Can children access their own inner knowing — and can we teach them to trust it? In this episode of Therapy is Dope with Alicia and Laura, Alicia sits down with Veronica Moya, internationally recognized children's wellness & mindfulness expert, author, and founder of Mindful V™, for a conversation on mindfulness, consciousness, and helping kids develop intuition and self-trust from an early age.

Veronica has spent over a decade redefining mindfulness for the next generation — not as sitting still, but as an energizing, intuitive practice. Through her Mindful V™ Method, she uses visualization, storytelling, affirmations, gratitude, singing, and emotional-awareness tools to help children move through anxiety, overstimulation, rejection, and self-doubt with more resilience and clarity. Together, we explore what "inner knowing" really means, how consciousness and awareness show up in kids long before adults think to nurture them, and why teaching intuition early may be one of the most protective mental-health gifts we can give a child.

In this episode:

• What childhood intuition looks like — and how adults accidentally teach kids to ignore it
• Practical tools parents and educators can use with children today
• How consciousness and self-awareness connect to confidence
• Reframing mindfulness as essential mental hygiene for the next generation

Learn more about Veronica's work at veronicamoya.com or @VeronicaMoyaMindfulness on YouTube.

🎧 New to the show? Therapy is Dope with Alicia and Laura takes an honest, no-BS look at mental health, consciousness, and what it really means to heal. Follow so you never miss an episode.

#TherapyIsDope #ChildrensMindfulness #Intuition #Consciousness #MindfulParenting #MeditationForKids #EmotionalIntelligence #InnerKnowing #ConsciousParenting #MentalHealthPodcast

In this episode of Therapy is Dope with Alicia and Laura, Alicia sits down with Thayne Martin, founder of Itspurelove.com and creator of the Equation of Life and Abundant Happiness (ELAH). Thayne shares his story with striking candor — surviving childhood sexual trauma, the psychological aftermath thatfollowed him into adulthood, and the near-death experience that ultimately became the turning point of his life.

Thayne opens up about what that experience showed him, and how it reshaped the way he understands healing, identity, and human connection. From there, the conversation turns to the framework he built in its wake: a programgrounded in love and gratitude, designed not just to inspire but to create measurable, lasting behavioral change.

Alicia and Thayne dig into what actually makes change stick — why insight alone often isn't enough, how the nervous system learns through experience rather than information, and what it looks like to rebuild a life on a foundation of gratitude after profound trauma. This is a raw, hopeful conversation about pain, purpose, and the possibility of transformation on theother side of survival.

Topics Covered:

● Thayne's story of childhood sexual trauma and its lasting psychological impact

● His near-death experience and what it revealed to him

● Turning survival into purpose: the origin of the ELAH framework

● Why lasting change requires more than information or motivation

● Gratitude and love as the foundation of sustainable healing

● How experiential learning creates measurable, lasting behavioral change

Guest Links

Website: itspurelove.com

Instagram: @thaynemartin

#sexualtraumarecovery #childhoodtraumahealing #neardeathexperience #NDE #trauma #gratitude #nervoussystemhealing

We're shifting focus. After spending Season 3 in the weeds of relationships and healing, Alicia and Laura are opening up a new direction within the season — consciousness, awareness, and what it actually means to understand your own mind.

In this episode, we introduce the shift: what is consciousness, why we're pointing the podcast here now, and what it means for how we think about healing, growth, and being present in our own lives. This isn't a new season — it's a new chapter of the conversation we've been having all along, just aimed at bigger questions.

Same direct, no-BS approach you know from the podcast. New territory. Let's get into it.

What happens when a marriage doesn't blow up — it just quietly goes on pause? This week we sit down with Dr. Lee Baucom, a marriage therapist and relationship coach with over 30 years in the field, two master's degrees, and a Ph.D. in marriage and family therapy. Lee has spent decades challenging the traditional couples-counseling model, and he brought that perspective straight to the mic.

At the heart of our conversation is what Lee calls the "pause button marriage" — the slow drift that happens when careers, kids, and the endless logistics of daily life quietly replace real connection. Couples tell themselves they'll reconnect "once things settle down," only to realize the us has been eroding the whole time. Lee's big reframe: most so-called communication problems are actually connection problems, and a relationship is never truly on hold — it's either growing or shrinking.

We get into why even one partner can begin to turn things around, how to shift from me vs. you to a genuine we, and the small, repeatable habits that rebuild connection without grand gestures or waiting on your spouse to change first.

Two resources Lee has built for exactly this work:

His Save the Marriage System (SaveTheMarriage.com) is designed for marriages in crisis — the ones hanging on by a thread, especially when only one partner is ready to do the work. It goes underneath surface-level conflict to address the deeper emotional dynamics keeping a couple stuck.

His Unpause app (UnPauseYourMarriage.com) is for couples who aren't in full crisis but have drifted into that stale, disconnected place. It delivers daily exercises, reminders, and coaching prompts to rebuild connection one small, intentional step at a time — turning vague good intentions into actual daily action.

Whether your relationship feels distant or you're just trying to stay intentional, this one's full of practical, hopeful, do-it-today tools.

Grief doesn't move in a straight line — it can be very erratic. In this episode of Therapy is Dope with Alicia and Laura, we talk openly about our own, recent, grief and loss while moving through it in different ways.

