Stillwaters Women's Mental Wellness

09/05/2026

🎙️✨ EPISODE 2 OF THE UNFILTERED PSYCH NP IS HERE! ✨🎙️

I had the absolute privilege of sitting down with the incredible Melody Swart, the phenomenal woman behind Your Neighbor Mom. 🩷 Your Neighbor Mom

👩‍👧‍👦 Mom of FOUR
🎥 Content creator
🎀 Breast cancer thriver
💪🏼 Warrior
❤️ Phenomenal woman
🤍 And someone I’m incredibly grateful to call a friend

In this episode, Melody shares her story—the experiences that have shaped her, the lessons she’s learned, and the perspective she’s gained throughout her journey. 🌱✨

🎀 We also talk about something that deserves SO much more attention when it comes to cancer care: mental and emotional support. 🧠❤️

Cancer doesn’t just affect the body. It touches your identity, your relationships, your family, your motherhood, your fears, your hopes—and so much of the emotional journey that comes with a diagnosis. 💔➡️❤️‍🩹

Melody’s story is such a beautiful reminder of the strength that can come from being supported, seen, and heard. 👀🤍

I’m incredibly grateful that she was willing to sit down with me and share her story. 🎙️🫶🏼 I hope her words inspire you as much as they inspired me.

Melody—you are a phenomenal woman, an incredible mother, and an even more incredible friend. 🩷✨

🎧 GO LISTEN TO EPISODE 2!
🎙️ The Unfiltered Psych NP
✨ Real stories. Real conversations. No filter.

👇🏼 Listen, share, tag a friend, and let us know what resonated with you! 💬🩷
https://open.spotify.com/episode/147I0GfQTWbFDOCaxWefoL?si=FvspTB8oRcSpEyVwVOs4Ow

🎀🩷🎙️

09/04/2026

As I stay up late and write Regain Their Trust, I keep finding myself back in the vault of old memories—those intimate, ordinary moments of single motherhood that somehow became the most treasured ones.

The bedtime talks. The little hands. The tired mornings. The moments when you’re trying to raise a strong daughter while quietly wondering if you’re even strong enough yourself.

And then this video resurfaced this evening....

This little girl was my pride in some of my darkest days. My strength when I didn’t have much left of my own.

I can still hear her little voice saying, “Mama, it’s going to be okay.”

And somehow… she was right.

Not because everything suddenly became easy.
Not because life went according to plan.
But because we kept going, together we had it all.

And we are okay, now.

We are still here.
We are still growing.
We are still learning to give grace.

And now, as I write this book about trust, healing, and the sacred relationship between people who care for others and those they are entrusted to care for, I’m reminded that some of the deepest lessons were taught to me long before I ever became a psychiatric provider.

They were taught to me by incredibly beautiful little girl.

My peanut butter.
My strength.
My reminder that sometimes, the ones we think we are raising are the ones quietly raising us.

And yes, darling girl

Sometimes we fall short, more often than not.... ❤️

But your worth is not determined by your works, or by your accolades, or by your own accomplishments....

And ultimately, that saving grace is the greatest lesson we have learned together.....

09/02/2026

🥵 CATCH ME INSIDE. HOW BOUT THAT. 🥵

Because this heat is giving absolutely not.

If you needed a sign to slow down, drink some water, turn on the AC, and NOT prove how tough you are today… THIS IS IT. 😂

💧 Stay hydrated. Don’t wait until you’re thirsty.
🧊 Get somewhere cool if you can.
☀️ Avoid excessive physical activity during the hottest parts of the day.

🏃‍♀️ And yes… I’m looking at you, marathon runners. We love your dedication. We also love you alive. 😂
*Ahm you know who you are*

🐶 Check on your people, your neighbors, your elderly family members, and your pets, too.

LOCAL COOLING OPTIONS 📍

VALPARAISO
❄️ Valparaiso YMCA
1201 Cumberland Crossing
Mon–Fri: 5 AM–10 PM
Sat: 7 AM–6 PM
Sun: 11 AM–6 PM

❄️ Porter County Public Library – Valparaiso Branch
103 Jefferson St.
Mon–Thurs: 9 AM–8 PM
Fri: 9 AM–6 PM
Sat: 9 AM–5 PM
Sun: 1 PM–5 PM

❄️ Daybreak Resource Center
500 Don Hovey Dr.
7 AM–7 PM daily

CHESTERTON / DUNELAND
🌡️ Cooling-center availability can change with the heat advisory, so call Indiana 211 (or 866-211-9966) for the most current location and hours near you.

