Therapy Is Not Punitive
Therapy Is Not a Punishment: Why Parents Should Avoid Using Therapy as a Consequence
As therapists, we often hear children say things like, "My mom told me to tell you what I did," or "I'm here because I got in trouble." While these statements may seem harmless, they can reveal a misunderstanding about the purpose of therapy that can unintentionally undermine the therapeutic process.
Parents naturally want to address challenging behaviors, improve communication, and help their children make better choices. Therapy can absolutely support those goals. However, when therapy is framed as a punishment or a place where adults report a child's misbehavior, it can create barriers that make meaningful growth much more difficult.
Therapy Is a Relationship, Not a Consequence
When a child is sent to therapy because they broke a rule, acted out, or made a poor decision, they may begin to view the therapist as an extension of discipline rather than a source of support.
Children need to experience therapy as a safe place where they can explore their thoughts, emotions, fears, and mistakes without feeling judged. If therapy becomes associated with punishment, the child may enter sessions feeling defensive, guarded, or resistant.
Imagine if every time you made a mistake at work, someone required you to attend therapy as a consequence. Most adults would approach those sessions with skepticism rather than openness. Children are no different.
Therapy Is Not a Courtroom
Many parents understandably want therapists to know what happened at home or school. Sharing relevant information is important and often necessary. However, there is a difference between providing context and using therapy as a venue to prosecute a case.
Children quickly recognize when a session becomes an opportunity for adults to list their failures, mistakes, or poor choices. When this happens, therapy can feel less like a supportive environment and more like a courtroom where evidence is being presented against them.
Children Need a Place Where They Are More Than Their Behavior
Behavior is information. It tells us that something is happening beneath the surface.
An angry child may be scared.
A defiant child may feel powerless.
A disrespectful child may be carrying hurt, embarrassment, or frustration.
When therapy focuses exclusively on correcting behavior, we miss the opportunity to understand what is driving it.
The goal is not to excuse inappropriate actions. Accountability and responsibility remain important. Rather, therapy seeks to understand the underlying emotions, experiences, and patterns that contribute to those actions.
Children are more likely to change when they feel understood than when they feel condemned.
Trust Is the Foundation of Effective Therapy
Research consistently shows that the quality of the therapeutic relationship is one of the strongest predictors of positive outcomes.
For therapy to work, children must believe that the therapist is someone who is genuinely interested in understanding them. If they perceive the therapist as another adult whose job is to monitor, report, or punish them, trust becomes much harder to establish.
This does not mean therapists keep secrets from parents or ignore safety concerns. It means the therapist's primary role is to help the child understand themselves, develop coping skills, and strengthen their ability to navigate life's challenges.
What Parents Can Say Instead
Rather than saying:
"You're going to therapy because of your behavior."
"Wait until you tell your therapist what you did."
"I'm going to tell your therapist everything."
Consider saying:
"Therapy is a place where you can talk about what's going on."
"Your therapist is there to help you understand your feelings and learn new skills."
"Everyone needs support sometimes."
"We're doing this because we care about you, not because you're in trouble."
These messages help position therapy as a resource rather than a punishment.
The Bigger Picture
Every child will make mistakes. That is part of growing up. Therapy works best when it becomes a place where children can safely explore those mistakes, learn from them, and develop healthier ways of coping and communicating.
When therapy is used as a punishment, children may learn to fear it.
When therapy is used as a partnership, children learn that asking for help is a strength.
As parents, one of the greatest gifts we can give our children is the understanding that support is not something you earn by being perfect. Support is something available to you precisely because you are human.
The Quiet Power of Platonic Love
The Quiet Power of Platonic Love
When we think about love, our culture tends to place romantic partnership at the top of the hierarchy. We celebrate engagements, weddings, anniversaries, and grand romantic gestures. Yet some of the most meaningful, sustaining, and transformative relationships in our lives are often our friendships.
Platonic love deserves more recognition than it gets.
Friendships hold a unique kind of intimacy. They are often built over years, sometimes decades, of shared experiences, inside jokes, life transitions, heartbreaks, reinventions, and celebrations. They witness who we have been and who we are becoming. Good friends remember our stories, reflect our strengths back to us when we've forgotten them, and sit beside us during seasons that feel too heavy to carry alone.
There is something deeply healing about being known by peers.
