Kate Motaung, Richardson Christian Counseling

About Kate Motaung

Kate Motaung is the Senior Writer, Editor, and Content Manager for a multi-state company. She is the author of several books including Letters to Grief, 101 Prayers for Comfort in Difficult Times, and A Place to Land: A Story of Longing and Belonging. Kate is also the host of Five Minute Friday, an online writing community that equips and encourages Christian writers, and the owner of Refine Services, a company that offers editing services. She and her South African husband have three young adult children and currently live in West Michigan. Find Kate’s books at katemotaung.com/books.

The Impacts of Birth Order

The Impacts of Birth Order

Sarah Gibson, Kate Motaung2025-03-26T10:03:09+00:00March 25th, 2025|Christian Counseling for Children, Christian Counseling For Teens, Family Counseling, Featured, Individual Counseling|

In the 1920s, Alfred Adler, a physician and psychotherapist, developed a theory on personality. His theory emphasized the influence a community (family, friendships, and society at large) has on an individual. Through Adler’s research and interviews, he noticed many commonalities in personality traits related to the birth order of children. In particular, he noticed that the order in which a child is born in relation to their siblings can impact one’s personality traits and lifestyle. This theory, known as Birth Order Theory, categorizes personality traits based on a child’s position in the family. It identifies three main categories: firstborn, middleborn, and lastborn. It is important to remember that while some aspects of Adler’s theory might apply to certain individuals, it does not necessarily hold true for everyone. The Firstborn Child First-time parents often have strong opinions on how a child should be raised. Putting those opinions into practice while raising their first child may involve significant trial and error. These parents were learning as they were raising a child. Personality Traits of the Firstborn Child The firstborn often experiences the parents growing up with them. They are the children who give their parents experience in child-rearing. This can lead to a strict and cautious upbringing. Being raised under that dynamic, they often become success-oriented. The traits of firstborn children may include being: Mature Responsible Organized Leaders High achieving Controlling Cautious Reliable Perfectionist The firstborn child experienced having the parents to themselves and getting all the attention. This also meant that the firstborn was more than likely subjected to stricter rules. Being the oldest child sometimes means a greater expectation to set a good example for the younger siblings. The Middleborn Child The child born between the first and last is typically referred to as the middle child. Some families [...]

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Navigating Postpartum OCD

Navigating Postpartum OCD

Kate Motaung2025-03-24T14:19:21+00:00March 24th, 2025|Featured, Individual Counseling, OCD, Women’s Issues|

The arrival of a child is an occasion of joy and much celebrating. However, many challenges can come with pregnancy, birth, and the weeks and months that follow, including postpartum OCD.Postpartum OCD ExplainedPostpartum OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder) is a mental health condition that affects 3-5 percent of new mothers immediately after childbirth, with some symptoms emerging 4-6 weeks after delivery. It’s a type of anxiety disorder that’s marked by intrusive and recurring thoughts, called obsessions, along with repetitive behaviors, called compulsions, that are often deployed as ways to deal with obsessions.These obsessions and compulsions will often interfere with daily life. Some of the obsessions that a new mom may have include fear of dirt or contamination or being preoccupied with the baby’s safety and health. Likewise, they may be overwhelmed with fear of being a bad mother, as well as fear of causing harm to the baby or herself.The compulsive responses to these may cause the new mom to want symmetry and order around her and the baby. She may repeatedly look for reassurance from others about her mothering or the child’s well-being. There may be ritualistic behaviors like repeating phrases and counting and constantly checking the baby to see if they are breathing. She may repeatedly check the baby’s temperature or do excessive cleaning and sanitizing.Other signs of postpartum OCD to look out for include having difficulty sleeping or concentrating, digestive problems, or headaches. Likewise, the mom may experience feelings of dread and worry. They could also feel overwhelmed, hopeless, or trapped. Mom may begin avoidance behaviors, avoiding situations or tasks such as leaving the house with the baby, bathing the baby, or putting the baby to sleep for fear of harming them.How Postpartum OCD Affects Mom and BabyIt’s common for a new parent to have anxieties about their role [...]

