Kate Motaung, Valencia Christian Counseling

Treatment Options for Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMDD)

Treatment Options for Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMDD)

Kate Motaung2025-03-15T06:19:37+00:00January 7th, 2023|Featured, Individual Counseling, Women’s Issues|

Periods are a normal part of life for the majority of women and teenage girls. At worst, it’s a monthly pain; at best, it serves as a gentle reminder that our bodies are functioning as they should. However, the start of menstruation can feel miserable for girls with Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMDD). What is Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder? PMDD is a collection of both physical and emotional symptoms, much like its more well-known but milder cousin, premenstrual syndrome (PMS). They happen just before your period, during the menstrual cycle’s luteal phase when the uterus prepares for the possibility of pregnancy by secreting an increased number of hormones. Valencia Christian Counseling provides compassionate support to help women navigate the emotional and mental health challenges associated with PMDD from a faith-based perspective. PMS and PMDD symptoms frequently resemble one another and include: Feelings of depression, anxiety, irritability, or even rage that appear out of nowhere are referred to as being moody. Excessive crying or sobbing without cause. Intense sensitivity to rejection: worrying that everyone is upset or angry with you. Feeling overburdened or like you’re barely getting by. Difficulty staying focused or having trouble staying on task. Changing or decreasing one’s appetite. Physical symptoms such as exhaustion, bloating, cramps, headaches, tender breasts, and body aches. Typically, symptoms appear 5-8 days before your period, but they can appear earlier. Once your period starts, the symptoms stop. PMDD can begin at any point after puberty. So, what’s the difference? Around their periods, approximately 75% of women and girls report some emotional and physical discomfort, but PMS typically has a minor effect on their lives. The signs of premenstrual dysphoric disorder are much more severe, and they frequently lead to issues that last long after the tampon box has been put back in the cabinet. [...]

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4 Myths about Aging That May Be Limiting Your Potential

4 Myths about Aging That May Be Limiting Your Potential

Kate Motaung2025-03-15T06:30:23+00:00November 26th, 2022|Aging and Geriatric Issues, Featured, Individual Counseling|

Knowing how to handle aging can feel challenging, but you have a say in what happens as you age. Start by taking your aging self seriously so that you can start taking precautions right away. The aging process can be controlled in part by you, one tiny step at a time. You don’t have to fall for the many age-related myths. Valencia Christian Counseling offers faith-based support to help individuals navigate aging with wisdom, grace, and a strong spiritual foundation. 4 Myths about Aging Here are four myths about aging to consider on your journey: Myth #1: During your retirement years, you should do nothing but relax and enjoy life. Our culture has conditioned us to believe many age-related myths, such as that once we reach retirement age, life will be all about leisure and relaxation. There is a place for leisure and relaxation, and different people will define these in different ways. It is important to recognize, however, that leisure and relaxation do not mean doing nothing and avoiding growth. Whether you’re financially prepared or not, it’s difficult to imagine that you can spend the majority of your retirement years just relaxing. Many people find themselves living for decades after retirement, especially with life expectancy rising. Doing nothing for decades is not beneficial, and it can be harmful to your health. The idea that you shouldn’t do anything but relax when you get older is probably one of the aging myths that causes the most harm. Can you imagine what would happen to your brain and body if you spent the majority of your later years watching TV rather than pushing yourself to experience new and exciting things that would help you learn and grow? Traditionally, we have viewed longevity as three linear, clean life stages. The way [...]

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Bible Verses About Fear To Help You Address It

Bible Verses About Fear To Help You Address It

Kate Motaung2025-03-15T06:27:04+00:00November 16th, 2022|Individual Counseling|

There’s a whole season in the American calendar that’s dedicated to fear. Around Halloween, we dress up in costumes and some of them are quite scary. We decorate our front lawns to look like spooky castles. In theaters, on television, and on our streaming services, there’s plenty of fare for the horror aficionado. Why do we want to scare ourselves so much? There’s a line of reasoning that says that we simulate fear in controlled environments because fear feels exciting when it activates our fight-or-flight response. Our routinized behavior can feel boring, so being scared makes us feel more alert and aware. Valencia Christian Counseling helps individuals understand and manage fear and anxiety in a healthy, faith-based way, offering guidance rooted in biblical wisdom. When we’re scared, we focus on the here and now, and we aren’t preoccupied with what needs to happen tomorrow or with what happened yesterday. When we know we’re safe, those feelings of fear can be interpreted as a positive experience. Making it through scary but safe activities can help you feel like you can take on whatever the world throws at you. When it comes to getting scared in simulated environments, we can find pleasure in those experiences. However, while this kind of scary-but-fun fear has that component of fun, our other fears aren’t so pleasurable. Why do we fear? Why is it that we feel fear, and why isn’t that regular type of fear fun in any kind of way? The difference between the scary-but-fun type of fear and our everyday fears is that the latter doesn’t have a safety net beneath it. It’s all tight rope, and a sheer drop beneath. What is unknown and is out of our control is often what we find most fearful, and we get scared in [...]