Unlike family relationships, which we inherit, or romantic relationships, which often carry expectations around partnership, finances, parenting, and daily logistics, friendships are chosen. We continue showing up because we want to, not because we have to. That choice creates a particular kind of freedom.
In many friendships, our lives are not completely intertwined. We don't share mortgages, parenting responsibilities, household management, or major financial decisions. While these shared responsibilities can create deep bonds within romantic partnerships, they can also introduce stress, conflict, and competing needs.
Friendships often operate differently.
Because our lives are less entangled, there is frequently more room for acceptance. A friend can disagree with our choices without those choices directly impacting their daily life. They can support our growth without needing us to grow in a specific direction that benefits them. They can celebrate our dreams without those dreams requiring sacrifice from them.
This distance isn't a weakness of friendship. It is often one of its greatest strengths.
Friends can sometimes offer a wider lens, more curiosity, and less agenda. They can hold space for complexity. They can remind us who we are when we have become lost in the demands of work, parenting, caregiving, or partnership.
Friendships also create opportunities for something we all need but rarely talk about: shared dreaming.
Some of my favorite conversations with friends have very little to do with solving problems. They are conversations about possibilities. What do we want next? What are we creating? What lights us up? What kind of life are we trying to build?
Friends often become witnesses to our becoming.
They encourage the business idea. They read the first draft. They listen to the wild dream. They remind us of our courage when fear starts getting loud.
And then there is the simple gift of fun.
As adults, many of us become so focused on responsibilities that play quietly disappears. Friendships invite us back into laughter, spontaneity, creativity, and joy. They remind us that life is not only about productivity and caretaking. It is also about connection.
For many people, especially those who have experienced trauma, friendship can be an important place to practice healthy intimacy. Healthy friendships teach us that closeness does not require self-abandonment. They allow us to experience mutual care, reciprocity, honesty, and support while remaining fully ourselves.
Perhaps this is why friendships can feel so nourishing. They offer love without ownership. Connection without obligation. Support without control.
Platonic love may not receive the same cultural attention as romantic love, but it is no less significant.
The friends who answer the phone, send the text, celebrate the win, sit with the grief, remember the dream, and stay present across the years are participating in one of the most beautiful forms of love available to us.
If you're fortunate enough to have those people in your life, tell them.
Friendship is not a consolation prize for romantic love.
It is a profound and valuable form of love all its own.
Peace Isn't What You Think It Is
Peace isn’t what you think it is.
We’ve been taught, culturally, that peace arrives at some future destination: financial security, conflict-free relationships, and work that feels deeply meaningful one hundred percent of the time. When we finally achieve the right external conditions, then—then—our internal world will settle. We’ll feel content. Safe. At ease.
That idea is everywhere.
Across the internet, we’re told to “protect our peace” by cutting off anything—or anyone—that causes discomfort. I’m protecting my peace, bye. Taken to an extreme, this isn’t the path to peace at all. It’s a path toward increased anxiety, isolation, and disconnection.
So what is peace? And how do we actually cultivate it?
Over the past few months, a group of Buddhist monks quietly showed us the answer.
I was deeply grateful to witness the monks walking for peace as they passed through Fredericksburg. As they approached, something shifted. The air felt different. The energy softened. I could immediately access a still center within myself—everything else faded into the background. I felt grounded, solid, contained.
That moment transported me back to a transformative period in my early twenties, when I first learned what peace truly is—and how to find it.
For two years, every Friday evening, I sat in meditation with the Missionaries of Charity, the contemplative order founded by Saint Teresa of Calcutta. Their vocation was prayer and presence, and they welcomed me into their weekly meditation practice.
I didn’t earn that invitation through achievement or spiritual merit. I was invited because I was suffering deeply, and a beloved mentor brought me there. Those two years changed my life.
Each evening followed the same simple ritual: an opening prayer, an hour or more of silent meditation, and a closing prayer. Before that, I had never meditated. I didn’t know what to expect—and it was intense.
I squirmed. My thoughts raced. My body was uncomfortable. My emotions were raw. Some nights I wanted to bolt for the door. And yet, the women—like the monks—already had a relationship with peace. They sensed my struggle. Sometimes they offered a gentle smile, a whispered word, or simply shifted their breathing in a way that reminded me I could stay. That I could move through whatever discomfort or pain was pulling me away from myself.
For a long time, the only relief I felt was when the closing prayer began—because it meant it was almost over.