And if your home doesn't have working AC, PLEASE don't try to tough it out. Go somewhere cool.

Heat illness can become serious quickly.

Take care of yourself. Take care of each other.

And for today?

CATCH ME INSIDE. HOW BOUT THAT. 😂🧊💦

08/29/2026

POV: When the psych patient becomes the psych professor. 🖤

There’s something powerful about standing in the classroom teaching the very system that once failed you.

I know what it feels like to be judged instead of understood.
To be labeled instead of listened to.
To be treated like a diagnosis instead of a human being.
To need someone to see you—and have them look right past you.

And maybe that’s why I’m not interested in simply working within the mental health system.

I want to disrupt it.

Chew through the outdated parts.
Challenge the assumptions.
Question what we’ve normalized.
Teach future clinicians that compassion isn't an optional soft skill—it is clinical care.

Now, I get to educate the next generation of nurses and mental health professionals about what it means to truly see the person sitting in front of you.

Not just their symptoms.
Not just their medications.
Not just their diagnosis.

Them.

This is the work behind Regain Their Trust, coming in 2027—the work of turning lived experience, research, nursing, psychology, and human connection into something that can move healthcare forward.

And I wouldn't be here without the people who have poured into me along the way.

I am endlessly grateful for Dr. Jean Watson and Dr. Christine Dempsey, whose mentorship has challenged me to think deeper, care bigger, and believe that we can build a healthcare system rooted in human connection.

From psych patient…
to psychiatric nurse…
to PMHNP…
to professor…
to author…
to disruptor.

Maybe the most powerful way to change a system that failed you is to become the person who teaches the next generation how to do better.

Hope is disruptive.
Resilience is disruptive.
Compassion is disruptive.
And sometimes, the person who was once failed by the system comes back determined to rebuild it.

Here’s to the next generation.
Let’s teach them differently.
Let’s practice differently.
Let’s care differently.

Let’s restore what healthcare has forgotten.

08/28/2026

🚨 WE’VE GOT 300 LBS OF MEAT… NOW WE NEED A PITMASTER. 🔥

On September 12th in Hobart, the community is coming together for Cruise for a Cure, supporting The H Life Foundation and its mission to help children and families facing pediatric brain cancer.

And we need your help.
Message The H Life or email [email protected] or DM me directly.

We’re looking for someone willing to smoke 300 pounds of meat for this incredible event. If you’re a pitmaster, BBQ enthusiast, restaurant, business, or someone with a smoker big enough to take this on, we want to hear from you! 🙏🏼🔥

Because behind every diagnosis is a child.

Behind every child is a family.

And behind every family is a journey that no one should ever have to walk alone.

The H Life Foundation works to support families navigating the unimaginable reality of pediatric brain cancer—providing hope, resources, and support when they need it most.

As a healthcare provider, it has been one of the greatest privileges and honors of my career to care for some of these children and their families. I have witnessed firsthand the fear, heartbreak, strength, and incredible love that exists in these families.

This is why we show up. This is why we give. This is why community matters. ❤️

📍 Cruise for a Cure — Hobart, Indiana
📅 September 12th

If you can help us smoke the meat—or know someone who can—PLEASE SHARE THIS POST.

For information about The H Life Foundation and Cruise for a Cure, please contact the H Life team directly through their official channels.

🔥 300 pounds of meat. One incredible community. One mission: helping families facing pediatric brain cancer.

08/22/2026

☀️ Some of my most important conversations happen before the day even begins.

Just me, God, a quiet moment, and a whole lot of questions. 🙏🏼

“Lord, what do You have for me today? What is mine to carry? What do I need to release? Where are You leading me?”

Because honestly… there are a LOT of roles to juggle. 😅

🎓 Finishing my doctorate
👩‍👧‍👦 Being a mom
💍 Being a wife
🤍 Being a friend
🩺 Serving women across NWI
🌿 Growing Stillwaters Women’s Mental Wellness
✨ Building the Stillwaters nonprofit
📖 Writing Regain Their Trust
🍎 Preparing to teach at the university
…and somehow running the business on both the front end AND the back end. 😂

Some days it feels like a lot. And some mornings, I have to remind myself that I was never asked to figure it all out at once.

I just have to be faithful with what God has placed in front of me. 🙏🏼

From darkness to light. From uncertainty to purpose. From surviving to serving.

All glory to God. ✨

I trust His plan—even when I can't see the whole picture yet.

