Inner Balance Psychiatry & Wellness

10/11/2026

09/26/2026

We tend to think about anxiety, OCD and other behavioral symptoms as problems that start in the brain, but the gut and brain are in constant communication and the microbiome can influence neurotransmitter production and metabolism, including dopamine and norepinephrine.

One pathway I find particularly interesting is dopamine beta-hydroxylase (DBH), the enzyme that converts dopamine into norepinephrine. If that dopamine-to-norepinephrine balance is disrupted, it can potentially affect signaling involved in arousal, attention, stress and behavior.

And here’s the bigger point: we can’t always treat the symptom without looking upstream.

The bacteria living in your gut have their own metabolic machinery. Some can produce or alter neurotransmitter-related compounds and changes in the microbiome can affect the gut–brain signaling environment.

So sometimes the question isn’t just “What medication treats the anxiety?”

It may also be:

“What’s happening in the gut that’s influencing the brain?”

That’s why understanding and addressing the microbiome, gut health, inflammation and neurotransmitter metabolism can be an important part of looking at the whole picture and not simply putting a Band-Aid on the behavioral symptom.

09/13/2026

Sometimes your mental health symptoms can be exacerbated by your gut. People always want to treat these separately, but when you look at them as a system that is interconnected, you get a better response with your mood, meds and physical health!

09/07/2026

What if the missing piece in your treatment plan… is you?

You’ve had the labs.
You’ve seen the specialists.
You’ve been told, “Everything looks normal.”
“Everything is fine.”

But you don’t feel fine!

You still feel exhausted. Your gut still isn’t right. Your hormones feel completely out of balance. Your anxiety, sleep, pain, brain fog or whatever brought you into the office in the first place… is still there.

And this is where I approach things differently.

I don’t just look at a diagnosis or a lab value in isolation. I look at the whole person and the connections between the systems.

Because sometimes the answer isn’t in one abnormal test. It’s in the pattern.

The gut may be connected to the brain. Hormones may be affecting sleep, mood, and inflammation.
Chronic stress may be influencing symptoms you’ve been treating separately for years.

And just as importantly, I want to understand what you’re actually experiencing.

Because you live in your body every single day. You know what changed. You know what doesn’t feel right. You know what has helped, what hasn’t and what you’ve been told to just “live with” or “it’s just normal aging”.

You are not simply the person sitting across from the provider while the provider decides what to do.

You are part of the team.

The treatment plan should be a collaboration between your experience, your history, your symptoms, your labs and clinical expertise.

That’s where things can start to shift.

Not just treating what’s showing up on paper, but treating the human who is living it.

Because healing happens differently when you’re finally being seen…not just tested.

Join us for more “mind-body conversations with Lisa and Elizabeth” on YouTube or wherever you listen to you podcasts!

08/27/2026

HOW DO WE KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WHAT’S REAL AND WHAT’S IMAGINED?

I was feeling anxious about something recently and I stopped and asked myself:
“Am I anxious…or am I excited?”

Because the thing is, our body can respond to something we’re imagining in much the same way it responds to something that’s actually happening.

Your heart races.
Your palms sweat.
Your stomach flips.
Your energy increases.

Your body doesn’t necessarily know: “This is real” or “This is something I’m imagining might happen.”

It just responds and that’s where things get really interesting. Sometimes in stuck in a loop.

Sometimes anxiety and excitement can feel identical physiologically.

The difference can be how we interpret and label what we’re feeling.

“I’m anxious. Something bad might happen” vs “I’m excited. Something is about to happen, and I don’t know what it is yet.”

Same physiological response. Different meaning. Different experience.

We have to become aware enough to have the ability to flip the script.

Not by pretending the anxiety or feeling isn’t real, but by stopping long enough to ask what is it?

Because sometimes the only thing we know for sure is that something is happening in our body.

Can we stay curious with the feeling instead of assuming the meaning we have always given it?

That’s where we have the power.

In this short clip from the podcast, mind-body conversations with Lisa and Elizabeth I discussed how the mind-body connection shows up and how we can challenge those uncomfortable emotions.

08/15/2026

Here is a short clip from our Mind-Body Conversations podcast on anger. Anger isn’t the problem. Unprocessed anger is.

When we don’t deal with our anger, it doesn’t just affect us. It can spill into our relationships, our marriages, and especially our children.

If you learned that being “perfect” kept you safe, you may have learned to scan everyone else’s emotions before expressing your own. So you stay quiet. You accommodate. You swallow the anger 😡even when your feelings, needs or opinions are completely valid.

You don’t have to be perfect to be safe anymore.

You’re allowed to have feelings. You’re allowed to have boundaries. And you’re allowed to be angry without it always being a diagnosis 🥺and it’s responsible to understand and acknowledge the anger so you can move it and elevate to a higher level. It hasn’t aired yet, but you can watch on YouTube or listen on Apple and Spotify podcasts!

04/25/2026

People say they want to heal, but sometimes healing isn’t about adding more things. Often, it’s about releasing and that can be more difficult, but also much more powerful ✨