Struggle Care
KC Davis
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Top 10 Struggle Care Episodes
Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best Struggle Care episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to Struggle Care for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite Struggle Care episode by adding your comments to the episode page.
01: Executive Functioning with Lesley PsyD
Struggle Care
10/03/22 • 52 min
Today, we are diving into executive functioning, which is a popular term being bounced around in mental health communities. I want to take a closer look at what it means and how it shows up in people’s lives. Join me to learn more from today’s guest!
Dr. Lesley Cook is a psychologist who does a lot of work with ADHD and other neurodivergencies. Born and raised in Hawaii, she now lives in Virginia and works with children, adolescents, adults, couples, and families. Dr. Lesley and I met on TikTok, and I’m happy to have her here today!
Show Highlights:
- A common-language definition and explanation of executive functioning
- How executive function deficits show up in someone’s life
- How shame, guilt, and inconsistent performance are clues to executive function problems
- The difference between motivation and task initiation
- Why the underlying issue with lack of motivation is more about what a person values
- How a person’s sense of self is affected when they believe their authentic self is “bad”
- Why external supports are necessary when an internal system is down
- Why rhythm is better than routine for those with executive function disorder
- How neurotypical people experience interruptions with executive functioning on a regular basis because of overload and anxiety
- How blips in executive function occur in neurotypical people with predictability and response to intervention—as opposed to someone with a diagnosis
- How someone with ADHD can have incredible deficits in executive function on days when everything is going their way–and won’t respond reliably to normal interventions
- How to build into each day differing levels of acceptable outcomes–and give yourself permission to choose what fits your needs at that moment
- Lesley’s advice to those who think they have executive functioning issues
Resources:
Connect with Dr. Lesley: TikTok and Instagram
Connect with KC: TikTok and Instagram
Get KC's Book, How to Keep House While Drowning
Find great resources about executive functioning:
www.understood.org, www.psychologytoday.com, and www.chaad.org
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
4 Listeners
14: Weaponized Incompetence with Dr. Lesley Cook
Struggle Care
12/19/22 • 64 min
Today’s topic is weaponized incompetence. If you aren’t familiar with the term, stay tuned and learn more with us. I’m thrilled to be joined again by Dr. Lesley Cook, who is a psychologist and good friend. She lives in Virginia and works mostly with neurodivergent kids, adolescents, and adults. Join us for the conversation!
Show Highlights:
- An explanation of “weaponized incompetence” and what it means
- How weaponized incompetence applies to the division of household labor
- The key to analyzing weaponized incompetence: Why is it happening?
- Why this is a tricky topic, especially for those who are neurodivergent and feel challenged
- Why dignity should be preserved in these conversations with a partner
- Why it’s OK to set boundaries even if someone is unintentionally hurting you
- Ways to solve problems without shame or blame
- The difference in functional barriers and weaponized incompetence
- How to talk through solutions and support for a partner
- How “maternal gatekeeping” plays into the dynamic
- Why couples need to have conversations about care tasks, household chores, and childcare BEFORE they have kids
- Why there is a difference between weaponized incompetence and learned helplessness
- Dr. Lesley’s tips: “Approach your partner in good faith, open up the conversation, and ask for collaboration in finding something that works better for BOTH partners.”
- Why the question should be, “Is exploitation happening?”
- Why you can’t go on appearances regarding a division of labor
- How to begin the approach with a partner or child: “This isn’t working for me; how can we figure this out together?”
Resources:
Connect with Dr. Lesley: TikTok and Instagram
Connect with KC: TikTok and Instagram
Get KC’s book, How to Keep House While Drowning
Helpful resources mentioned in this episode:
How Not to Hate Your Husband After Kids by Jancee Dunn
Fair Play by Eve Rodsky
The Sensory Child Gets Organized by Carolyn Dalgliesh
Ready for Take-Off by Theresa E. Laurie Maitland and Patricia O. Quinn
A Radical Guide for Women with ADHD by Sari Solden, Michelle Frank, and Ellen Littman
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
2 Listeners
05: Gentle Organizing with Alison Lush
Struggle Care
10/17/22 • 59 min
Do you have too much stuff? As you look around your home, is it crowded and cluttered? Does your space make you feel burdened, unhappy, and frustrated? If you said–or shouted–YES, you can’t miss today’s show. Join me to learn more about gentle organizing.