Still, I kept returning.
Even though meditation initially amplified my suffering, I also experienced something else: the same grounded, steady presence I felt witnessing the monks. That presence felt like respite. I felt seen—every flaw, every mistake—and held anyway, in full presence and loving kindness.
Over time, the practice softened. Meditation became less abrasive, less effortful. I felt more spacious, less attached to the thoughts and sensations passing through me. And then, quietly, I began to experience moments of true presence.
I met peace.
That peace didn’t stay confined to the convent walls. It followed me into my daily life. Situations that once triggered reactivity no longer did. Instead, I found pauses. Space. Glimpses of understanding—of my own suffering and the suffering of others.
What I learned was this: peace arises when we stay present with all of our experience. Not because we like what’s happening, or approve of it, but because we stop resisting it. We stop trying to offload discomfort through avoidance or reaction. Presence creates freedom.
I still experienced distraction. I still felt discomfort. But I could stay with it—and move through it.
The women did for me what the monks are offering us now: a living demonstration that peace is found in how we meet each moment.
The monks have walked through intense heat, pouring rain, snow, ice, and bitter wind. They’ve moved through welcoming communities and hostile ones, through support and ridicule. And still, they walk—grounded in each step, each breath, each moment, with compassion.
That is peace.
Not perfect weather.
Not perfect relationships.
Not constant comfort—physical or emotional.
Peace is presence with what is. And from that presence, you always have a choice: to move around your experience, or to move through it—with awareness, dignity, and loving kindness.
The Case for Stillness
Go, go, go. Do, do, do. Get, get, get.
That’s the energy most of us are conditioned in from birth.
Worth becomes productivity, and productivity becomes the measure of your value. If you do more, you are more. And if you aren’t striving… well, what are you even doing? Rest is something you earn, and only after you’ve done “all the work,” whatever that means.
This mindset was especially prevalent in my generation (Gen X) and remains a cornerstone of Western culture. At the same time, I’m beginning to notice small signs of a cultural shift, an increasing awareness of the cost of chronic hustle. The quiet but important questions: For what? For who? Who is actually benefiting from all this grinding and striving?
One of the many problems with this framework is that it’s deeply reductive, profoundly disembodied, and fundamentally misaligned with our wholeness. Over time, it leads to burnout, depression, and habits that numb us to the very disconnection we’re trying to outrun.
And perhaps most strikingly, this approach rarely delivers on what it promises.
Our mind–body systems are designed to move in rhythms and cycles. Sometimes that rhythm calls for effort, productivity, and forward motion. And sometimes it calls for slowing down, resting, reflecting—simply being. When we habitually override rest and slowness, we dysregulate our entire system. We lose access to meaning-making, emotional depth, and our capacity for connection, joy, wonder, and love.
This is where the magic of stillness lives.
Stillness asks nothing of you. There’s no striving, no destination, no achievement. There is only being here, now, noticing what is. That can feel deeply uncomfortable, threatening; especially if staying busy has been how you’ve survived.
The initial discomfort of stillness understandably sends many people rushing back into action.
But when stillness is practiced consistently, something shifts. Over time, your system recognizes it as a natural state. Relief emerges. You begin to feel into the fuller dimensions of who you are; separate from what you produce or accomplish. This is how we start to reclaim wholeness.
Winter, as a natural cycle, is an incredible teacher in developing a relationship with stillness. Winter embodies being rather than performing. It models quiet deepening, and restoration—not expansion, acceleration, or bloom. And perhaps most powerfully, winter reminds us how essential this rhythm is for growth itself.
Rest and reflection, when held in harmony with action and productivity, is the cycle that fuels inspiration, motivation, and meaningful engagement with the world.
So how do you begin a relationship with stillness?
Start by making peace with the fact that it will likely feel uncomfortable and maybe even pointless, at first. If you can stay with that discomfort and allow it to move through you (and it will), you’ll begin to sense the steady calm beneath all the noise.
Practically speaking, carve out 10–15 minutes a day to do nothing. (You already spend more time than that scrolling, so this isn’t about time.)
You might:
Sit and look out a window, just being.
Lie on the floor and follow the rhythm of your breath.
Stand outside and simply notice what it feels like to be in your body and with your surroundings.
Daily connection with stillness helps you recognize the cues your body is always offering. You begin to notice when you need rest, when you need a pause, and—just as importantly—when you feel genuinely ready to take action.
