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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Keeping Bipolar Disorder in Remission

Twenty-five and a half years ago I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. I’ve been living symptom-free for over a decade. I consider myself to be in “remission” from my mental illness, because I no longer have symptoms that plague me, so I no longer fit the diagnostic criteria for bipolar disorder.

Bipolar disorder comes with a heavy stigma and is often confused with a personality disorder. For me, it meant I had seasons of depression (lasting weeks) or seasons of hypomania/mania (that didn’t last as long). Hypomania was “fun” and led to productivity, but mania was dangerous. If I didn’t sleep, it got worse.

People frequently message me, wanting me to know what I did to become symptom-free. Concerned parents reach out to me, asking me to help their child heal. I think it’s important to note that there is no one-size-fits-all approach. Everyone’s illness affects them differently, and every diagnosis has a different cluster of root causes. My root causes were trauma-based and psychoneuroimmunological (I was diagnosed with mono the same month I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and I had immune challenges all throughout childhood).

Another factor that is important in my story is personality. I’m a go-getter and a very determined, curious, research-driven person. When I was first told I would always struggle, I believed what I was told. When I began to see research that indicated otherwise, I dug deeper. I realized that I wasn’t as powerless as I once thought. That brought out a “fighter mentality” in me, and I refused to let my label limit me from living out my purpose.

I understand that for many people struggling for years, the exhaustion of fighting with symptoms can leave you hopeless, and that feeling is paralyzing. I hope the information I share next doesn’t fill you with a greater sense of hopelessness. Instead, I want to spark your inner curiosity to dig into what may be helpful for you to incorporate.

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You Are Not Your Diagnosis

As a mental health advocate, functional medicine practitioner, and someone who was diagnosed with bipolar disorder at 18, there is a frequently used phrase about bipolar that makes me crazy.

When someone says, “he is bipolar” or “she is bipolar” or “she’s acting bipolar,” I’ll likely get pretty defensive pretty fast. Bipolar disorder is NOT a personality trait.

Mental health awareness is important, but current awareness and discourse sometimes comes at the expense of the over-identification of our personality with symptoms of an illness.

You don’t say “she IS diabetes” or “she IS depression” or “she IS rheumatoid arthritis.” For some reason, bipolar disorder is the only diagnosis and physical illness that becomes an identity statement and personality trait.

A lot of people who use that phrasing don’t understand that for most people with bipolar disorder, they’re not having constant mood swings. They may have one or two mood episodes a year. For example, in the past, I tended to get depressed in the late fall and winter and then I would head into hypomania/mania in the spring/summer. Some of that was triggered by trauma, diet, poor lifestyle choices, and substances. Even the wrong medication caused psychosis and hallucinations in me. (Yes, prescribed medication made my symptoms worse, which isn’t discussed enough.)

Bipolar disorder is a mood disorder rooted in many physiological issues that causes fluctuating episodes of mania or hypomania (which is milder than mania) and depression. Episodes can last several days to weeks, and between episodes there may be seasons of stability. Mania and depression are broken down by the following symptoms below.

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How Learning to Forgive Can Transform Your Health

Dara McKinley is a forgiveness expert who has created a new paradigm for forgiveness—as a healing modality. In 2012, with two decades of psychology and spirituality behind her, Dara McKinley faced a difficult situation that none of her previous knowledge could improve. Feeling called to try forgiveness, she searched online for a forgiveness ‘how-to’ and quickly discovered that there was so much about why one should forgive, but nothing about how. Needing directions to follow, she decided to make her own forgiveness step-by-step, which upon completion, left her feeling peaceful for the first time in three years. Impressed by forgiveness’ effectiveness she quickly became a devotee. Over the coming years, her experience with forgiveness would deepen and so would her awareness of popular forgiveness understanding. Specifically she saw that most people had something they wanted to forgive but they didn’t know how. She also saw that mainstream forgiveness definitions were actually obscuring the forgiveness path. In Dara’s program How to Forgive, Dara guides participants beyond mainstream forgiveness understandings.

Download and listen to this episode here or find wherever you get podcasts.