Alison Lush is a Certified Professional Organizer, Certified Virtual Organizer, and Master Trainer. After a 20-year catering career, Alison knew she needed better organization and management skills for her home and personal comfort. She learned to live and shop intentionally, creating and protecting the space in her home. Now she puts her expertise to work in helping others by empowering them and teaching them to put themselves at the center of their organization efforts.
Show Highlights:
- How Alison became an organizer with a gentle spirit
- Why our interactions with our home, space, time, and belongings form the foundations of our lives
- Why Alison’s focus is on “organic organizing”
- Alison’s answer to a question sent in by Samantha about dealing with clutter, letting things go, and the functionality of her space
- How to organize your space by using Zone 1, Zone 2, and Zone 3—and consider the frequency of access for each item
- Ways to keep, honor, and display memorabilia by identifying the risk level in letting items go
- How to consider the purpose of items in our lives in deciding to keep them or let them go
- Alison’s answer to a question from Kitty about decorating, a sense of style, and learning to feel good about her space
- How to reframe what might look crappy and rundown to you as a life well-lived, meaningful, and full of love
- Why your decor should fuel you and recharge your batteries
- Alison’s answer to a question from Aria about separating and managing work life and home life
- How to legitimize, categorize, and systemize your space for the best functionality
- Why the professional organizing industry has the reputation of telling people to “just get rid of your stuff”
Resources:
Connect with Alison: www.alisonlush.ca and TikTok
Connect with KC: TikTok and Instagram
Get KC's Book, How to Keep House While Drowning
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
2 Listeners
22: Moral Perfectionsim
Struggle Care
02/27/23 • 16 min
I’ve never been a perfectionist. I’ve never cared if my bed is made or my handwriting is neat or if a picture on the wall is hanging perfectly. I’m not bothered by things being a little “out of place.” So imagine my surprise to discover that my whole life is run by perfectionism–a different kind of perfectionism. That’s today’s topic on the show. Join me to find out more!
Show Highlights:
- How an 18-month-stint as a teenager in a long-term rehab facility turned me into a moral perfectionist
- How a militaristic 12-step program and an evangelical church forced me to examine every daily decision for pure, altruistic motives
- How this type of perfectionism told me that I had to be “good enough” to be loved and accepted
- How even self-improvement is approached differently with moral perfectionism
- Why it’s impossible to live with moral perfectionism
- The first step toward change: recognizing that I am a moral perfectionist who is trying to earn my worth through altruism and unselfishness
- Why you are not alone if you feel like a moral perfectionist
- An excerpt from my book, How to Keep House While Drowning, chapter 3
Resources:
Connect with KC: TikTok, Instagram, and Website
Get KC’s book, How to Keep House While Drowning
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
2 Listeners
02: Q&A: ADHD, Kids, & Care Tasks
Struggle Care
10/03/22 • 34 min
Welcome to another episode of Struggle Care! In our first episode, you heard my conversation with Dr. Lesley Cook about executive functioning. Because she has so much great information and wisdom to share, I decided to bring her back to discuss how to navigate care tasks specifically for ADHD adults and kids. Join us for the conversation with Dr. Lesley!
Dr. Lesley Cook is a psychologist who does a lot of work with ADHD and other neurodivergencies. Born and raised in Hawaii, she now lives in Virginia and works with children, adolescents, adults, couples, and families.
Show Highlights:
- How to find the balance between the message of self-compassion and the need for better life management and progress
- A basic understanding of self-compassion from Dr. Kristin Neff’s writings
- A closer look at shame and how we experience it in relation to self-compassion
- How to gently shift shame into self-compassion
- How self-compassion can become a learned behavior that we pass down to our children
Resources:
Connect with Dr. Lesley: TikTok and Instagram
Connect with KC: TikTok and Instagram
Get KC's Book, How to Keep House While Drowning
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
2 Listeners
10/10/22 • 12 min
Today, we start with my take on a question that I get asked almost every day about how to keep from losing motivation to complete tasks, especially those simple ones like cleaning a room. If you’ve beaten yourself up over this struggle, then join me for a fresh perspective on cleaning your space!
