Get Unstuck with EMDR

We are going to be talking about an app called Mind Circuit and EMDR.

Welcome to Wellness In Every Season, the podcast where we explore the rich tapestry of wellness in all of its forms. I'm your host, autumn Carter, a certified life coach, turn wellness coach, as well as a certified parenting coach dedicated to empowering others to rediscover their identity in their current season of life.

My goal is to help you thrive, both as an individual and as a parent.

Today I have with me Erin Vandermore. She is a therapist and she's developed this app that does bilateral stimulation therapy. She, is gonna be able to talk about EMDR, which I am a huge fan of.

That has been my favorite with therapy thank you so much for being on Erin. Can you start by telling us, what you provide as a therapist and your journey that way. Let's start there.

Thank you for having me.

I'm originally from Chicago and that's where I first started as a therapist.

I actually started as a therapist because when I was in high school I had a really difficult time. And I wish I would've had somebody to talk to. We didn't really have therapists back then. They were more like guidance counselors, so they could talk to me about a career or what to do for college, but that was about it.

And go to school, don't drop out. I remember that part too. Yes. Don't drop out and don't do drugs.

And

Yes. Lots of scholarships. Keep applying, sending letters, but nothing about your mental health. I knew I wanted to do something that would help teens and students. I ended up in higher education for a while.

I worked in a couple of different universities and then learned about this lovely minister's program for school counseling. I started as a school counselor for Chicago public Schools. Then I worked in a behavioral hospital, then I worked for community, and now I'm in private practice.

So you understand mental health, and I assume the schools you were in Chicago were struggling schools.

Yes, they were all Title one low Income had kids who had never been outside their city block. They've never seen Lake Michigan.

Oh man,

lake Michigan's beautiful. We actually got a field trip and got them on a bus to see it

I've seen it from the Chicago side and from the Michigan side, and it's so beautiful. I saw it as the sun was setting it's beautiful. I bet that was life altering for them.

I'm now in Asheville, North Carolina, so I've lost contact with my kiddos, but I hope so. They all were just in awe and it was so nice seeing a bunch of middle schoolers just being in awe and getting to be a kid.

Yeah, I could tell Nature's important to you from the pictures in the background,

nature is very important to me. It hasn't always been nice to me with Hurricane Helene, but it's still very important.

I bet.

Wow, that has been quite a journey and the reason why I assumed you were in lower income schools is because what you did right after you were in the public school system, and for me, that felt like an easy transition to go from there to a mental health hospital.

Yes. Because unfortunately, some of my kiddos got referred to that hospital. And so I was able to do outpatient and work with my population that I was used to of my kids who had struggles. I felt needed and I felt good and I felt like I was making an impact. Then I had kids of my own and I wanted to see 'em living in Chicago.

And being able to see your children while being in mental health is not the easiest. So as a family decided to make a move, I went to Asheville.

I hear it's a beautiful area. It's on my list.

You a little time. It's been a year since hurricane Helene came through. So there's still buildings that are boarded up and, still have some bridges that don't exist right now. So give it about a year or two and then come see,

oh it's that far out on my list right now anyway.

I have four kids and lots going on. I have two. Mine are still young. I have a 16-year-old. They had no school today.

Don't ask me why. I had somebody ask me, they're like, I have no idea. All I know is they have no school.

It's random there's just no school or half days it doesn't make sense.

And they had a half day on Friday and they had school yesterday, but no school today.

anyway.

The three oldest went off and played for several hours. It was amazing. And the youngest had quiet time in his room since he's transitioning away from naps. So I was able to get work done, full laundry, and just chill for a little bit, which was really nice.

It gets easier once they get to first grade and beyond

which number three is in first grade?

Oh, it's coming.

The youngest wanted to go too. They took him to the park at with, they did not listen to me. I told em three times, he's coming with mommy. He's four. No. Then he took off with them like,

oh,

Ah. Anyway, had to catch up with them.

The park center neighborhood. Thankfully. I'll give personal for a minute 'cause this will totally relate.

I have been needing to spend more time reregulating my body it's. Been hard because there's unknowns around the corner. Our dog, and I've spent a solo podcast episode talking about this, ended up having cancer in her leg, and it's the same leg that had surgery a year ago.

Oh, that's awful. Yeah, she was, how old is she eight?

Oh, that's young.