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Waging War Against Anorexia and Bulimia

Waging War Against Anorexia and Bulimia

Kate Motaung2025-03-18T14:56:27+00:00August 3rd, 2022|Christian Counseling For Teens, Eating Disorders, Featured, Individual Counseling|

According to studies by the EDC (Eating Disorders Coalition), at least 28.8 million Americans will suffer from an eating disorder such as anorexia and bulimia in their lifetime; four out of ten individuals have either personally experienced one or know someone who has, and eating disorders have the second highest mortality rate of any mental illness. These are frightening statistics, and the numbers are likely only getting higher as our society emerges into a post-pandemic world fraught with complex problems and myriad uncertainties. An eating disorder is defined as an unhealthy way of using food to cope with psychological stress, with a few common presentations. Anorexia nervosa centers around a restriction of energy intake relative to requirements, leading to significantly low body weight in the context of age and physical health. Valencia Christian Counseling provides compassionate, faith-based support for individuals struggling with eating disorders, helping them find healing and restoration through Christ-centered care. Anorexia creates a disturbance in the way in which one’s body weight or shape is experienced, with a persistent lack of recognition of the seriousness of the individual’s low body weight. Bulimia nervosa relates to recurrent episodes of binge eating, which are characterized by both the inordinate consumption of an amount of food in a discrete period (for example, within any two-hour period), with a sense of lack of control during the episode, followed by recurrent, inappropriate compensatory behaviors to prevent weight gain, such as self-induced vomiting, misuse of laxatives, diuretics or other medications, or excessive exercise. Numerous factors can give rise to conditions like anorexia and bulimia, and these are both internal and external. While men and women and both prone to these eating disorders, they affect mostly women, and often begin in the early teenage years, as issues of self-esteem, body image, and peer [...]

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7 Toxic Traits in a Relationship

7 Toxic Traits in a Relationship

Kate Motaung2025-03-18T15:17:52+00:00July 28th, 2022|Couples Counseling, Featured, Individual Counseling, Premarital Counseling, Relationship Issues|

What does it take to have a healthy relationship – devoid of toxic traits – in which the people in it feel loved for who they are, and are given room to grow and express who God made them to be? People crave meaningful relationships, but this is far from simple to achieve because we bring our complicated histories, expectations, and weaknesses into our relationships. To have a healthy relationship thus requires the people in it to have a mature self-awareness, be capable of growth and change, and be willing to forgive the other from the heart. Though you may be in a toxic relationship, you may not be aware that the relationship has a toxic traits. Certain ways of relating to others may seem normal to you, and you may not even consider questioning those ways of thinking and being, or whether they’re good for you because they are part of a long-established pattern. Valencia Christian Counseling offers faith-based guidance to help individuals recognize unhealthy relationship patterns and find healing through biblical wisdom and support. On the other hand, the unhealthy dynamics in your relationship may be a recent development or one that exists in a particular relationship, such as with your spouse, children, or colleagues. Pinpointing these behaviors is the first step toward moving the relationship in a healthy direction. Toxic Traits to Watch for in a Relationship Constant conflict People argue. We have different outlooks on life – a wide variety of personalities, interests, expectations, desires, gifts, and capacities. Our differences don’t have to divide us, and our similarities should unite us, but it happens often enough that difference creates distance, and our similarities can cause friction. Two people in a relationship may want the same thing, but because they see different paths to get there, [...]

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Codependency: Problems and Power Struggles

Codependency: Problems and Power Struggles

Kate Motaung2025-03-18T15:28:03+00:00June 18th, 2022|Codependency, Couples Counseling, Marriage Counseling, Relationship Issues|

Codependency is a common problem that can be hard to spot on your own. The codependent person has too much dependence on another person, though they may be high functioning themselves. Problems can develop over time as the relationship becomes more imbalanced. But when the power is balanced between two people, there is hope for recovery. Since codependency can be difficult to see, it’s helpful to get a third-party viewpoint from a caring counselor. The counselor’s objective stance can help you identify your problems so you can work toward biblical solutions. Valencia Christian Counseling provides compassionate, faith-based guidance to help individuals recognize and overcome codependency, fostering healthier relationships rooted in Christ. Power Struggles in Codependency Every codependent relationship suffers from a power struggle. It’s challenging to get out of these power imbalances on your own. However, a counselor can help you see signs of codependency issues like these in your relationships. One person does most of the taking while the other does most of the giving, and the giver is resentful of this imbalance. The codependent feels that their purpose in life is defined by what they contribute to the relationship. The codependent finds it hard to say no even when a no answer is appropriate. The codependent makes excuses for the other person’s negative behavior and might even take responsibility for it. One person may feel trapped in a relationship while the other may feel smothered. The codependent may be overly concerned about the other person to the neglect of his or her own needs. The codependent has an inflated view of the other person and puts a great deal of estimation into what the other person thinks of them. One or more of these characteristics may indicate a problem with codependency. Though these problems are often deeply [...]

