We are surrounded by information about ourselves now. We know our attachment style. We know our trauma responses. We know why we people-please, overwork, shut down, chase, avoid. We can often explain our patterns really, really well. But there’s a strange point where knowing more stops being the thing that helps. So today, rather than giving you more information, I want to give you something to actually sit with. Pick one thing you already understand about yourself. What do you already know...
18 days ago • 1 min read
I’ve spent a lot of my life thinking about healing in terms of what I was trying to heal from. Old relationships. Old beliefs. Trauma. Grief. Ways of organizing myself around other people. Things my nervous system learned a long time ago that were once incredibly useful and eventually became pretty limiting. Lately I’ve been asking a different question: Healing for what? A couple of weeks ago I signed up for flamenco. I’ve also been looking for a voice teacher and thinking again about dance,...
25 days ago • 1 min read
I’ve been thinking about something since last week’s email. I wrote about realizing that, in trying to become more professional, I had edited out parts of myself that made me feel alive. And of course, I understood why I had done that. I could tell you where the beliefs came from, what they were protecting, and probably trace the whole thing back quite beautifully. Which is part of the problem. We can become very, very good at understanding ourselves. We know why we people-please, why we...
about 1 month ago • 1 min read
I realized something uncomfortable this week: In trying to become more professional, I had become less alive. I have spent years developing as a clinician. I became licensed. Trained in Somatic Experiencing. Developed the RIFRA Method. Wrote a book. Presented at professional conferences. Learned how to explain complex psychological and nervous-system processes with increasing precision. None of that was false. But somewhere inside that development, I had begun quietly editing out other parts...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
Hi there, There’s a particular sentence I’ve heard some version of hundreds of times in therapy: “I know why I do this.” I know why I stay too long. I know why I have trouble saying no. I know why I shut down when someone is angry with me. I know this comes from my childhood. I know I’m choosing people who are emotionally unavailable. And often, they really do know. They’ve thought about it. They’ve talked about it in therapy. They may be able to trace the pattern all the way back to its...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
There’s a kind of person I’ve worked with many times over the years. They are extraordinarily capable. They know how to handle things. Other people depend on them. And needing somebody else feels almost unbearable. We tend to call this independence. But lately I’ve been thinking about it through the lens of power. Children live inside an enormous power differential. They depend on adults for food, shelter, safety, affection and belonging. They cannot simply decide that the arrangement isn’t...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
Hi there, I’ve spent much of my adult life believing deeply in therapy. I became a therapist. I’ve sat with people through trauma, grief, relationships ending and beginning, enormous life transitions, and the quieter moments when someone realizes they don’t want to keep living the way they’ve been living. And lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about what therapy can’t do. Before I became a therapist, I studied anthropology. Humans were finding ways to survive difficult things together long...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
Hi Reader, The first question I ask on almost every clarity call is not, "What's wrong?" or even, "What brings you to therapy?" It's: What's going well right now? I've asked that question for so long that I don't think I fully appreciated until recently how much it says about the way I practice. People generally come to therapy because something hurts. A relationship isn't working. They're anxious or overwhelmed. They keep repeating a pattern they understand intellectually but can't seem to...
2 months ago • 2 min read
Hi friends, For a long time, I thought healing meant learning to say no. If I could just become someone with "better boundaries," I'd finally feel free. But after years of working with clients and doing my own healing, one thing I've realized is that saying no isn't actually the hardest part. The hardest part is noticing all the moments that happen long before we ever get to that word. The moment you laugh at a joke that actually hurt. The moment you say, "It's okay," when it isn't. The...
2 months ago • 1 min read