Live Beyond Your Label: A Holistic Guide to Mental Health

My new book, Live Beyond Your Label: A Holistic Approach to Breaking Old Patterns and Discovering a Healthier You in Mind, Body, and Spirit, is now available for preorder at most retailers, including Barnes and Noble, Walmart, Christianbook, Books-a-Million, and more. The official release date is September 16, but you can preorder here.

This is the book I wish I had when I was struggling with my mental health as a young adult, stuffing down feelings and burying trauma in order to survive.

This book blends psychology, science, scripture, and my own personal experience living with the labels of PTSD, depression, and bipolar disorder. I hope this book helps readers see that they are so much more than a cluster of symptoms on a DSM checklist. I hope they feel seen, heard, and validated in these pages. Every chapter is packed with helpful tools and ends with mind-body activity to tune into our body’s unique needs.

But guess what? You don’t have to wait for September 16 to add new tools to your toolkit! You can grab my preorder gift, a Nourishing Habits Guide, now!

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New Year, Same Me: And That’s Okay

The biggest transformation that happened for me this last year had nothing to do with my body and had EVERYTHING to do with how I see my body.

ac3fd73e-cbf6-4478-82f9-9b26b0f6586d — January 2019 compared to January 2020 – same me, but transformed perspective!

If you want to lose weight this year, great. If you want to take a different approach to health by balancing things from the inside out, that’s something I will continue to share about in 2020.

Just remember – someone else’s before and after doesn’t tell the full story. What looks like “discipline” may actually be disordered eating. What looks like gaining weight or hitting a plateau may actually be a year of grief and stress. We can’t measure success or failure from a picture.

What’s always missing in these before and after pictures is the DURING.

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Living With a Stigma

This little girl didn’t know that in 10 years she would wish for death. She loved her family, her new siblings, and Jesus, too. Much like the Tom Petty song, she was about to take a free fall – down the path of a broken brain.

She was a preacher’s daughter with a genetic disposition to mental illness. Add on to that various health issues like chronic ear infections, asthma, allergy shots, antibiotics and steroids… and a budding sugar addiction, due to poor gut health. She was all energy and filled with curiosity, wanting to know the how and why of everything. So one day, when the darkness closed in, she would questions why she couldn’t just pray it away.

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My Skinny Shorts Lie

Confession: my skinny shorts don’t make me feel skinny.

Ten years ago, I went on Weight Watchers and lost 20 pounds. I met the man of my dreams in these red shorts from the Gap, feeling more confident than I had in a long time. Maybe ever. I sported a nice tan from spending hours each day at my parents’ pool, and I wore bangs for the first time since childhood, channeling my inner Katy Perry, minus the girl-kissing. The physical attraction I felt for him on that first meeting was mutual. He told me later that he noticed my toned and tanned legs before anything else.

2008, post Weight Watchers, down 20 pounds

2018, the outfit my husband met me in

One decade and two babies later, the shorts still fit, as does the dress I wore on our first date. Though I’m not as toned or tanned, I should feel as confident in them now as I did then, right?

Wrong.

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