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 change. They're struggling to set a boundary, or they've been through something that still lives in their body years later.

Of course I want to understand all of that.

But I don't want our first encounter to begin with the assumption that there is something fundamentally wrong with the person sitting across from me and that I'm the person who's going to fix it.

A while ago, I trained with Joanna Lindenbaum, who taught something that has stayed with me: to begin from the belief that our clients are whole and complete exactly as they are.

I think about that often before sessions.

My job isn't to heal someone. It isn't to rescue them or carry responsibility for their healing. My job is to bring my own regulated presence, my training, my curiosity, and everything I've learned over the years into the room, while remembering that the person sitting across from me already has wisdom, resilience, and capacity of their own.

They've got this.

That doesn't mean they're not suffering. It doesn't mean trauma hasn't shaped them, or that there aren't patterns that need attention, support, or change. Being whole doesn't mean everything is fine.

It means we don't have to begin with brokenness.

And I think that's one reason I ask what's going well.

Because even when life feels awful in one area, there is usually something else there, too. Maybe you have one relationship where you can completely exhale. Maybe you're remarkably good at your work. Maybe you're taking care of your body differently. Maybe you made one decision this week that would have been impossible for you a year ago.

Those things aren't side notes we get through before we arrive at the "real work."

They're part of the real work.

They tell us where your resources already are. Where you trust yourself. Where connection already feels possible. Where your nervous system already knows something about safety.

I think there's something profoundly different about healing that begins there.

Not: Let me find what's wrong with you.

But: Let's get curious about what you've already got, what you've had to do to survive, what's no longer serving you, and what you might want to choose now.

That distinction has become increasingly important to me, both as a therapist and as a human being.

So this week, I'm going to ask you the same question I ask at the beginning of almost every clarity call:

What's going well right now?

Hit reply and tell me. I'd genuinely love to hear.

Until next week,

Tanya