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So You’re Thinking About Starting Therapy…
So you’re thinking about starting therapy. Congratulations! You are essentially now Dorothy at the beginning of the yellow brick road. You have no idea where it will take you, but the chances seem good that you will be cultivating your courage, heart, and mind. Here are a few general things to keep in mind as…
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Internalizing a Trustworthy Inner-Parent
For the many people who had emotionally immature parents (or parents whose care fell somewhere on the spectrum of abuse), they may have never experienced a reliable caretaker. This can result in looking to friends or romantic partners to play the part of the parent they never had. It can also show up as having…
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What Can Therapy Offer Me?
“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I change.“ – Carl Rogers When we are are able to accept and offer compassion towards the parts of ourselves we feel most negatively towards, real change becomes possible. If you never had unconditional care modeled for you in childhood or…
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Proceed as if Normal
As we approach the two year anniversary of shelter-in-place, I simultaneously feel bewildered and unsurprised by the cluster**** that is society’s response to so much collective worldwide trauma. It will be years before we fully understand the psychological ramifications of the last two years, but it seems unlikely that capitalism’s not-so-gentle pushes to get us…
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Stanley
In my grandfather’s final days I witnessed many acts of unconditional love. My father, gently shaving my grandfather’s face as he lay in his hospital bed. My sister, wrapping her arms around me as I wept at the dinner table. My nana, holding my sister and I as we both wept after visiting our grandfather…
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The Best of Times, the Worst of Times, the Quarantimes: Self-Care in the Time of Corona
I’d like to start this post out by acknowledging the privilege of my quarantine. I have no dependents aside from myself, I’m a white, able-bodied, cisgender person in a financial, emotional, physical and mental position that allows me to have what I imagine is quite an uncommon experience of this time. Holy moly. What a…
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Under consideration
Where do we draw the line between expectation and aspiration? How do we find it within ourselves to cling to hopes and dreams that are rooted not in reality, but in the psyche? What does it take to rectify the experiences that divide us into the camps of realistic, idealistic, optimistic and pessimistic? Why is…
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Lowercase grief
When the big, existentially sad thing happened, capital letter emotions came with it. CONFUSION. SADNESS. ANGER. GRIEF. They stuck around for a while, sitting shiva with the heart. The world continued turning, and the limited number of capital letters moved on to fulfill other duties. One day little lowercase grief arrived to stay, quietly setting…
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On Paying Attention to Intention
In the last few months I’ve felt better overall than I have in a long time. My current combination of self-care practices seem to be working well for the most part, and it feels good when I’m able to maintain a feeling of balance for extended periods of time. My main struggle continues to be…