Living The Meadows Model

My mother was a kind and gentle woman. Our house was often filled with the smells of home cooking and baking. Homemade bread and cookies, stews, chili, spaghetti sauce and more. We had a vegetable garden and I remember making tea out of mint leaves sweetened with sugar. It seemed… Read More

What Do I Do With My Child?

College can be an exciting time for many young adults; it is where they experience many firsts, including a new lifestyle, friends, roommates, exposure to new cultures and a wide-variety of principles and thinking. Unfortunately, when many students are unable to handle these firsts, they’re more likely to struggle. Insecure and unable to manage the new environment or adjustments they can become susceptible to depression and anxiety. Read More

Improving Men’s Treatment with author Dan Griffin

It would be reasonable to assume that men’s issues are adequately addressed in alcohol and other drug (AOD) treatment. However, that is simply not the case. According to SAMHSA, men are consistently seventy-percent of the treatment admissions each year; it would benefit all involved to ensure that they are receiving the best and most appropriate services available. While addiction treatment has historically focused on men and a man’s perspective it has also not recognized the full array of problems that men have – in their addictions or recovery processes. Read More

Controlled Breathing Calms Your Brain

The way you breathe — whether fast or slow, shallow or deep — is intricately tied to your body as a whole, sending messages that affect your mood, your stress levels and even your immune system.  Read More

Why Fueling with Fat Could Be the Nutritional Remedy You’ve Been Seeking

The year was 1992. I was downing bagels at most meals, and noshing on licorice-like it was going out of style. Nuts, butter, and oils were all evil, and I was sure that eating these high-fat items would, of course, make me fat. Turns out, I was all wrong on this assumption. Consequently, I was not alone in my thinking. For too many years, fat has been vilified as the bad guy amongst the macronutrients. In fact, it turns out that all along, it was my bagel, and licorice that was causing my weight to grow, and my health to plummet.  Read More

A Kick in the Gut: How You Can Jumpstart Your Gut Health for a Longer, Happier Life

When you think about your overall health, which parts of your body do you think are the most important? You probably envision your heart, your brain, and maybe even your kidneys or liver. Do you ever think about your gut? Gut health has taken center stage in the world of food, health, and wellness in the past few years and for good reason. That’s because researchers have found that our gut health plays a huge role in our overall health.  Read More

What I Wish I’d Known as a Teenager

April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month. Sexual violence can lead to posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), substance use disorder, depression, and other trauma-related problems. What I know now: if you have to ask yourself whether sex was consensual, it wasn’t. By definition, the idea of consent means that you would know. This is a message many of my friends and I desperately needed to hear. If I had, when I experienced sexual assault with a boyfriend in my late twenties, I might have known to call it what it was. I believe that we should take the “date” off “date rape” because it seems to minimize the assault. I’d later develop PTSD as a result. Read More

This Month, Get More COLOR!

Last month, I celebrated National Nutrition Month by asking each of you to dedicate more than just the 31 days to get your diet back on the right track. To truly fuel, and feel better, the focus needs to be year round. This month, we continue the journey by adding more color to the diet.  That’s right; color! Americans are seriously lacking in the fruit and vegetable department, and efforts from public health campaigns to boost consumption have failed. That’s why you won’t hear me tell my patients to eat more fruits and vegetables. Instead, I’ll hopefully achieve the same goal by asking you to focus on eating at least five or more colors a day (none can be artificial by the way). Read More

Strengths and Weaknesses As A Spiritual Role In Recovery

By: Nancy Greenlee, LPC, The Meadows Therapist Once a month, the Workshop team is treated to a consultation from Pia Mellody, the creator of the Survivors workshop treatment model. She makes herself available, both to consult on clinical cases, answer and process questions and to inspire us with her wise adages for the spirituality of recovery. Often, I leave our gatherings with notes in hand to share with my workshop groups. Read More

Let’s Bring Awareness To ADHD

October is ADHD Awareness month and for people without Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder it can be difficult to grasp what it feels like for those who do. Individuals with ADHD may hear people flippantly say, “Everyone is a little bit ADHD” or dismiss their experience without compassion. However, contrary to popular misconception, ADHD is not a new term nor a medical fad. The medical condition was first mentioned in 1902 by British pediatrician Sir George Still who described “an abnormal defect of moral control in children.” He noticed that some children were unable to control their behavior the way a typical child would but were still intelligent. Read More