Show Highlights:
- Why losing motivation to clean a room comes down to not realizing that tidying, organizing, and cleaning are three different projects
- What is required to “tidy a room”: a five-step method
- How organizing differs from tidying and cleaning
- What the cleaning process entails
- Why there’s nothing wrong with being a neat or messy person, but a functional level of organization is essential
- How the tasks of tidying, organizing, and cleaning bring emotional barriers, especially for those with executive function disorders
- Why we need to remember that these care tasks are morally neutral–and the only reason to do them is so we can function better
Resources:
Connect with KC: TikTok and Instagram
Get KC's Book, How to Keep House While Drowning
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
2 Listeners
30: Fat Talk with Virginia Sole-Smith
Struggle Care
04/24/23 • 38 min
Do you agree that we live in a world that equates body size with a person’s value? What is our society teaching our kids about fat, body size, and a person’s worth? If you experienced body-size shaming as you grew up, don’t you want to do a better job with your children? Parenting around these topics is not easy, and my guest today wrote a book to help us understand more. I’m excited for this conversation with Virginia Sole-Smith, author of Fat Talk: Parenting in the Age of Diet Culture and host of the Burnt Toast podcast. Join us to learn more!
Show Highlights:
- Why parents struggle with fears and concerns around their kids’ body sizes
- Why the goal is to have kids who don’t feel anxious about their relationship with food
- Why we need to think about health as MUCH more than a number on the scale
- Why, to embrace body diversity, we need to challenge what we’ve been trained to think about health, beauty, and morality
- How weight distribution matches up with “thin privilege” and anti-fat bias
- How focusing too closely on our personal weight struggles causes us to reinforce and perpetuate fat bias in the world
- How our children receive messaging around body types and sizes from healthcare providers, sports coaches, etc.
- How to have healthy conversations with kids about bodies, fat, diets, etc.
- Why parents need to give counter programming to the default settings our kids receive from society about topics such as body shaming and racism
- Why Virginia included in her book a chapter called “Straight White Dads on Diets”
Resources:
Connect with Virginia Sole-Smith: Website, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Burnt Toast podcast, and Fat Talk book
Connect with KC: TikTok, Instagram, and Website
Get KC’s book, How to Keep House While Drowning
We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website: www.strugglecare.com/promo-codes
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
1 Listener
07/17/23 • 38 min
I’m excited about today’s guest because she has had a huge influence on me. I can confidently say that finding her research on self-compassion was a turning point in my healing journey. Do you need more self-compassion? Join us to learn more!
Dr. Kristin Neff is a renowned psychologist, self-care researcher, and author. Her work has had a profound impact on the field of psychology and has helped countless people cultivate self-acceptance and resilience.
Show Highlights:
- How self-compassion became Dr. Kristin’s main area of research
- Understanding self-esteem vs. self-compassion
- The three components of self-compassion: mindfulness, common humanity, and self-kindness
- How self-esteem creates comparison and social disconnection by being conditional and unstable
- How self-compassion gives the gift of authenticity
- The difference between fierce self-compassion and tender self-compassion
- How self-compassion helps us get past our shame
- Why self-compassion doesn’t mean indulgence
- Pathways and blocks to self-compassion
- The connection between self-compassion and psychological functioning
- How self-compassion helps when we fail and make mistakes
- Why the goal of practicing self-compassion is to be simply a compassionate mess who is completely human
- Why the practice of self-compassion has to start small with baby steps of warmth and support (What would you say to a friend?)
- A look at Dr. Kristin’s latest book, Fierce Self-Compassion
- How anger fits into self-compassion
Resources and Links:
Connect with Dr. Kristin and find many helpful resources: Website
Connect with KC: TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook
Get KC’s book, How to Keep House While Drowning
We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website: www.strugglecare.com/promo-codes
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
1 Listener
07: Teaser: When Creators Collide
Struggle Care
10/31/22 • 28 min
I’m offering up an appetizer–because today’s show is a teaser for an upcoming two-part episode. Disagreements, conflicts, and drama are part of normal life, but there CAN be mutual respect and understanding at the same time.