And yes, I hear you. The demands of life are real. Being overwhelmed and under-resourced is real.
And also, there are ways to honor your inner rhythm within the chaos of your current situation, even if it’s only 5 minutes.
It may not be perfect. It may not be ideal.
But it can be enough to reconnect you with more of who you truly are.
Year End Reflections - Emotional Agility Is The Move
So often we decide, “If I get it right, if I make the right choices, then I can lock in and ride out a good life”. If you sit back to reflect on that notion, there are so many issues with it…
First off, what does get it right mean?
Who determines what right choices are, and how are those right choices measured?
Is it determined by how comfortable we are?
Then there’s the issue with locking in and riding out; those states of being that don't really even exist. Life changes, we change, unexpected events happen, so there's no viable pathway to lock anything in.
And then finally, a good life, what the heck is that?
What your parents told you was a good life?
What the culture, your friends, the media told you was a good life?
And how is that even determined?
It’s understandable that we do this, our brains want certainty, thinking that translates to security. Who doesn’t want security? Security in your life is absolutely possible, but not by creating some external picture that you then try to control. Security develops on the inside, it’s a deep rootedness in knowing that however life twists and turns, whatever unexpected experiences or hoped for outcomes occur or don’t come to pass, you can trust in your ability to take care of yourself, your heart and to live into your values. That type of grounded relationship to your life and yourself is the cornerstone of security.
How do you begin to build that internal sense of security?
Two words, emotional agility.
This concept was developed by Dr. Susan David, a leading expert on emotional intelligence. She defines emotional agility as “The ability to navigate one’s emotions with flexibility, without ignoring them or letting them control you”. It is a practice of using your emotions as information to help guide you. When you develop skill in emotional agility you become able to adapt, to be curious, to be open to change; all skills that over time support you in living a life RICH and MEANINGFUL to YOU. You become less reactive, less rigid, less braced for the inevitable shoe to drop.
At year's end, I usually reflect on what I noticed, what I learned, what I unlearned, and how that matters to me and to the people around me both at work and at home. This year, I’ve witnessed myself make several decisions based on emotional agility both in my business and personal life. I moved offices and entered into a new type of business collaboration, I hired more clinicians, I began remodeling my outbuilding to move the practice to, I’ve expanded the services I offer to include retreats and held several of these groups at my home.
Each of these choices were connected to emotional agility. Most of them were never in “the plan”. I changed course because circumstances changed, and although several of these decisions were a bit scary, I am finding security inside myself, rather than trying to control the outcomes of these decisions. I’ve witnessed countless clients connect with deep meaning, deep joy and deep forgiveness through the practice of emotional agility. I’ve felt the freedom of the practice and I’ve watched others connect to freedom by letting go of what they were supposed to do and instead learned how to choose themselves through their values in whatever situation they found themselves in.
Emotional agility releases you from the nagging fear and anxiety centered in things needing to be a certain way, instead inviting you to explore what is happening, using curiosity to guide you through the situation. I don’t think we ever arrive at PERFECT emotional agility, nor do I think that’s the point. Developing this practice will, however, bring much more internal peace and security without resorting to avoidance, numbing, blame or control to gain what I like to call faux peace. It will bring excitement into your experience and it will reconnect you with mystery and possibility, all of which enriches your experience of this one beautiful life you are living and we are living alongside each other.
If you want to learn more about emotional agility, check out Dr. David’s book, titled unsurprisingly… Emotional Agility.
And if you are looking for a practical way to build a relationship with yourself and your life consider our month long Introduction to Journaling, an online experience that will support you in exploring several different approaches to journaling and guide you through exploring those approaches. We’ll also meet on zoom each week to process your experiences with the material. We start January 1, I sure hope to see you there.
Thank you for spending your valuable time reading these blogs I write and engaging with our social media, workshops and courses. I love my work and I hope it brings a little more clarity, support and hope to anyone who connects with it. I wish each of you a year that surprises you, delights you and opens you to the awareness that you are held in love exactly as you are.
This Is What I Discovered About Love This Year
We often talk about aspects of love when we say things like, “Love is kind, they did that for me because they love me, or even, if they loved me they wouldn’t… or shoudn’t… do something.” We talk about love in terms of patience, generosity, support, commitment, quality time, and understanding as much as we label behaviors and traits that we believe aren’t loving. Things like selfishness, dismissiveness, abrasiveness are commonly labeled as such.
