me in that light, I'm discredited. That means the status quo can continue, undisturbed by its 'victims.'

But 'don't be a victim' is hollow - if you've been abused, suffered injustice, been taken advantage of - you ARE a victim (sorry to say.)

You just don't have to be ONLY a victim - You can also be a survivor, warrior, victor, change-agent, or whatever else you want. And, you know things others don't if they weren't a victim - you've got wisdom.

Victim = has been victimized.
Victim ≠ can't be anything else.

03/03/2026

I've decided to expand my client base while interning - offering $30 in-person or telehealth therapy sessions in South Carolina (no insurance.) With everything going on in the world, being able to offer something that is affordable and accessible is important to me. If I can support you, or someone you know, please reach out. I'd love to accompany you on your healing journey!

03/02/2026

As a doctoral student in Mental Health Counseling, I know the value of therapy.
As a DV survivor, I know the value of therapy.
As a parent, I know the value of therapy.
As a human in a world that often seems so harsh, I know the value of therapy.

I also know the stigma of the work I do - and the treatment I use. But it doesn't need to be that way. Let's normalize therapy - with a little levity 🥸

Therapy Nerd merchandise is my personal design - a playful way to start the conversation about why we can all use a little therapy from time to time. Tee's, hoodies, bags, pillowcases, and hats in a variety of fun colors and styles - with more to come. Shop the store and become an advocate today. You never know who you might empower!

betterlivingcollab.com/store

Because therapy isn’t weird—pretending you don’t need it is!

03/01/2026

We get caught up in the nuance of this a lot...

Trauma Survivors: Healing after trauma isn’t about blaming yourself for what you went through. Especially if you were young—it was NEVER your fault. Even if you felt powerless, your mind and body channeled their warrior spirit to help you survive. And you did. And you're here.

Now, YOU get to write your story. Being accountable in your now means you’re in charge of your healing, your growth, and how you react to triggers. Changing & healing doesn’t mean punishing yourself for the ways you survived—it means acknowledging your strength and refusing to let your past define you.

You can hold compassion for who you were, and still champion who you’re becoming. Both are true.

Ready to move forward? Let's do this.

02/27/2026

That voice in your head telling you all kinds of nasty and unkind things?
It's not yours!
It was NEVER yours!
It was theirs - but now it sounds like it's coming from you.

You can change that.

It takes conscious effort and a lot of work, but YOU are worth it!

The good news is that you can begin today with some simple questions to reframe that voice -
Then download my FREE guide, Seven Days to Radical Self-Compassion and take it further.

02/26/2026

It doesn't have to be all or nothing - in fact, being means embracing BOTH dichotomies. If you can learn to do that, you'll find the you feel better both because YOU feel better and because you also made OTHERS feel better!

02/25/2026

Every now and again, I encounter that person. The one where I can see that they don't necessarily believe what I am telling them.

These people used to be a huge, huge shame-trigger for me. I would immediately launch into all the ways I was right, working in the research I'd done or all the proof of an incident I had.

Because the benefit of the doubt had always been an elusive thing for me, being in an abusive relationship that often included implications that I "wouldn't be believed anyway" further upended my concept of self-truth. I doubted myself at least as much as others did - even when I knew I was truthful to a fault.

When I worked through those issues, I found that no more people believed me than had before I worked through them. That's just how it is. Some people are never going to believe me. The shift was in how I accepted that fact without being consumed by it any longer. I learned that when I could feel the inner confidence of my own truth, it mattered much less how others perceived my knowledge and experiences. It was incredibly freeing.

The confidence to know what you know: That's Radical Wellness

02/24/2026

Toxic Positivity can get under our skin - and inside our minds.
But it doesn't have to be that way.

You deserve to feel how YOU feel without justification or excusing the conditions you endured.
Good things come from showing ourselves self-compassion and connecting with OUR voice, not anyone else's. Grab my free download today and get started!

# #

02/23/2026

What makes one brain process something as trauma and another one not?
We have absolutely no idea.

We do know trauma is part of the human experience - we know almost all humans experience trauma.

And while there are all kinds of different definitions for 'trauma' (including the many academic ones I've studied), I've developed this one as a simple reminder that there's no measurement for your trauma and nothing that should dissuade you or embarrass you. Those of us who have been through it, have expertise and experience, and want to help will never tell you that what you're working through isn't 'serious' enough. That's not a thing.

So, if you're still struggling to decide whether or not you want to reach out, try thinking of your trauma like this:
It's just a hard thing that happened that isn't done being heard yet.

You'll start feeling much better about things once it's been given its voice, and you've developed the skills to navigate the story it's telling.

You got this. I'm here to help. DM me to learn more.

02/22/2026

One of the reasons I developed Radical Wellness is because I've seen this exact approach all too often. We are waiting for the trauma (for the hard thing if the word 'trauma' makes you squeamish) before we learn to deal with it.

That's a bad plan for most things - but it's especially bad for learning to deal with trauma. Here's why:

When you encounter something that causes a trauma-response (or a trigger) in you, your brain does its job and alerts the 'first responder', your amygdala. Amygdala has one job and it does it very, very well - to keep you safe. That includes shutting down or overriding much of the rest of your brain - including your frontal lobe (where the pre-frontal and frontal cortex's dealing with problem-solving, language, decision-making, regulation, etc.) live.

If you don't know how to calm and regulate this response before it happens, you aren't going to be able to manage it during, or after, the event.

Radical Wellness acknowledges that hard things are going to happen to us in life and, instead of shying away from that fact, looks at all the ways we can understand ourselves and our needs so that we have skills at-the-ready to respond to that fire.

Address

Mount Pleasant, SC
29466

Website

https://radicalself.ck.page/, https://www.betterlivingcollab.com/

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