Sport dog. Very healthy, lean, like she's a bluey dog. So high energy. She ended up having to have her leg amputated. This all started Labor Day, so now it's September 23rd.

That's several weeks of not knowing what's going on. Why is it inflamed? We came home from a date and it was inflamed, then it went away for a week and she was able to put full weight on it, then it came back again after playing with the dogs. But way worse went to tons of vets to figure out what was going on.

Thankfully we have pet insurance. If you have pets, get pet insurance.

I have three dogs.

Yes. So she ended up having to have her leg amputated. Yeah. Whew. Just even talking about it, I could feel it coming up. Of course. And then the unknown part is the leg was sent off to be analyzed.

How bad is the cancer. Does she need radiation? Does she need chemo? What is their lifespan? They know if it's spread she had a CT scan, she had x-rays. There could be little particles. It's the unknown that is really dysregulating me.

And this is the people that you work with, right? Are the really dysregulated?

This is right up my alley. I speak. The language of trauma.

Yes. For me, I am spending more time on my self-care and encouraging my children and my husband to do the same. I'm giving him more pickleball time, which really helps him.

I joined the sport and he loves it more than I do, and he is better at it than I am but it's fun. We have that in common and he's on a different team so we don't have to worry about babysitting, we play together when we can. It totally works out.

Better than ever expected. That's awesome. What do you recommend for other people that are like this? Because people live like this all the time. For me, I don't like living like this. I grew up feeling like this, so I don't like the feeling, and it's me working somatically to release.

It works for me right now. What do you recommend for everybody else who is living this day to day and how does this correlate with your app?

So it goes perfectly with my app because that's why I created it. I, have been in mental health for my daughter 16, so 17 years now. I only get an hour with a person once a week, maybe twice a week if I'm lucky.

Insurance isn't causing me issues and so is all that time in between. I'll have clients who are asking questions just like that. Is there a podcast? Is there a self-help book? Is there an app? What can I do? I can make suggestions like butterfly tapping back and forth, calming the nervous things like exercise, pickleball, that type of thing.

But there wasn't really an app that I found that did that. Bilateral ation, the right, left during MDR that I know calms the nervous system, like I will literally pull out my tapers and it's these things that you hold and they'll vibrate and pulse back and forth. I will hold those out for clients and have them just hold them and have it at a slow speed because it just gives that message to the nervous system that it's calm and safe.

And so I wanted to be able to put that into an app that anybody could use. Lots of trial and error. 'cause I'm a mental health therapist and I know nothing about apps. I actually started this during COVID, before ai. And yeah, so it's been a long process of trying to take my therapy jargon and translate it into a usable app that would help people.

AI was like one of those missing pieces for us because in my brain I'm always like, we need the person to be able to acknowledge something's going on, right? Recognize, because if you're not aware that you nervous system's outta whack. If you're not aware that you're having certain feelings, then you're not gonna take the next step to help yourself.

So I wanted to make sure there was a way to capture that. So we got. Like thermometer on it. And then AI will actually make suggestions of coping skills and strategies based on the information given. And that's that feedback I wanted to be able to give people. But before ai, I was struggling to figure out.

How to do that. I was pre-populating answers and coming up with lists, and it just was so tedious and it also wasn't going to ever be as personalized as it could be. I know from working in therapy and with clients that it's not personal. It's not gonna give as much of an impact.

So I could give you an app and it would give you the bilateral beads or bilateral stabilization, but if you didn't have something driving it, it falls flat. So I came up with adding positive affirmations that are tailored to the mood and the information that you share with it. You can have an affirmation back and forth saying, I am safe, I'm safe.

Watch the doc go back and forth and you're just telling your nervous system that positive affirmation, it could be, I'm enough, I got this. Whatever it is that's going on in your life, that you need the reassurance and the validation to regulate that emotion. Regulate your nervous system. I have this cute little app and you can pick different shapes and colors and speed and sound.

You can put it on for 30 seconds, 10 minutes,

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let's back up for a quick second 'cause it will help people who are, what's EMDR? Let's go there and then let's continue talking about your app and if you can also show us for those that are watching on YouTube.

Yeah, absolutely.

Well. So E ndr r has been around since the eighties. It's based on what neuroscience says we do during rem sleep to process all the gunk you go through during your day, your feelings, your thoughts, your memories, interactions, everything in your brain.