This is what I discovered about love this year:
Love is so much more than any one aspect of it and so much more than the sum of all its parts.
It’s the life force that makes everything possible. And while those traits I mentioned are aspects of love, they aren’t synonyms for love. Love is ALL of these qualities and MORE, also existing in choices and decisions often perceived as unloving.
Every year on my birthday I pick a word to center on throughout the year, last year it was love. I spent the year noticing love, reflecting on love, getting curious about my own relationship with love and examining the impact of love in my life as well as the impact of love on others.
When I noticed loving behavior like courtesy, kindness, attentiveness, comfort, even acts involving uncomfortable honesty and fierce boundary setting, either demonstrated by me or others, I watched the impact. I noticed what happened inside me when I practiced those qualities or was on the receiving end of actions that seemed to be motivated by those traits.
The gentler expressions of love as you might imagine, left me with a felt sense of feeling seen, and valued. Acting in those ways toward others seemed to produce an inner calm, a quiet resonance. When those expressions were more fierce, more uncomfortable, I still witnessed and felt that quiet resonance underneath the discomfort.
As I continued to reflect on what I was noticing it seemed to me that those instances of loving action connected people to a knowing about love, almost like breadcrumbs along a path. Reminders of the power of love whether gentle or fierce.
But when I reflected on love as an energy that contained all of those qualities and more and looked at the impact on my life, I became acutely aware that when people showed up embodying love, not just expressing it, at various times in my life, it transformed me. It either changed the direction of my life, expanded my life exponentially or helped me discover myself on levels I know I wouldn’t have gone to, were it not for love inspiring me.
I discovered the practice of love is alchemical.
It made me think about a philosophical principle I read decades ago and wrestled with over many years before getting it, “what is TRULY loving for one in a situation is TRULY loving for all in that situation”.
When I first encountered that principle, it seemed ridiculously privileged. I kept turning it over and over in my mind, continuing to come back to the word TRULY… I began to believe that word is the most important in this principle.
We can say all kinds of things are loving, they may even be a part of love, or we may have rationalized that they are, but that doesn’t mean those actions are TRULY loving. I think the alchemical aspect of TRULY loving is an energy that comes from a deep knowing that no matter how uncomfortable I am in this situation I will live into my values as deeply as I can for myself and for the others involved.
When we do that we are often asked to stretch in uncomfortable ways. Sometimes we’re asked to inconvenience ourselves repeatedly, sometimes it asks us to say hard truths and make hard choices. Sometimes it means not saying what we really want to say or even saying something that we are uncomfortable saying, letting all the pieces of the puzzle go where they may. That’s when the alchemy happens, that's when you truly see love as a force that can’t help but transform, regardless of our opinions about the transformation.
Discovering that this year and understanding more deeply the impact of love as the most powerful force there is, has opened me to release more, to trust more, and to notice more, especially when I want to turn away. What a gift.
This year, I'll uphold this new tradition, eager to see how these insights into love shape my outlook and deepen my grasp of my chosen word for the year: connection.
Scrolling, The Near Enemy of Connection
In Buddhism there is the concept of near and far enemies related to what are considered the immeasurable qualities of a wise, open heart. These four immeasurable qualities are:
loving kindness
compassion
appreciative joy
and equanimity
As you might assume far enemies are the opposites of these qualities, cruelty is the far enemy of compassion and ill will is the far enemy of loving kindness. Near enemies however, are more nuanced, more challenging to recognize. They share some similarities with the quality but also key differences. So you can easily think you are possessing the quality, when in fact you are actually working against yourself in developing that specific quality.
For example, the near enemy of compassion is pity. Pity and compassion definitely include an acknowledgement of suffering and is often expressed in verbally similar ways with statements like "I'm really sorry that is happening to you.” The key difference is that in compassion there is no separateness, there is a recognition that we all suffer and we can find ourselves within the other’s suffering.
Pity is underpinned with separateness, and a sort of hierarchy that contains the idea that it may be happening to them but it couldn’t happen to me because _________.
Oftentimes people can confuse pity as compassion, when it is in fact an obstacle to true compassion which acknowledges suffering with empathy, a connection to the suffering and a desire to relieve it from a place of shared humanity. Pity, inferring separateness actually prevents the expression of compassion.