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Aging and Isolation: How to Prevent Loneliness

Aging and Isolation: How to Prevent Loneliness

Lori Askew, Kate Motaung2025-03-26T10:44:46+00:00March 20th, 2025|Aging and Geriatric Issues, Featured, Individual Counseling|

When you think about getting older, your first thoughts may be based on fear and dread. For example, you may have concerns regarding rising healthcare costs, physical ailments, slowing down, losing loved ones, or getting left behind from the metaphorical rivers of life. However, while those concerns are real and important, elderly people often develop full, meaningful, and fun lives. One of the key strategies to creating an abundant and fulfilling life as we age is to navigate isolation and, therefore, loneliness. While we can’t skip the natural ebb and flow of life’s highs and lows, we can safeguard ourselves from loneliness by making intentional choices. Ways to Guard Against Loneliness as You Approach Aging First, the most important way to prevent loneliness involves surrounding yourself with meaningful relationships. This may mean looking at your current relationships to see if they are serving you well, or even considering moving closer to family and friends. It may also mean moving to a community where there are many others in your age range. To form friendships and relationships that are meaningful and that can stand the test of time, it’s important to make sure you know how to build new ones. So, before you make any sweeping changes in your geography, ask yourself these questions: Am I around enough people I enjoy and with whom I could begin new friendships? Do I like the people I’ve surrounded myself with? Are the people in my everyday life leading a lifestyle that allows for hobbies and time with friends or are they too busy? If my top two friends right now were to move away or, sadly, pass away, would I have others nearby with whom I could deepen friendships or familial relationships? Are there community resources where I can turn to make [...]

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How Your God-Given Internal Cues Can Stop Emotional Eating

How Your God-Given Internal Cues Can Stop Emotional Eating

Lori Askew, Kate Motaung2025-03-26T12:17:48+00:00March 7th, 2025|Eating Disorders, Featured, Individual Counseling, Weight Loss, Women’s Issues|

Chronic stress, a silent predator, is a key instigator of a range of physical and mental ailments. Unfortunately, it also slyly fuels emotional eating. What happens is that we often turn to food beyond our physical hunger because we’re trying to fill a deep-seated void. God actually created that void in us to fill with Himself. Therefore, we know that food is not the answer. God has gifted us with a sophisticated system that signals when we need to nourish ourselves and when we should refrain from eating. This system helps us to effectively curb emotional eating by recognizing and responding to internal cues. Defining True Hunger The internal cues we possess to indicate hunger are natural and intuitive. Your body releases two hormones, ghrelin and leptin. Ghrelin stimulates the appetite, making your stomach feel empty and often causing it to growl. The growl or empty sensation may subside but return in 10-30 minutes as your body requires fuel. The other hormone, leptin, controls satiety. You experience the sensation of being full when fat cells release leptin, which leads you to stop eating. This hormone is released when it receives the signal from the stomach approaching fullness. Unfortunately, many individuals continue to eat even when they are already full or not hungry, making it difficult to gauge their satiety or control their eating. This can lead to physical discomfort, obesity, digestive problems, and even illness if it becomes a consistent habit. Understanding these potential health risks can be a powerful motivator to change our eating habits. Why We Eat Our Emotions If the empty feeling or stomach growl indicates hunger, why do we eat when not physically hungry? Thoughts and emotions fuel our actions. For example, you have had a stressful day at work. You arrive home, and everyone [...]

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How to Identify Codependent Behavior in a Relationship

How to Identify Codependent Behavior in a Relationship

Kate Motaung2025-03-06T07:23:42+00:00March 6th, 2025|Codependency, Couples Counseling, Featured, Infidelity and Affairs, Marriage Counseling, Relationship Issues|

When it comes to relationships, there are many different ways and reasons it can be unhealthy and struggling to flourish. One of those ways is through codependent behavior. Codependency Briefly Explained The term codependency describes a relationship in which the people involved are over-reliant on one another. This over-reliance may be mental, emotional, spiritual, or physical, and it often leads to a person entering and remaining in destructive, one-sided, or abusive relationships. Codependent relationships can be found in all kinds of relationships, such as the parent-child relationship, between siblings, coworkers, or lovers. Often, codependent behavior is learned as a person watches and then goes on to imitate the behavior they see displayed in unhealthy relationships. That’s one reason there can be patterns of codependent behavior in families. A codependent person will often feel, for one reason or another, that it is their role to ‘save’ another person and to meet their needs, even if it is at the expense of their own needs and well-being. In a codependent relationship dynamic, there is a severe imbalance in meeting one another’s needs. The person who gives of themselves to meet the needs of another can lose their sense of who they are by defining themselves by the needs of the other person. Codependency often results from taking on too much responsibility for another person’s needs, and it goes beyond a healthy mutual dependence. Some Signs of Codependent Behavior in Relationships A codependent relationship is unhealthy at the root because it wraps one’s sense of self in meeting someone else’s needs. It also enables the other person to not resolve issues for themselves. It’s natural to want to move toward your loved one and help them meet their needs. Codependency, however, goes beyond this toward creating an unhealthy imbalance in the relationship. [...]