When your eyes go back and forth in REM sleep, it tells the hippocampus to go offline and chill so it can start processing. It puts everything in the filing cabinets in your brain where it needs to go. Some information from the day isn't important, so it gets put away.

Some information's very important so it gets put up front. When our nervous systems get activated and we go into fight, flight, freeze fawn, that codes that moment, that memory, that feeling, those thoughts as trauma, which sucks because sometimes those moments, we don't want them to be coded, right? They're coded important and our nervous system doesn't know the difference between.

This is traumatic, awful car wreck that I do want to not relive versus I'm a 2-year-old being screamed at 'cause I ran into the street. And yes, I do wanna remember as a 2-year-old to never run into the busy street. We haven't evolved enough to know these differences. It just codes everything the same.

And when these memories and thoughts and feelings get coded that way and you go to sleep. And it goes right, left your eyes, go back and forth. You twitch. Those moments are told, no, don't process. It's important. Hold onto it. Keep it right up in front of your brain so that when you need it, you can have it real quick.

And that's why a lot of people will say, it felt like it happened yesterday. If I smell this, hear this, experience this, it's like I'm right back to it. 'cause your brain thinks it's really important and it's gonna keep you safe and wants you to get that information. It doesn't know it's trauma. And so that's where we come in as therapists and we use EMDR, which is, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing

took speech as a child, and so it's these eight phases that Dr. Shapiro developed, all built on each other, making sure that I, as a clinician and getting to every level, not just the thought, not just the memory, but how it shows up in the body, how I've internalized it to these negative thoughts that I can't do this or this will never happen for me,

it's encoded into your brain so that when you do go into REM sleep, your brain will process everything for you. If you get it processed, you can desensitize. Once we desensitize, it's not as heavy. It's not as strong. It happened but you can't feel it. It's not like your back.

I know it can take a while, so I love the idea of having this app because from one week to the next, seeing a therapist, a lot can come up and your body could just be like, now I'm ready to give you everything. And it's just like throwing it up at you.

And it's hard when you can only see that therapist once a week, once a month, whatever your schedule is. So I love the idea of your app.

It is frustrating for me as a therapist because I don't have a waiting room like a doctor, so it's not like you can get a sick appointment and wait in my waiting room and I'll sneak you in quick.

Insurance doesn't let us do things like that, so I can only see you when you're scheduled I can't bump someone because then I'm making a decision about what's more important, and that is not my role. I wanted to give something to my clients that they could have in their pocket.

I had a client once who said, I wish I could just have you in my pocket and pull you out when I need some words of encouragement. That got my brain thinking how can I provide that?

So really quick for those who don't understand ai, 'cause they could just think I could just go to regular AI and get the same stuff that she's offering.

No, you can't. Can you explain how you programmed it to be this set amount and then have AI in with it?

So I wanted to create an app that anybody could use. Mental health tool, pocket size, right? Simple. The principles as a therapist that I have been doing for over a decade. Just like with the MD and there's eight phases, you wanna make sure you're gonna a clinician, it takes you through all eight phases.

I wanna make sure I'm taking you through all the phases that when you first go into the app, know what your mood is. You've checked in, you've done a body stand. How am I feeling? Where am I feeling the attention? What are the emotions? And then it asks a little deeper, okay why did you pick sad?

What's going on? Why did you pick happy or grateful? Because you need all this information to make it personalized and to better understand what's going on that moment in time. Then we have ai plug in some coping skills. Those coping skills, are based off of a list that I as a therapist have created and made sure are appropriate research based, evidence-based and work you can go online and Google it and find some really good things, but you also can find some crap that doesn't work and it's just somebody trying to get popular and enough likes on their page.

So I wanted to make sure everything that's suggested is funneled through the lens of a therapist. So nothing is being suggested that isn't going to be helpful because what's the point then, right? What's the point of a therapist making an app? So it's not just ai, it's AI added in to personalize it

the programmers went back and forth with me trying to understand what are some of the parameters, what are the questions that therapist would ask? What are the guardrails?

So it's artificial intelligence using the full word, but within these bounds.

Parameters, within bounds.

It's not like chat GBT where you can just ask anything. It's all based around coping skills, emotions, and then coming up with positive affirmations that fit you based off of everything you shared. Going through those layers and where you are in that moment so that when you watch the doc go back and forth or square or whatever shape you pick, not only are you calming your nervous system.