We get raw about what grief actually feels like: the emotional rollercoaster, the unpredictable waves of intermittent grief that return long after a loss, the confusion of laughing one minute and crying the next, and what it means to find the rainbow after the storm — holding grief and meaning in the same hands.

Whether you're grieving the loss of a relationship, a loved one, or a pet, we hope this conversation helps you feel less alone.

🎧 Listen to Therapy is Dope with Alicia and Laura wherever you get your podcasts.

This podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional mental health treatment. If you are struggling, please reach out to a licensed provider or, in a crisis, contact the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.

#grief #griefsupport #mentalhealth #therapyisdope #grievingtogether #lossandhealing #emotionalhealth #copingwithgrief

On this episode of Therapy is Dope with Alicia and Laura, we sit down with Michael Anthony for a wide-ranging conversation on men's mental health, ketamine-assisted therapy, and martial arts. We start with the heart of it: why so many men learn to armor up instead of feel, what it actually takes to drop that armor, and how strength and vulnerability stop being opposites. That opens into ketamine-assisted therapy and trauma work—Michael breaks down in plain language what ketamine assisted therapy is, who it can help, and why the therapeutic container and integration after the medicine matters more than the medicine itself. From there we move into martial arts, where discipline, presence, and physical resilience become a doorway into the emotional work rather than a distraction from it. If you're curious about men's emotional healing, psychedelic-assisted therapy, or how the body holds what the mind won't say, this conversation meets you there—no protocols, no clichés, just the real work.

Connect: 📧 michael@integrativecounsel.org 📞 386-400-3854

This week on Therapy is Dope with Alicia and Laura, we sit down with Nahum "Justin" Vizakis — a former Army veteran who served in Iraq and came home carrying the kind of weight that doesn't show up on a scan. Nahum's story moves through loss, a near-death experience, and the slow unraveling that so many veterans and trauma survivors know well: the moment the armor that protected you starts to suffocate you instead.

Nahum gets honest about what his healing actually looked like — not a straight line, not a single breakthrough, but years of reaching for meaning in different places. He shares how plantmedicine became part of his personal journey, how he turned to bodybuilding as a daily ritual of reclaiming himself, and why he came to believe that emotional pain we don't process tends to find a home in the body. This episode is a raw, honest conversation about masculinity, grief, trauma, presence, and the long work of coming home to yourself.

This one's for anyone who's ever wondered what's underneath the things they don't talk about.

In this eposide we discuss:

• Nahum's path from bomb technician in Iraq to author andembodiment coach

• How unprocessed trauma and grief can settle into thebody

• What his personal healing journey actually involved —and why it wasn't linear

• Plant medicine as part of his own story, told as livedexperience rather than prescription

• Bodybuilding and physical discipline as a form ofself-reclamation

• Masculinity and emotional honesty

• What "radical self-responsibility" means

Nahum Vizakis is a former Army bomb technician, author, and holistic coach whose work centers on trauma recovery, embodiment, and what he calls "spiritual bodybuilding." Heis the author of The Indigo Flame, a memoir of his journey from war and trauma to healing, and The Biohacker's Guide to Spiritual Bodybuilding. Through his practice, Optimizing Human, he works with men and women on nervous-systemhealing, physical strength, and reconnecting with a sense of purpose.

You can find him at optimizinghuman.com and on Instagram @spiritual_bodybuilder.

Note for listeners: Nahum shares his personal experiences with plant medicine and alternative healing practices. These reflect his own journey and are not medical advice or a treatment recommendation. Substances like ayahuasca, iboga, and kambo carry real physical and psychological risks and are not appropriate for everyone. If you're navigating trauma, mental health concerns, or substanceuse, please work with a licensed professional. Therapy is Dope is for education and conversation — it isn't a substitute for individualized care.

Are you addicted to screens — or just overwhelmed by it? There's a difference, and it matters.

In this episode, I sit down with Eli Singer, founder of Offline.now and author of Offline.now: A Practical Guide to Healthy Digital Balance, to have an honest, shame-free conversation about our relationship with technology.

Eli isn't here to tell you to throw your phone in a river. After spending years building one of the early social media agencies in North America, he pivoted — and started helping people actually live with their devices instead of being run by them. That backstory alone is worth the listen.

We get into:

• What digital overwhelm actually looks like (and why it's showing up in therapy offices everywhere)
• The difference between problematic use and everyday distraction
• His Offline.now Matrix — a practical, shame-free framework for understanding your digital habits
• Why "digital detox" culture often does more harm than good
• Small, sustainable changes that don't require you to go off the grid

Building Tech That Doesn't Break People Eli is also bringing his digital wellness framework to the startup world — working with the tech entrepreneurship community at the University of Toronto's Schwartz Reisman Innovation Campus. Because if we're going to build a healthier digital culture, the people building the technology need to be part of that conversation too.

Whether you're a clinician seeing this come up with clients, a parent trying to navigate screens with your kids, or someone who just knows something feels off — this conversation will give you language, tools, and a little relief.

🎙️ Guest: Eli Singer | @offline.now | Offline.now: A Practical Guide to Healthy Digital Balance

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🔔 Subscribe so you never miss an episode — and drop a comment below: What's your relationship with your devices actually like?