And honestly? I wake up excited every day to see what He has planned. 💛

I love serving women in NWI. I love building something that reaches beyond myself. And I am deeply grateful that God keeps opening doors I never could have planned on my own.

So today, I’m choosing faith over pressure, obedience over perfection, and purpose over hustle. 🌿

Lord, use me. Lead me. Let everything I build point back to You. 🤍

08/20/2026

I didn’t expect writing this book to feel like this. 🥹📖

Regain Their Trust is now more than halfway complete—and something I hoped would happen is actually happening. ✨

The framework is taking shape almost organically. 🌱

The stories seem to create their own bridges between the psychology of trust 🧠 and the practical application of it in healthcare 🩺.

I’m not forcing the connections. They’re there. And watching it come together has been one of the most meaningful parts of this process. 🤍

But honestly… writing some of these stories has been emotionally raw. 🫶🏼

At times, cathartic. 🌿

And sometimes, the shame and pain still bubble to the surface in ways I didn’t expect. 💔

But there’s something different about revisiting these experiences now.

I can see them with what I can only describe as binocular vision—two perspectives at once. 👀

I can see the patient I was. 🥀

And I can see the clinician. 🩺

I can hold the humanity, limitations, intentions, wounds, systems, assumptions, and consequences on both sides of the encounter.

And somewhere in that space between the two, I believe there is an opportunity to restore something we desperately need in healthcare:

TRUST. 🤝❤️

I truly believe this work is going to be meaningful—not just for clinicians, but for the patients who have had experiences that changed the way they see healthcare forever.

I’m SO excited to eventually share the RESTORE Framework. ✨

And even more excited to share Regain Their Trust with you. 📖🤍

Presale begins January 2027. 🎉

This book is becoming so much more than I imagined it would be. 🥹

And maybe that’s because some stories aren’t meant to stay buried. 🌱❤️

08/19/2026

Knock, knock. 🚪

Who’s there?

Professor.

Professor who?

Well… you’ll have to wait until next week. 👀🎓

Here’s to new chapters, new classrooms, and helping shape the next generation of nurses.

See you there, but where. 🩺📚✨
What's your guess ?!?

08/17/2026

🎙️ IT’S HERE — The Unfiltered Psych NP Podcast is officially LIVE!

I’ve spent a long time thinking about what I wanted this podcast to be, and honestly, I knew from the beginning that it couldn’t be polished, clinical, or perfectly packaged.

It needed to be real.

Welcome to The Unfiltered Psych NP Podcast — a place for raw, honest conversations about mental health, trauma, motherhood, grief, loss, illness, diagnosis, healing, and everything in between.

This podcast was born from the same place that Stillwaters was born from: my own story and my belief that mental healthcare should be more personal, more accessible, and less stigmatized.

Through this podcast, my hope is to:

🤍 Destigmatize mental health and make difficult conversations feel a little less difficult.

🧠 Provide a FREE resource for anyone who wants to better understand mental health diagnoses, treatment options, medications, therapy, and the realities of navigating mental healthcare.

🌊 Share the stories behind Stillwaters — including the experiences, trauma, and moments that have shaped our mission.

💬 Create space for women to share their stories of surviving trauma, loss, illness, motherhood, grief, diagnosis, and seasons they never imagined they would have to walk through.

And sometimes, we're just going to talk about the things nobody prepares you for.

Motherhood.
Grief.
Identity.
Relationships.
Healing.
Starting over.
The messy middle.

No perfect answers.
No pretending we have it all together.
Just unfiltered conversations about being human.

🎧 EPISODE ONE: The Stories I Never Thought I’d Share

For the first episode, I decided to start with something incredibly personal.

My story.

The details I rarely talk about. The things that shaped me. The moments that changed the trajectory of my life and ultimately played a role in why I became so passionate about changing the way we deliver mental healthcare.

Some stories are difficult to tell.

But sometimes telling them reminds someone else that they aren't the only one.

🎙️ The Unfiltered Psych NP Podcast is now available on Spotify.

Listen to Episode 1: “The Stories I Never Thought I’d Share.”

https://open.spotify.com/episode/7APyZRzZIE1YHfVZsXEPTy?si=WmtWtvp5R-y1Wk67BgXgcQ

If you listen, I’d love for you to share it with someone who might need to hear it, or leave your thoughts on the episode in the comments.

Because mental health shouldn't have to be something we whisper about.

Let's talk about it. Unfiltered.

🤍 Megan
Founder, Stillwaters Women’s Mental Wellness

The Unfiltered Psych NP · Episode