But you're reinforcing that positive thought that you need to have validate, and you can't just go into AI and know what to ask unless you're a therapist, right? You just don't know the questions. You're not trained. I'm not a mechanic. I can't just go and ask questions to AI to fix my car because I wouldn't even know what the right question is.

Does that make sense? Yes, I did a solo podcast on how you can and can't use AI for your own wellness goals. And you need to be very specific with, what it is. And if you treat it as a better than Google search, perfect. But you need to know exactly what you're looking for you need to be.

A professional enough in this that you can know ai. What I'm asking is this, no, you're doing it wrong or this and if you don't know, you don't do it so you can catch it when it's wrong.

So like the mechanic thing if it told me to do something, I wouldn't know if it was correct or not. I couldn't catch it.

Correct. And so it is just that's what I tell people all the time. It's a tool. It's Google, but a little better. But just like with Google, you have to make sure that you are asking the right question and that you are making sure that you're asking for things that are research base, that have evidence behind it

Because research is constantly saying, oh, actually this is right. So yes, and mental health, we're in our

We're still learning so much.

I am excited.

I'm gonna be an old lady at this point, but when enough research has done just from COVID and the effects of mental health during that time and how much changed with domestic violence during that time, I'm sure it was higher and everything else it'll be

because the kids didn't come to school and there wasn't that adult catching it and being able to call and support.

I tell all my parents I work with to minus two to three years emotionally. If your 9-year-old is acting childish minus two years, minus three years, and would you still view it that way? And nine times out of the 10, they're like, no, that's right on. Yeah. Emotionally they missed at least two years of that social interaction, that emotional growth that happened.

Most with our third kid because that was the time when he should have been socializing with other toddlers and babies. And everyone in his age group a little bit younger, seems a little bit more, they don't grasp all the social cues. It's hard to really verbalize.

Just it's not there what you're used to and you know there's a difference.

You don't wanna say anything that's gonna be insulting, but you know there's something wrong. And it's that, emotional peer pressure, that positive peer pressure that little ones get, learning how to feed themselves, learning to talk and walk. All that positive peer pressure of, ooh, they're doing it, I wanna do it.

You don't get that when it's COVID and it's just a screen.

How many people had dental issues during that time? 'cause everyone had a mask on or whatever. I'm sure so much data is gonna come out. Especially because now COVID now, sorry, in 2020 versus, what was it, 1918?

The Spanish flu. Yeah, the Spanish flu. Yep. How much data do we have now compared to then, and it will just be so interesting to see that. Do you mind showing us?

Research.

EMDR was, I was really stuck.

And once that tool came out with my therapist, it was amazing

everybody should go to the dentist and get a regular checkup, right? Mental health should be no different. You should go for a mental health checkup, and if you need to get donk outta your brain, then you should stick around for a couple more sessions and do some Dr.

Shouldn't be any different. I will warn you, you'll go for one issue and so much more will come up. You'll be better in the end, but you'll be like, I only expected this little tiny, and it's gonna take a short amount of time, and your brain are gonna be like, no, we want more to come out now.

Thanks.

But it knows it's safe, right? Oh yeah. And that tells you, you have found a therapist who's a good fit. Yes. Is your brain and body telling you that you're ready to deal with some of this? Deeper thought,

Honestly it is worth it because I have spent time in nursing homes. I volunteered there and I plan to do it again when I have more time because there is something so special about being there and helping out.

Even seeing my grandparents as they my grandfather had Alzheimer's and my grandmother had dementia. Some of that does come up from trauma.

Trauma,

I remember one woman in particular who was suffering with, dementia, English was her second language and she was reverting back to speaking more German there was trauma and it would come out at interesting times where we had to, okay, you're safe, it's okay.

Could you imagine being at that age and that point in your mental health journey decline that you don't know that you're safe, where now you are suffering with PTSD, but you can remind yourself that you're safe. You can look around and see that you're safe and you can't have that all the time when you're older, so it's better to take care of it now.

I'm creating curriculum for schools based on the app so that every age has access to regulating your nervous system. Because even little ones will go through moments and it gets stuck and coded as trauma, and they don't even know it because they don't have the vocabulary to understand what's going on.

But if they're doing some bilateral civilization, watching some dots at school, it's just gonna naturally get processed.