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The Root Causes of Chronic Fatigue and Myalgic Encephalitis

Dr. Jenny Tufenkian, a licensed Naturopathic Physician with two decades of experience, specializes in empowering health-conscious professionals to conquer long COVID and myalgic encephalitis/CFS fatigue. Her personal battle with chronic fatigue inspired her to uncover its root causes, leading to the creation of a transformative system that addresses the five core root causes of Chronic Fatigue/ME. This approach helps those overwhelmed by exhaustion regain their energy and vitality, allowing them to fully embrace life once again. Combining a thorough functional medical approach with deep subconscious work, Dr. Tufenkian’s method facilitates significant shifts in both physical and energetic well-being. She believes in a holistic healing process that integrates the physical, mental/emotional, and energetic dimensions, emphasizing the body’s inherent ability to be vital.

Download and listen to this episode here or find wherever you find podcasts.

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Do We Need More Mental Health Awareness?

May is Mental Health Awareness Month. Here’s my controversial opinion: we don’t need more mental health awareness. We need more tools to get well and stay well. We need practitioners willing to think outside the box, beyond the checklists and low-efficacy treatments.

At 18, I met the criteria for a diagnosis of bipolar disorder.

When I was diagnosed, I experienced symptoms of hypomania and mania that impaired functioning for weeks at a time, such as:

racing thoughts
lack of sleep
grandiosity
heightened energy
impulsivity
increased risk-taking

I also experienced symptoms of depression that impaired functioning, for weeks at a time, such as:

low mood
inability to get out of bed
sleeping too much
no joy in previously joyful activities
no motivation
fatigue
hopelessness

BUT there were many other things going on in my physical body that were not addressed. Nobody blinked at chronic antibiotic use, chronic strep infections, or mononucleosis occurring at the same time. Nobody looked at trauma, hormones, or cortisol. Nobody looked at lab data at all.

Getting a diagnosis to match my symptoms didn’t give me information about the cause of the disorder or a solution to manage it.

I had to figure that out on my own.

I was very aware that my mental health wasn’t okay.

I didn’t need “mental health awareness.” I needed tools. I needed to process what a diagnosis would look like for my future. I got a label and meds that came with terrible side effects (and did little to tame my symptoms or treat the root).

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Yep, Ultra Processed Foods Are Really That Bad

The BMJ just published the world’s largest scientific review of its kind, involving almost 10 million people from 45 meta-analyses, stating that diets high in processed food are linked to 32 harmful health effects. This includes cancer, asthma, mental illness, heart disease, and more.

The review defined ultra processed foods as “ready to eat products, including packaged snacks, carbonated soft drinks, instant noodles, and ready-made meals.” They are “composed of chemically modified substances extracted from foods, along with additives to enhance taste, texture, appearance, and durability, with minimal to no inclusion of whole foods.”

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How Trauma Impacts the Brain at Different Life Stages

Dr. Marc Hauser’s scientific research, including over 300 published papers and seven books, focuses on how the brain evolves, develops, and is altered by damage and neurodevelopmental disorders, with an emphasis on the processes of learning and decision-making, as well as the impact of traumatic experiences on development.

This episode focuses on his research and brain-based methods for teachers, clinicians, parents and anyone working with children who have different disabilities, including especially those that result from a history of traumatic experiences.

Dr. Hauser’s new book, Vulnerable Minds: The Harm of Trauma and the Hope of Resilience offers a hopeful new pathway to understanding children’s trauma and providing effective interventions to build healthier communities.

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Evidence-Based Tools for Trauma

Dr. Christine Gibson is a family physician, trauma therapist, and author of The Modern Trauma Toolkit. She’s on social media as TikTokTraumaDoc with over 130k followers. She runs an international non-profit Global Familymed Foundation, a cooperative, and a new company to train professionals how to manage workplace trauma – Safer Spaces Training.

In this episode, we dive into the topic of the nervous system and how it plays a role in the entire body to help us feel regulated and safe.

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Learning to Heal From the Spiritual, Mental, and Physical Impact of Trauma

Former two-time guest Andrea Jones and I join forces to get real about how trauma symptoms impacted our lives in the past year. We talk about how these symptoms impacted us physically, mentally, and spiritually, because of course – we are designed as very interconnected humans and you can’t bump one part without impacting another.

If you are experiencing mental or physiological dysregulation, or maybe even a block in your spiritual walk with the Lord, this may be a great way for you to consider how stored trauma may be playing a role.

Download and listen here or find wherever you get podcasts.

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