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October 2025: When Motivation Disappears - Mental Health and Executive Dysfunction

  You wake up knowing exactly what needs to get done — that assignment, that email, the laundry piling up — but somehow, you just… can’t start. You scroll through your phone, stare at your to-do list, and feel the weight of everything you “should” be doing, yet you just can’t get yourself to do it. Sound familiar? Losing motivation is something we all experience from time to time and is very common for college students. But when it becomes a pattern — when the energy, focus, and drive you used to have seem to vanish — it can be discouraging and confusing. It’s easy to think you’re being lazy or unproductive, but in reality, what’s often happening has much more to do with mental health and executive dysfunction than with willpower. Motivation isn’t just about “trying harder.” It’s a complex process that involves the brain’s reward system, emotions, and energy regulation. When your mental or physical resources are low, that system can easily short-circuit. Common reasons motivation m...
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September 2025: When Your Inner Critic Sounds Like a Drill Sergeant: Silencing the Negative Self-Talk

  “You’re not smart enough to be here.” “You made a mistake? Unacceptable. You should have done better.” “Everyone else gets this faster than you.” “If you don’t get straight A’s, you’re a disappointment." Sound familiar? Many of us carry around this negative “inner critic” that consistently tells us we aren’t “enough”. The inner critic is the internal voice that criticizes, judges, and pressures you - often more harshly than anyone else would. This is why the common phrase is “you are your own worst critic”.  This voice might feel like it’s “motivating” you, but the reality is that our inner critic most often makes you feel ashamed, guilty, and unworthy, rather than encouraging growth. We see this a lot in college, as this is the breeding ground for self-criticism. With balancing academics, social life, finances, and figuring out who you are as a person, it makes sense that the “inner critic's” voice shouts louder and louder. Some common ways we see this is: Academic Pressure...
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August 2025: Why Therapy Feels Awkward at First (And Why That’s Okay)

Let's be real: Starting therapy can be...weird, awkward, and anxiety producing (trust us, we get it!).  Not only are you trying to navigate your own emotions, thoughts, and mental turmoil, but then you find yourself sitting in a room with someone you've never met before, trying to talk about things that maybe you've never really shared with another person.  We want to validate that feeling nervous, apprehensive, unsure, or even silly at the beginning, is perfectly normal!  Starting therapy is a big step for many people, especially those that are not used to talking about their thoughts, emotions, feelings, etc., and we deserve to give credit to ourselves for seeking mental health support, despite the awkward feelings it initially can bring up. All this to say, we want to validate the normalcy of these feelings and thoughts when starting therapy, but we also want to explain a little bit as to why the initial awkwardness is completely okay.  1. As we highlighted in th...
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May 2025: The Winding Path of Healing - Finding Strength in the Struggles

  The aspect of "healing" tends to be something that a lot of people struggle to understand. There are numerous misconceptions, but the most impactful one seems to be focused on healing following a linear trajectory.  Healing is rarely a straight road. In fact, it's more of a winding path with numerous detours, setbacks, and moments that feel like you're going in circles. The harm that comes with the expectation of a linear path to healing is that it counteracts the sense of progress that is made when we revisit "old wounds", which tends to be a vital part of actual healing. Each time we experience a twist and turn on the winding path, we grow in awareness, insight, and tools that help us navigate the "wounds". With this understanding and awareness on the complexities and uniqueness of healing for every individual, it's important to remember that the struggles and difficult moments in our healing journey serve as turning points. They allow us t...
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April 2025: College, Connection, and Attachment - The Key to Healthy Relationships

  From the moment we are born, we are wired to connect. As infants, we rely on caregivers for warmth, safety, and emotional support, forming deep bonds that shape the way we experience relationships for the rest of our lives.  This process, known as attachment, is a fundamental human instinct—one that influences how we seek closeness, handle conflict, and navigate love and friendship. Whether we realize it or not, our earliest attachments create a blueprint for how we relate to others, affecting everything from our trust in relationships to our ability to feel secure within ourselves.  Attachment styles develop in early childhood based on how caregivers responded to our needs. When caregivers provide consistent love, support, and emotional availability, children develop secure attachments. However, if caregivers are inconsistent, neglectful, or overly intrusive, insecure attachment styles may form. These early experiences create internal working models of relationships th...
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March 2025: Scars Beneath the Surface - Breaking the Silence on Self-Injury

March is Self-Harm Awareness Month, a time dedicated to shedding light on the often hidden struggle of self-injury.  Many individuals, especially young adults and college students, use self-harm as a way to cope with overwhelming emotions, yet stigma and misunderstanding often keep them suffering in silence.  College is often portrayed as an exciting time of self-discovery, newfound independence, and personal growth. However, beneath the surface of academic pressures, social expectations, and the struggle to find one’s place, many students battle emotional pain that is not always visible. For some, this pain manifests through self-injury—an often misunderstood and stigmatized coping mechanism.  Self-injury, also known as self-harm or nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI), refers to the deliberate act of harming one’s own body without suicidal intent. Common forms include cutting, burning, hitting, or scratching oneself.  For some of us, life stressors and transitions can fe...
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February 2025: Behind the Plate - Understanding the Silent Battle of Disordered Eating

  Disordered eating is more than just a physical issue—it’s deeply tied to mental health. For many, struggles with food and body image are symptoms of underlying emotional pain, anxiety, or trauma. When left unaddressed, disordered eating can perpetuate a cycle that impacts not just physical well-being but also mental and emotional health. While society tends to focus on extreme cases of eating disorders like anorexia nervosa or bulimia, disordered eating can manifest in more subtle, insidious ways. It can look like skipping meals to "make up" for a night out, obsessively tracking calories, feeling guilty about certain foods, or using food as a way to cope with stress. These behaviors are often dismissed as “normal” or “just part of being health-conscious,” but they can have serious physical and emotional consequences. Disordered eating refers to a wide range of irregular eating behaviors that may not meet the criteria for a clinical eating disorder. These behaviors often ste...
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