That's my COVID kid. He has stuff that gets stuck like that. So we have to go and hold him tight and just have him feel our heartbeat, breathe with us. It can be really honestly exhausting because we have four kids and he has so many needs with just helping him regulate.

So let's, show us your app. Walk us through that. I know I'm not the only visual person, so if you are listening, head on over to YouTube and you could see this.

I am very visual, which is why it probably took so long with the developers. I don't know if you could see, it's a little green tree.

It says mine Circuit Green tree under life 360. There's a three. Notification. I need to go and do it. I actually use my own app that says a lot right there. It helps, and I like things that help and it's quick. I don't have a lot of time on my hands, so this is the little

homepage. Successful people ask better questions and as a result they get better answers. Tony Robbins.

So you get a positive quote every time you log in.

The more you log in and give information, the more the quote meets your interest and likes. Oh, perfect. And then it has a call me now button. It's green, And so that just takes you to bilateral stabilization if you want it real quick. Think of an ER nurse or a teacher or something.

They just, they need a moment of calm. I hate that. I can't, I'll you some pictures, some screenshots. Yeah. So that you can do it, but it has my little happy guys. So these are my little. Motion guys. They're little leaves with feelings.

Oh, cute. See, it reminds me of inside out and I was already thinking of that with the marbles part when you were talking, earlier.

I love that you have your own little guys.

Just 'cause it's mental health doesn't mean it can't be fun. You would click on sad and then it breaks it down and it wants even deeper questions different levels of sadness and it keeps drilling down, and then it'll come up with a coping strategy.

Let's say I'm gloo, and this sounds so much better than the little mindfulness one that's through Apple, where you can just put that in and then you're done. You like how you're feeling for the day. So it's like a quick little journal and it's nice 'cause it gives you that chance to get that little check-in, and that's great.

There's nothing beyond that.

So it has journalized moods, then it drills down a little deeper asks you a little comment about why you're feeling this way, which forces you to pause and check in with yourself. And then it comes up with your own little coping skill.

It'll say, how to get from sad down to the green guy of happy. Here's an idea, here's a suggestion. And then those are saved in your calendar. So if you ever wanna go back, you can just click on it. This one's suggestion says It's okay to feel sad sometimes. Allow yourself to experience these emotions and reach out for support if needed.

The darkest nights produce the brightest stars. So that's my little pep talk for the day. I like that. If I have time, I can go straight to the bottom, the orange and pick an affirmation. I've drilled it down to different options so you can create your own. If you are working with a therapist and they suggest one I have healing your body.

Self love grieving, feeling safe. Anxiety, claiming your power, inner child letting go of control. I had one just for schools feeling safe in my body. Then you just click and it drills it down again. There you go. So it'll give a list of different positive affirmations.

And so then you click on one that feels right for you. My feelings were always valid, even if no one understood them. I click next.

This is where AI comes in and I share a little bit about what I want the affirmation to be personalized for me. You gotta type in why, so that it can combine the two and make an affirmation just for you.

Let's just say I'm picking this affirmation for me because I never, ever felt hurt I'll say. My quote, AI is thinking and coming up with personalized affirmation for me as it's going around and my internet out. So funny. And then I go to this screen and I just click, it'll pop up, and then I click whether or not I have a square, a circle.

And then I put the amount of time I wanna watch and it goes back and forth I can keep my positive affirmation on the screen if I want, or turn off it, can read it to you. And then when you're holding it, it's cool 'cause you can feel it tap back and forth. So it'll go right, left, and you can feel it too.

So you don't even need to do it yourself. You can watch it and feel it. And the noise goes right, left. See you're getting it every way I could think of.

Oh,

And it's stored and if you like that affirmation, it really fits you. You can hard it and then you can go back to it if you want.

That's amazing.

How much does it cost?

I want to make it accessible. And then I have a paid version. It's seven bucks a month. And then for a year, I think it's 60. Paying for AI to do these things is expensive, which I didn't realize.

So there's a limit on affirmations for the free ones. And then the paid one is just

whatever makes you happy. That's not bad at all price wise compared to other things out there.

Accessible.

Yeah. Can you use your health savings account to pay for that?

I assume that'd be a little more difficult to try and figure out how to attach that into your app store.

You gave me a challenge and now I'm gonna see if I can do that. Thank you. That'd be amazing. I like that since it is mental health. I just gotta figure out the verbiage.