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When the World is an Angry Place: 23 Helpful Bible Verses about Anger

When the World is an Angry Place: 23 Helpful Bible Verses about Anger

Kate Motaung2025-03-18T15:42:30+00:00March 23rd, 2022|Anger Issues, Featured, Individual Counseling|

Do you ever feel guilty for being angry over something you care about? Or do you find yourself feeling justified in your anger toward certain events or people? There’s no shortage of things that make us angry, and you don’t have to look far to find them. In response to political and social issues, everyday occurrences like bad traffic or being treated poorly by others, anger is a far too common reaction to the world around us. Add to that the stress that has been generated by being in a pandemic over the last few years, and we have a cocktail of worry and anger. And it’s not just Americans that have been feeling this way. According to the latest Gallup Global Emotions Report, in the last few years, the world has been a more worried and more stressed-out, sadder, and angrier place than it has been at any time in the past fifteen years. The Bible helps us to come to grips with the complexity of anger, helping us to understand the roots of our anger, as well as the devastating effects of our anger. While we learn from the following Bible verses about anger that God also gets stirred to wrath, we are shown that God gets angry because of sin and that he is slow to anger. Valencia Christian Counseling provides biblical guidance to help individuals manage anger in a healthy, Christ-centered way, fostering spiritual growth and emotional healing. The description of God’s character from Exodus 33:19, for example, emphasizes the merciful and gracious character of the Lord, whose steadfast love and forgiveness extend to thousands in contrast to the few upon whom he visits his anger. Our inclinations often run in the opposite direction. The Bible warns us that anger can be either righteous or sinful, [...]

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24 Quotes on Married Life to Encourage You and Strengthen Your Marriage

24 Quotes on Married Life to Encourage You and Strengthen Your Marriage

Kate Motaung2025-03-18T15:51:26+00:00March 3rd, 2022|Couples Counseling, Featured, Marriage Counseling, Relationship Issues|

A significant portion of the United States is married and adding the people across the world that are married now, and those that have been married across the ages, and you have yourself a deep pool of wisdom about marriage to draw from. There are many passages of Scripture that address husbands and wives, and that shape our understanding of marriage. This article is focused on how people take those many passages, reflecting on them and the wisdom they’ve gleaned. In other words, the following quotes on married life show how various people have tried to make sense of marriage and how to do married life well. Married life is a mass of complexities. That’s because people are complicated, and when two people are married to one another, that complication only increases. Couples love one another, have squabbles, laugh together, make love, welcome others into their home, work through problems, forgive one another, deal with sickness, grieve and rejoice together – in short, they do life together with all its ups and downs. Valencia Christian Counseling offers faith-based support to help couples navigate the challenges of marriage, strengthen their bond, and build a Christ-centered relationship. 24 Quotes on Married Life Into all this, God has given his wisdom through Scripture, and he has also given his people the Spirit to discern how to live in light of Scripture. May the following quotes on married life bless you and your spouse as you reflect on the amazing gift that is marriage. Like a soft, deep layer of mulch, transparency in your marriage will keep most weed seeds dormant and unable to sprout. – Barbara Rainey Have a good and godly marriage that shows the world Christ's love through how you sacrificially love and serve one another. – John Stange A [...]

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10 Bible Passages About Grief

10 Bible Passages About Grief

Kate Motaung2025-03-18T16:30:32+00:00February 16th, 2022|Featured, Grief Counseling, Individual Counseling, Spiritual Development|

Though it is a natural part of life, we don’t like grief, and it can make us and others around us feel awkward and uncomfortable. Still, everyone will face occasions for grief since loss comes in many forms: the loss of a loved one, the loss of a job or an opportunity, the loss of a relationship, the loss of physical abilities associated with aging or illness, and even moving which involves the losses of neighborhood, community, and associations such as your church or gardening club. Valencia Christian Counseling offers compassionate, faith-based support to help individuals process grief and find healing through God’s comfort and wisdom. 10 Helpful Bible Passages about Grief The Bible offers a forthright approach to grief and can provide tremendous comfort for those who grieve. The Bible can also give you words for comforting others in their times of grief. Below are ten Bible passages about grief. There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, … a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance… – Ecclesiastes 3:1-2, 4 You will have experiences common to everyone, such as birth and death, planting and harvesting, weeping, and laughing, mourning, and dancing. You can probably fill in the blanks with times and seasons of your own, like working and resting, sleeping, and rising, learning, and teaching, parenting, and grandparenting. Each of these activities may also present the risk of grief that comes with the inherent risks involved with loving others. However, the circle will keep turning, and times and seasons will change. You can take comfort in the knowledge that others understand [...]

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Kate Motaung

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