Dr. Kim Butts

The Quiet Weight of May May is Mental Health Awareness Month. Usually, this is a time when people talk about doctors, medicine, and big health terms. But for us, mental health isn't just a topic for a doctor’s office. It is about how we live our lives, how we feel when we wake up, and how we handle the world every single day. Let’s talk about the parts of mental health that don’t always look dramatic or urgent. Most of the time, it starts small. It’s that stress you’ve learned to live with,...

February, especially during Black History Month, invites a lot of reflection. Sometimes, it also brings a quiet pressure to show up strong, informed, and available. I’ve been thinking about how rarely we talk about emotional choice in moments like this. The right to feel what we feel. The right to decide what we carry. Emotional wellness, for me, is not about pushing through or proving anything. It is about listening inward, honoring limits, and trusting ourselves enough to choose how we...

The start of a new year often comes with noise. Expectations. Lists. Plans. Promises we feel rushed to make before we have even taken a full breath. Somewhere along the way, “starting fresh” became tangled up with fixing ourselves—as if we were problems waiting to be solved. But what if beginning again could be softer than that? Emotional wellness is not about becoming someone new on January first. It is about becoming more honest with yourself about where you are, what you need, and how you...