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Take This Job! Dealing with Job Burnout

Take This Job! Dealing with Job Burnout

Sarah Gibson, Kate Motaung2025-02-28T06:14:00+00:00February 28th, 2025|Featured, Individual Counseling, Professional Development|

Although job burnout is not an official disorder recognized by the medical community, it is a condition that causes exhaustion and mood changes. According to a survey from Indeed, more than half of the participants (52%) experienced job burnout in 2021. How do you deal with job burnout without shutting down physically and emotionally? Why You Might Have Job Burnout If you work in a demanding career, you may be exhausted in every way possible: physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Demand and supply can create job burnout as excellent workers try to manage a shortage of employees and meet a higher demand for their services. Even if you love your job and have always considered it a dream job, you may still reach serious job burnout. There are other causes of job burnout: Working long hours or overtime. Feeling unappreciated, unacknowledged, or used. Working a demanding job with no evident reward. Not achieving family and work balance. Stress from other areas of your life. Symptoms from a mental health condition. Feeling as if your life is out of your control. Do any of these sound familiar? You might be dealing with job burnout. How Job Burnout Affects Mental Health Job burnout takes a toll on your mental health. You can feel emotionally exhausted, depressed, angry, and irritable. You might struggle with insomnia and fatigue. Some people choose damaging coping mechanisms, like alcohol and substance use. Others turn to food for comfort and binge eat. as they spend every evening escaping into the television. You may not realize what is behind your recent mood swings or negative behaviors. Could it be that your job is causing more stress than you realize? Getting help from a licensed mental health care practitioner may break down what is subconsciously sabotaging you. They can help [...]

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Knowing the Difference Between a Big Appetite and Binge Eating in Teens

Knowing the Difference Between a Big Appetite and Binge Eating in Teens

Kate Motaung2025-02-26T05:46:53+00:00February 26th, 2025|Christian Counseling For Teens, Eating Disorders, Featured, Individual Counseling|

Jackson has been feeling lost since he recently realized his teenage son Jack Junior’s famous appetite may have evolved into a binge eating disorder. As a single dad, born and raised on a ranch in Texas, surrounded mostly by cowboys who don’t talk much about emotion, Jackson is not quite sure how to even broach this topic with his son. All sorts of questions keep floating around in his head. “How did I not notice that my kid might have an eating disorder sooner?”. “How can I know for sure if my son is binge eating?”. “How and why did this develop into a disorder?”. “How much of a problem is this condition?”. With this article, we hope to answer most of Jackson’s questions and help any other parent who might find themselves in the same boat with their child. How did I not notice that my child might have an eating disorder sooner? The boy, Jack Jr., has always had a huge appetite and loves his steaks, drumsticks, potatoes, and gravy. You see, his mother, who recently passed away of cancer, was the ranch’s resident cook, so he has grown up surrounded by her rich cooking, literally eating it all up. What Jackson doesn’t know is that in recent months, Junior has endured relentless teasing at school for the way he looks with hurtful body-shaming nicknames that are thrown at him every day. Slowly he’s been finding ways to cope with the pain by seeking solace in food. It’s become his routine that when life throws too much at him, he just retreats to his room, locks the door, and starts binge eating whatever snacks he could find in the pantry or leftovers stashed in the fridge. Jack Junior can eat several bags of chips, cookies, a full chicken, [...]

