Kristen Jacobsen Kristen Jacobsen

The Hidden Connection Between Burnout and Childhood Trauma

The term burnout gets thrown around a lot. But here’s what most people miss—it’s not just about working too hard or not sleeping enough. For a lot of us, burnout is tangled up with stuff that happened way before the job ever started.

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Kristen Jacobsen Kristen Jacobsen

How to Outsmart Your Anxiety When the Future Feels Scary

Let’s get something straight: you’re probably not as good at predicting your future feelings as you think you are. No offense. I’m not either. None of us are. Psychologists have a name for this: affective forecasting. It’s our brain’s attempt to guess how we’ll feel in the future. And most of the time, those guesses? Way off.

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Kristen Jacobsen Kristen Jacobsen

How to Overcome the Loneliness That Comes With High-Functioning Anxiety

Have you ever been at a party, sitting with friends, maybe even laughing—yet inside, you feel completely alone? It’s frustrating, isn’t it? You have people in your life, you stay busy, and you’re constantly connected through texts and social media. So why does it feel like there’s a wall between you and everyone else?

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Kristen Jacobsen Kristen Jacobsen

The Psychology of Change: Why You Struggle to Follow Through

When you’re trying to change something—whether it’s leaving a toxic job, starting a regular exercise routine, or to stop overcommitting—it can feel frustrating when progress isn’t linear. One day you’re motivated, the next you’re stuck in old habits. Sound familiar?

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Kristen Jacobsen Kristen Jacobsen

How to Stop Anxiety from Controlling Your Motivation

Rather than aiming to excel or innovate, her primary focus is on avoiding criticism from her boss and preventing any possible failure. This avoidance motivation keeps her in a state of high anxiety, leading her to over-prepare presentations and avoid taking on bold projects, not because she lacks skill, but because she’s terrified of the potential backlash if something goes wrong.

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Kristen Jacobsen Kristen Jacobsen

Stuck in Overthinking? This One Mental Shift Changes Everything

We all know the feeling—you’re faced with a problem, and instead of doing something about it, you analyze it from every angle. You dissect what went wrong, why it happened, and how unfair it is. But somehow, after all that thinking, the problem is still… there.

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Kristen Jacobsen Kristen Jacobsen

Why Your Nervous System Won’t Let You Relax

You go to bed early, get your full eight hours, and still wake up feeling like you got hit by a truck. You schedule a lowkey weekend, thinking that might fix the problem, but instead of feeling recharged, you feel even more drained. Maybe you’ve noticed that even when you sit down to relax, your mind keeps racing, or your body still feels tense, like it’s bracing for something.

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Kristen Jacobsen Kristen Jacobsen

How to Handle Uncertainty Without Losing Your Mind

Let’s talk about uncertainty—that slippery, uncomfortable space where your brain likes to spiral. If you’ve ever found yourself awake at 3am mentally rehearsing worst-case scenarios, then this blog is for you. But why does uncertainty feel like a psychological itch we just can’t scratch? And more importantly, what can we actually do about it?

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Kristen Jacobsen Kristen Jacobsen

Can Perfectionism Ruin a Relationship?

We all want a great relationship, right? But sometimes, what we think of as "high standards" might actually be perfectionism in disguise—and it could be causing more harm than good. When we expect too much from our partners (or ourselves), we're setting everyone up for frustration and disappointment. And the worst part? We might not even realize it's happening.

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