Let's Sit With This

If you've ever felt stuck in the same argument, the same distance, the same pattern that never seems to change — this episode is for you.

I'm joined by returning guest Megan Secrest, LCSW, EMDR Certified therapist, and owner of Gift of Grit Counseling here in Edmond, Oklahoma. Megan is pursuing certification in Relational Life Therapy — a couples model developed by Terry Real that is refreshingly honest, a little unconve...

Monday Growth Moment is back for a special episode — and this one isn't just about running.

Last year I trained for and ran two marathons. Then I got injured, burned out, and barely exercised for months. And when I thought about getting back into it, it felt like a burden. Heavy. Overwhelming. Like something I had to do instead of something I got to do.

So I waited. I let the passion come back on its own. And a few weeks ago it...

This month on The Therapist's Bookshelf, I'm rereading Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb — and honestly, I loved it just as much the second time around. Cried in the same spots. Laughed out loud in the same spots. That's just good writing.

Gottlieb is a therapist who ends up in therapy herself, and the book follows both her work with her clients and her own experience sitting in the client chair. The dual narra...

I'm a therapist. I know how this is supposed to work. And I still had to learn every hard lesson myself — sitting in that chair as a client, just like everyone else does.

This episode is personal. Inspired by this month's Therapist's Bookshelf book, Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb, I'm sharing my own therapy journey — the real one. Five therapists over 13 years. The ones that helped, the ones that didn'...

This month on The Therapist's Bookshelf, we're reading Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl — and it's one of those books that's genuinely hard to summarize because the message hits differently depending on where you are in your own life.

Viktor Frankl was an Austrian psychiatrist who survived Nazi concentration camps and came out the other side more convinced than ever about the human capacity to find meaning &mdash...

Hey friends!

For February on The Therapist’s Bookshelf, we read How to Keep House While Drowning by KC Davis — a compassionate, trauma-informed take on cleaning, organizing, and care tasks.

On the surface, this book is about keeping house. But underneath that, it’s about shame, expectations, and the invisible standards we carry about what our homes — and our lives — “should” look like.

In...

There’s a side of depression that doesn’t get talked about enough.

The side where life just… stops.

Where showering feels impossible.
Where the dishes pile up.
Where you stop responding to texts.
Where shame gets louder than anything else.

In this episode, we talk about severe depression through a nervous system lens — what it looks like when you move into a prolonged freeze state, why it can happen e...

Hey strangers — I’ve missed you.

This episode is a little different. It’s mid-February, life has been full (sickness, weather chaos, school closures, work), and I’m recording this with 18 minutes before my next client. So we’re embracing real life over polished perfection.

Today I’m finally sharing thoughts on January’s Therapist’s Bookshelf pick: Tiny Habits by BJ Fogg. This one p...

Have you ever wondered what books mental health professionals actually read to help them in their work with clients?

Not the clinical or theoretical ones — but the books you could actually pick up, read, and find helpful.

Well you're in luck because I'm starting a new monthly series I’ll be doing this year called The Therapist’s Bookshelf.

Each month, I’ll read one book and then come on here to talk about it &m...

January has a way of turning change into pressure, noise, and unrealistic expectations. 

Today I’m joined by my friend and colleague Megan Secrest, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and the founder of Gift of Grit Counseling. Megan brings such a grounded, real-life approach to change—especially when it comes to health goals, identity shifts, and the emotional side of starting over. In this episode, we talk about New...

On this special episode, Kristen was recently a guest on the podcast Therapist's Take, where they explored the complex and often invisible realm of ambiguous and non-traditional grief. They discussed the many ways this kind of grief shows up—through infertility and disrupted visions of family, through the slow unraveling of relationships and the loss of safety within them, through the painful recognition of family dysfunction...

Listen to hear Kristen's update about her experience of running a marathon, and the lessons she learned.

Let's Sit With This is hosted by Kristen Callaway, LMFT — a licensed therapist in Edmond, OK.

Got a topic or question for the podcast? Submit it here

Find me here: Website: seekingpeaceok.com Instagram & Facebook: @seekingpeacecounseling

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You’ve named the tricky relationships. You’ve thought through your boundaries. But what happens when setting those boundaries doesn’t go the way you hoped? In this final episode of Navigating the Holidays with Tricky People, Kristen walks you through how to prepare for pushback—emotionally, mentally, and practically. She helps you explore the gap between the boundaries you want to set and the ones you’...

In this second episode of Navigating the Holidays with Tricky People, we’re talking all about boundaries—what they are, what they aren’t, and why they can feel so dang hard to set, especially around family. Kristen breaks down a simple metaphor that helps make boundaries more concrete, names common boundary myths, and offers practical examples for setting limits around your time, your body, your kids, and your spa...

It’s race week, and Kristen is feeling both confident and nervous—and that feels exactly right. In this episode, she reflects on what it means to sit in the moment and trust 18 weeks of training. She shares her mix of excitement and nerves, her practical prep for race day (including the Vaseline bath and backup headphones), and her plan to soak in the experience rather than rush through it.

Whether you’re training ...

Some challenges feel like marathons—long, exhausting, and full of moments where you just want to stop. In this week’s Monday Growth Moment, I’m talking about how to mentally pace yourself through the hard stuff, both on the road and in life.

I share how I break down my long runs (and tough seasons) into smaller, manageable goals, and why it’s so important to focus on what you’ve already accomplished ins...

In this first episode of Navigating the Holidays with Tricky People, we’re starting with something foundational: getting clear on the relationships in your life.

Therapist Kristen Callaway walks you through a simple but powerful framework—green flag, yellow flag, and red flag relationships—to help you notice where you feel safe… and where you don’t. We talk about why your nervous system may already be ...

Sometimes doing the hard thing means accepting that it didn’t go the way you planned. In this week’s Monday Growth Moment, I’m talking about disappointment — the kind that hits when you’ve worked so hard for something, only to have it fall apart.

From a freezing, rain-turned-snow 20-mile run to cutting my long run short because my body gave out, I’m sharing what it looks like to sit with frustrati...

This week’s Monday Growth Moment is a real-life reminder that none of us can do everything all the time. Between marathon training, parenting, work, and the simple act of being human, Kristen shares what it looks like when priorities have to shift—and why that’s not a sign of failure.

From piles of laundry to long runs that steal whole weekends, this episode is about giving yourself permission to let some things sl...