I hope you are enjoying this show, and I just wanna take a quick minute to share with you two things that are going on in the background that I'm very excited to announce. The first one is that if you are interested in experiencing any of these healing modalities that the guests that I'm interviewing or that even I'm speaking on during my solo episodes.

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And for those that are listening Health Savings account, and so there's HSA, and then there's FSA, which is a federal savings account, I think is what I called it. So health savings account is always the better if you have two choices.

I used to do medical billing coding, the health savings rolls over every year. Where the federal one does not, it's use it or lose it for the year. So health savings, it's so

infuriating because it's your money.

Yes. And you can use it on band-aids. Like you could just go to Walgreens, CVS and just buy your sunglasses for your eye doctor or whatever.

Health savings, really think of it as like your 401k, but for your health. I like that. That's the best way to think of it. So you want to be putting as much money into it as possible and letting that roll over if possible. If you have four kids like me, good luck, but especially when you get to the

braces,

Oh yeah, I just finished mine. My oldest went into 'em and I decided I'm doing it too. I had my molars caved in on this side, so it wasn't like to look pretty, but it does look a lot prettier. It was actually so I could chew on all sides of my mouth, that's why our health savings has been wiped out for both of us being in braces, but it really is a great wealth management.

When you get older. That's when your body starts to fall apart. Having a health savings account will be extremely helpful, especially because insurance does not cover as much as it does when you're younger.

I got it to work.

What does it say?

Oh, it's saying that I, as a therapist, help clients explore and validate their emotions, and now I'm able to have a safe space for others to be heard. I like that.

And then you click start

and it'll tell you

it's better to have headphones in so it can go in both ears.

And then

it helps.

Say it on the screen then you can hit play. It just goes back and forth.

Oh, it's two dots. Mine was always one.

You can pick one, you can do two. It's your preference. I like two because I'm easily distracted.

Yeah. It's easier to see. I had to have my therapist slow it down for me 'cause it just became blurry after a while.

Yes. I wear contacts so when they dry out because I'm too busy staring at it.

So I can do different shapes and colors. I can have three on, because I'm a DHD, and so I need options

and have it be different each time. Yes. This works for all ages, stages.

Absolutely.

Bilateral simulation.

There's a lot more research coming out. But it's shown to calm your nervous system, help really tough memories, not feel as tough. It calms your anxiety, and it's actually showing that it helps sleep as well, if you have a lot of trauma stuck in your brain every time you go into REM sleep, it's constantly being told

No, don't process that. It's interrupting your REM sleep so you don't get. Good quality sleep. This is telling your body it's safe constantly. So it's getting these little moments to help you get into red sleep and

I needed to have more protein. That was what my therapist always recommended afterwards, and I needed to go to bed earlier.

My body was just like, you're gonna need more sleep, and this is gonna be like a huge moment for you. So here you go.

Yes your brain and body is used to doing this, but when you're unconscious, when you're asleep and we're activating that part of your brain and telling the right, left to communicate with each other better, that takes a lot of energy and time.

And the more REM sleep you get, the quicker the neural pathways will form and heal. It's cool. There's a MRI study and you can see the brain scan before and after. And after EMDR, there's new little Pathways that are formed. It's really cool.

Thank you to whoever stuck themselves in the machine for us.

And it wasn't me. I had one oh, maybe seven months ago. No, thanks. I'm good. It also sounds like this, the best time of day would probably be right before sleep.

I use it at night. I have a little timer on for myself. And if don't have a bunch of time, I can at least do 30 seconds or a minute.

It helps with sleep and it's something good that I can do for my body. My nervous system after COVID, after Hurricane Helene, after being a parent, just needs a reset.

After being a therapist. All the places where you've been where you were very needed.

And there weren't enough of you to go around.

There's not enough funding. So my contribution is my app. Maybe it can give tools to individuals to feel better.

This is something that I will definitely be checking out. It's a really great price point.

I'll take any feedback to make it better. Any hiccups, please lemme know. And this is something that you can easily put into your routine. It's not this big thing. We're already on our phones a lot anyway. We might as well have some mental health with it.

Exactly.

It's a way to make your phone healthy for your brain.

I'm just thinking about, I have a DHD too, and there's times where I am just so out that I'm scrolling social media. I could turn it on before you get to the point of being so overwhelmed that I feel like I need to scroll.

And I don't scroll very often, but I have been this week with everything going on with my dog

dog is part of your family.