I’m talking with Kate Leggett, a student in her final semester of graduate school to be a Marriage and Family Therapist. Kate uses her TikTok channel to help restore relationships, and we became aware of each other because of a video exchange on TikTok. Our relationship certainly didn’t begin well, but we are making strides in communicating with respect and understanding around disagreements and conflicts. Come along as we model real-life conflict, relationships, and reconciliation. Join us for a closer look!
Show Highlights:
- How Kate felt the need to fill in the gray area in relationships around boundaries and toxic relationships
- How online interactions can be transactional, personal, and very different with someone with whom you have a prior relationship
- A look at the TikTok videos that started the interaction between Kate and KC–and the thoughts behind the comments
- How people hold conflict in different and vulnerable ways
- How KC and Kate made space for deeper conversations around their conflict
- The difficulties around communication and conflict in the social media space
- An overview of Kate’s podcast, RR The Podcast, which you can find on YouTube and Spotify (Part 1 of Kate and KC’s conversation is up now!)
- Kate’s perspective on the much-used phrase, “You teach people how to treat you.”
- How to listen to the rest of our “respectful drama”
Resources:
Connect with Kate: Website, TikTok, Podcast
Connect with KC: TikTok and Instagram
Get KC's Book, How to Keep House While Drowning
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
1 Listener
12: When Parenting is Hard with MommaCusses
Struggle Care
12/05/22 • 48 min
Parenting has its moments. Some are good, some are bad, some fill you with heart-melting fuzziness, and some make you ask, “What in the world was I thinking?” We all have visions of our parenting ideal, but real life gives us way too many opportunities to turn into the kind of mom we don’t even recognize. To sum it up, parenting is hard! If you are that parent who needs encouragement today, join us for today’s episode–and I welcome you to join us even if you are not a parent. You might learn something valuable, too!
I’m joined by Momma Cusses, aka Gwenna Laithland. She got her start as a writer at the age of 18 and soon branched out into content marketing and has worked with museums, professional sports teams, accounting firms, and universities to help refine their content. She started Momma Cusses in 2020 in hopes of normalizing modern motherhood and giving moms a place to connect and feel less alone.
Show Highlights:
- Gwenna’s story: her history of parenting in reactive mode as a young mom who came out of an abusive relationship–and the realization that hit her about what she was doing to her daughter
- Why there is not a magic answer or therapy tool for those reactive parenting moments when you lose your mind
- The difference in responsive vs. reactive parenting
- Gwenna’s advice about handling endless questions from your kids
- How our past personal issues determine the behaviors that send us into “Reactive Parent Mode”
- Why gentle parenting is NOT about how you parent but about how you regulate yourself
- Why “gentle childing” should NOT be what you want for your child
- How to do “offline work” with your child when emotions are not elevated
- How to gain a new perspective on parenting under stress
- Why there is immense value in a parent who can say, “I’m sorry”
- Why we should stop demonizing screen time and teach our 21st-century kids to use devices responsibly
- Why it’s healthy to realize that you do not have to accept every “invitation” from your child
- How to find the “middle ground” when you are reparenting yourself while parenting your child
Resources:
Connect with Momma Cusses: Website, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook (Look for Gwenna’s book coming in Fall, 2023!)
Connect with KC: TikTok and Instagram
Get KC's Book, How to Keep House While Drowning
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
1 Listener
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FAQ
How many episodes does Struggle Care have?
Struggle Care currently has 120 episodes available.
What topics does Struggle Care cover?
The podcast is about Podcasts, Self-Improvement and Education.
What is the most popular episode on Struggle Care?
The episode title '01: Executive Functioning with Lesley PsyD' is the most popular.
What is the average episode length on Struggle Care?
The average episode length on Struggle Care is 45 minutes.
How often are episodes of Struggle Care released?
Episodes of Struggle Care are typically released every 7 days.
When was the first episode of Struggle Care?
The first episode of Struggle Care was released on Sep 7, 2022.
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