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Teens, Social Media, and Body Image

Teens, Social Media, and Body Image

Sarah Gibson, Kate Motaung2025-02-04T05:04:46+00:00February 3rd, 2025|Christian Counseling For Teens, Featured, Individual Counseling|

Last night, I opened Instagram and began scrolling. I had recently searched for new recipes and workouts, so my feed was filled with these types of videos. However, amid the dog and baking recipe videos, I started seeing videos about calorie counts, daily gym routines to make my waist smaller, and ways to lose weight. I hadn’t searched for that content, but it was now automatically showing up in my feed. I realized I probably wasn’t the only one who was seeing these types of videos centered on body image. I couldn’t help but wonder how exposure to this content might impact a person’s self-esteem and body image, especially for a teenager. What is body image? Body image refers to the beliefs and perceptions we have about our own bodies – how we view our appearance, like our size, shape, height, and weight. A positive body image involves feeling confident in your appearance and accepting the natural changes your body goes through as you age (e.g., menopause, fluctuating weight). Negative body image is the belief that there is something wrong with your appearance. The National Eating Disorders Association defines negative body image as “a distorted perception of one’s shape and physical appearance. Negative body image (or body dissatisfaction) involves feelings of shame, anxiety, and self-consciousness.” Those who struggle with negative body image often find themselves frequently doing body checking (monitoring their physical appearance via scales, mirrors, or other methods), constantly comparing their appearance to others, or going to extreme lengths to change their appearance. Those who experience high levels of body dissatisfaction are more likely to suffer from feelings of depression, isolation, low self-esteem, and developing eating disorders. Negative Body Image and Social Media For individuals who struggle with their body image, social media can make these negative beliefs [...]

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Teenage Depression is Real: 3 Subtle Signs to Watch for in Your Teen

Teenage Depression is Real: 3 Subtle Signs to Watch for in Your Teen

Sarah Gibson, Kate Motaung2025-01-29T10:00:45+00:00January 29th, 2025|Christian Counseling For Teens, Depression, Featured, Individual Counseling|

As the number of instances of teenage- depression continues to grow in the United States, the importance of addressing this issue has become increasingly clear. In a recent study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), researchers found that 17% of teens (ages 12-17) experienced symptoms of depression. The Importance of Recognizing Teenage Depression Supporting teens on their mental health journey has emerged as a key focus for parents, educators, and society, prompting us to explore the most effective ways to help and empower the next generation. For parents, a crucial first step is recognizing the key signs of teenage depression. Depression is more than just feeling sad. It is a serious mental health condition that affects your teen’s mood, behavior, and ability to function at school, at home, or with their friends. It can be difficult to tell if your teen is depressed because many depression symptoms are also common adolescent behaviors, like appetite changes or lack of energy. However, with depression, these symptoms are usually more severe, and they last for a longer period (weeks or months at a time). How to Spot Teenage Depression For a teen struggling with depression, they might feel sad for weeks or even months at a time. Their mood does not seem to improve, or they do not “brighten up” when good things happen. To them, it might be hard for them to remember a time when they weren’t sad. They might have trouble concentrating in class, may not be interested in their hobbies, have difficulty sleeping, or sleep too much. Parents need to notice if their teen is acting differently. Did your teen previously hang out with their friends, but now they spend all their free time in their room alone? Or does your teen who was [...]

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Strengthened for Success: Setting Goals and Stacking Habits

Strengthened for Success: Setting Goals and Stacking Habits

Kate Motaung2024-12-31T09:23:57+00:00December 30th, 2024|Featured, Personal Development, Setting goals, Spiritual Development|

God hasn’t only equipped us with what we need for godliness, but also with all we need for life (2 Peter 1:3). Although there are uncertainties we face, the Bible is full of practical wisdom and speaks on the importance of vision. Having a strategy is important to support us in pursuing and accomplishing goals. Without it, dreams die. Yet, with it, we have direction. We are better equipped to run with the Holy Spirit into our destiny marked by hope and expectancy. If you’ve got a dream, surely the enemy will try to intercept it from without or within. While he cannot abort what God has predetermined for you, he often seeks to dismantle confidence in the identity and in God’s faithfulness to persuade you to lose heart and give up. Mapping vision gives you a structure to rest on when you encounter obvious frustrations as well as setbacks you didn’t anticipate. Though you might be tempted to abandon your aims when roadblocks oppose your efforts, you can activate both spiritual and practical strategies to account for the inevitable unknowns in the low places. Often, once we are on the other side of a struggle, having accomplished a goal, we realize that some of those more challenging lessons were essential in developing our character and skill. Whether we are refining our personal development through setting goals or forming habits, acquiring new skills helps us to forge endurance in difficulty. Without those experiences, we would lack some of the core competencies that life demands. Often, we don’t see our resilience or recognize how we continue to rebound from trouble. Yet, God retools these to fortify us, building our resolve and resilience for what's now and next. Systems for Your Success SMART Goal Getter Having a system such as the [...]

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Kate Motaung

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