Your baby. Oh yeah. So of course she's my snuggle bug. I teased my husband that he is all guy like up in your face or out of the way where she's I'm demanding snuggles and I'm gonna be right up against you type of.

Creature.

So she's automatically just calming your nervous system with her presence. It's like that tuning for, but she can't be on the couch

right now. Because the jumping up. And the jumping down and the worry of that and she is such a creature, like she demands to like chin with weight until you pay attention to her.

The sad eyes. I'll invite her up and then she'll jump off and she'll need a re-invite. She can't just decide, oh, mommy already invited me up. I can come back up. No. She needs a second invitation, basically. She's so funny, and very intense, very healer. I'm missing my regulation.

You are my natural oxytocin regulation. I almost said Oxycontin, oxytocin

I've done that a couple times and then I'll have a client look at me funny. I'm like I said it wrong, didn't I? And then they laugh

at you and say, yes, but it breaks the ice. So there you go. And I don't care.

Yeah, and I love that it works for all ages. It's a great stop gap for therapy. It sounds like therapy still, like if, this isn't enough, you always

Yes, absolutely. Like the dentist, brush your teeth and that helps. But you don't know what's going on until you have a professional, have a conversation with you, just like the dentist checking your teeth.

Have a therapist, have a little conversation.

See, I was thinking like the dental hygienist, like you can't see where to clean until they're up in there I saw the dental hygienist, so it's totally fresh in my mind I was trying to see where plaque was and where it wasn't,

can I get my own scraper? And yes, you can, but you should not. My grandma had one when I was growing up, so I'd see it in her medicine cabinet. We can overdo it and we don't always do it quite right. They're the professional, so it makes sense.

Same with a therapist.

See a professional, I would not try and fix my car by watching YouTube. I'm not gonna try and remove a wisdom tooth by myself.

No, thank you. Mine were impacted. I still have scars in my cheeks from it

it looked like my husband had clocked me right here, like a big old bruise, and people were looking at me funny. It was like, if only you knew. I would hit him before he'd ever hit me, and I still wouldn't, he is a big old teddy bear. But you, just never know. I love that you put so much thought into this.

Lots of people try this out and you refine it to even get to this point where you're on my podcast. I love that you added AI to it and that it's not the general public ai. Yes. And it very much is artificial intelligence and I feel like there is a difference between AI and artificial intelligence at this point.

Yeah. There is ai you think of like Gemini Chat, GPT, like the, I don't know if you'd even say basic. My husband would correct me with his tech nerdiness, but he's not here. The difference for me is very much the basic versus you have it tailored and it's making smart decisions based off of what you already fed it and refined it to be

and the more you use it

an individual, the better it gets, because it's learning. Where you are, your patterns, what are some of your pain points and it'll get better as you go

which is better than a very busy therapist who has to look at notes to refresh.

Generally, I'm bad at names, but when a person comes in, I can tell you their whole history.

I'm the same way. As a coach, I am terrible at names, but I can remember specific things about people my husband was trying to remember someone's name saying he remembers all this stuff about them.

I said honestly, I think that's better. He said, no, I think it's better that you have both. I'm like, fine, you win. But if I'm gonna remember a name versus personal details that they shared with me, I think it'd be better to, yeah, like for me, for sure. Although, I swear everyone remembers. At least close enough to my name.

It's usually Amber or Spring or whatever. I'm like, ah, you're close, but it's autumn. Just so you know. The best season. Once I say that, it like clicks for them. I like that. Anyway, share again the name of the app and it will be in the description so you can just click on it from there too.

I love it, the whole idea, and there's a website, I'm working on curriculum, and there's the app, and I'm always trying to refine it. So if something goes wonky or a suggestion, please send it my way. Anything I can do to make it better for people, totally open to that.

I love the humility with that too.

And I feel like the people who are humble and willing to make things better and are remembering that the reason that they created whatever it is, yeah. They get a lot further than those that are like, Nope, I knew what I was doing and I'm not gonna change it. Pride versus humility,

I created it to help people everybody's so different and what they need is different, and what you need from day to day can even be different. So you really just gotta be flexible.

Yeah, I'm realizing that with coaching, there's things that work with certain people that don't with others because of trauma, neuro divergencies,

a lot going on in their lives, not enough going on in their lives because some area of their wellness is super out of balance, it really is. Trying different tools, trying different things staying curious until something fits. We're leaning into that until it doesn't anymore. So that curiosity piece is so

important,

It sounds like this is something that you're going to be.

Continuing to refine

ideas for extra things to

add there in the pipeline oh, so we better buy it now? No, that's a good point. Before the next expensive thing comes in for you, you have to raise the price. Thank you. This was a great conversation and it sounds like this will be an amazing tool for my third kid who gets dysregulated, not just for me.

So this will be something that we'll be adding in to our family for sure and come back. Those that are wondering for my question about HSA and FSA. And I will have an update in the description for you when she gets that far. Who knows how long that will take regulation wise for her to get there.

I'm gonna make it happen

that will be amazing for so many people. Insurance won't cover it, but if I can use this instead. So smart. So thank you for that suggestion. See, this is why I want suggestions because there's things I just don't think of.

That's the thing about when you're in the middle of whatever project you're working on, this is why it's important to have a coach, a mentor, absolutely. Other people who are in similar fields. This is why you have the, what is it, the five people or is it eight that you most hang out with? That should be a little bit higher up than you and where you wanna be for that reason.

So it challenges you. Yes.

Peer pressure to move up.

Yep. Exactly. Or have a spouse that challenges you. That's why my husband married me. He challenges me too. If I see something that he should be doing, I will start here. And he knows that I'm very driven. Like when he was looking at other people, he was interested in dating and comparing to me,

But it's good to be around people who make you wanna be a better person instead of just become complacent.

Absolutely.

What's, is the point? If you're gonna be bored and stuck, that's no fun.

16 years in, we're definitely not bored. I keep him on his toes. See the angel halo? Is it still there?

Anyway, yeah. Thank you for this conversation. This was so much fun and I just love talking. Therapy has helped me so much. Same. I have a therapist. Yeah, and I have family members that are still struggling and that are saying I've been stuck like this for this long. Why should I change it now?

No because you could be happier. Yeah, why not? But there can also be fear with that because of the unknown. And there's the tunnel that you have to go through before you see that light and the happiness. And honestly, stuff does come up, stuff that you don't fully wanna deal with. But getting to that other side is so amazingly worth it, and you wanna be able to do it when you have control over things instead of all of it exploding at once on you.

Yes.

It's better to be able to choose that you're gonna work on it instead .

Yeah, because we've all been there where we have that panic attack or we just feel like we can't sleep because that nightmare is gonna keep coming back or whatever. Traumatic. Symptom that we have.

Yeah.

And life is so much better when we can get beyond that.

So use the app and then if anybody wants to actually work with you as a therapist, do you wanna let us know about that as well?

You can go on my website, mind circuit.org and it has a link to my availability. I take insurance. I'm licensed in Illinois and North Carolina. I'm generally pretty well booked, but if it's trauma based, just let me know what's going on and I generally try and get everybody in that I can.

And if not, I assume that you refer.

Absolutely, yes. There's so many excellent therapists out there. We refer all the time

and that doesn't mean that it was a bad therapist or you're a bad person. It's really that personality and you need to find somebody who, yes, you feel safe with, but will also push you because there are therapists that you feel so safe with that you become complacent

yes.

And then they don't push you

make progress.

You're paying a lot insurance wise to not make progress.

I've had that conversation with a couple clients where I'm like, we both know you're not making a lot of progress. We both know that you don't like this approach.

Let me refer you to someone you deserve to feel better. I'm not the best fit for you.

Okay. The time and the money. Let's make it work for the right thing. Absolutely. Is there anything else you wanna leave us with?

Just be kind to your nervous system. Be kind to your own wiring. I love that.

Thinking of that car, put that oil in. Exactly. Thank you. This has been fun. Yes, thank you. And everybody else, be kind to your nervous system. Check in with yourself. This is an amazing app to help you. And if you feel like you need more than an app, reach out to a therapist.

You can reach out to me and I can help refer you. You can reach out to Erin, she can help refer you. We both have a list of therapists that we refer to, your mental health matters, and it impacts every other system, every other area of your life, your body, everyone around you. Take the time.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thanks for tuning into this week's episode. I am your host, autumn Carter, a certified life coach dedicated to empowering individuals to rediscover their identity, find balance, miss chaos, strengthen relationships, and pursue their dreams. My goal is to help people thrive in every aspect of their lives. I hope today's discussion inspired you and offered valuable insights.

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