Although a profoundly useful lens in and of itself to apply to any self reflection practice, I started thinking about it in terms of our relationship with devices, the internet and social media…
Clearly, we can make a case that our relationship with it works against equanimity, a calmness of being, because it involves the near enemy of craving and aversion. We are often either craving it as a distraction or trying to avoid it because it is a distraction. I started thinking about it in terms of acting as a near enemy to well rounded living, to being, to connection.
How does it do that?
If I think about trends in my own algorithm, some frequent themes are funny dog videos, art, flower growing, yoga/meditation and psychology/philosophy centered content.
Umm, that seems pretty aligned with many of my professional and personal interests... So how is an aligned algorithm a potential near enemy to my actual relationship with these interests in my life?
If I’m watching tons of flower growing and arranging videos, my brain gets tricked into thinking I’m engaging in those activities, and although I may be learning, I’m not fully experiencing a relationship with the interest and that is the key difference. I can’t think of a single time when I’ve finished scrolling and felt satisfaction, contentment or fulfillment; I have often felt like I’ve eaten too much junk food.
When I am outside digging, planting, fertilizing or at the store buying varieties of seeds, I’m engaging with the whole experience AND the felt sense of the experience, the overwhelm, when I’m trying something new, the uncertainty when I’m making decisions, the excitement connected to both the process and the outcome and these are the dimensions of experience that our entire mind body system needs to feel alive and embodied.
Those full experiences are what allows us to derive meaning from the relationship to the interest, widening our world, deepening our understanding of ourselves and the world around us in a way that scrolling through videos can’t; because there's no application, no true connection.
Does that mean I can’t ever scroll? No, that would be aversion, another near enemy.
It means that the more I support myself in applying what I watch in connection to the experience or the hobby the more I’m in balance with both with my devices and in the practice of equanimity. I’m not craving or avoiding digital content, I’m mindfully engaging with it but investing most of my energy into the application and practice of those interests in my life.
I believe that using this lens to reflect on your relationship with digital content will also decrease the often accompanying self criticism about the overuse of your devices. Instead it can help you understand more about your interests, about what you may need more of in your life and a place to start engaging with those needs and experiences in your day to day life. Will that feel more uncomfortable and less pleasurable at first? Absolutely. Over time however, you will begin to notice that maybe you’re thinking about the interest more, maybe even looking forward to more engagement with it. That’s when you’ll feel it, the satisfaction and fulfillment of whole connection.
Non Attachment Saved Me
For most of my life, I’ve intellectually understood and accepted non attachment as a useful mindset. But to be real… I’ve kept that practice at arm’s length pretty consistently, until almost three years ago.
In 2013, my life started smoothing out. I was in a rhythm with parenting, with my business, and with caring for my health. The challenges and hurdles seemed to be mostly in my rearview mirror, which I was so grateful for.
It also seemed like the universe was finally saying to my dearest friend, and me, that it was our time. We met in 1995 and quickly became deep, close friends. It felt almost instant; we talked every day, we supported each other's dreams, comforted each other's fears, adventured together, and laughed constantly. There was deep love, but the timing was never right for anything more… until it was.
When that spark ignited in 2013 I felt like our lives and the universe had conspired to give us this gift, this happily ever after. We built that new dimension of love slowly, steadily, with intention and gratitude. We created what both of us always wanted, a relationship that was a sanctuary. We were in the flow, absolutely delighted and very attached to our story, to our marriage and to the family we blended. It felt like I had turned the corner from learning through pain to learning through love and peace. Everything finally fit, and together we were creating our dreams in the present and our plans and dreams for the future.
We knew each other through and through. We’d witnessed so many of each other's life chapters that the security, the certainty felt unshakable. I knew him as a whole human, I witnessed his shadow and he witnessed mine. I wasn’t naive about the challenges we would face, I was fairly certain there might be several, and that’s what added to my security, it seemed realistically real.
And it was real, until it wasn’t. Until the one thing I would have bet my life wouldn’t happen, happened. It fractured our marriage instantly and completely. I was in total shock. My mind couldn’t make sense of what was happening. We’d done everything right. We built our relationship with honesty and intention. I couldn’t reconcile that lived experience with what I had discovered. We were supposed to be each other’s happily ever after. Overnight, almost everything I knew about my life outside of my work, was gone.
That’s when I began to live into the power of non attachment. If I clung to the story of the life I had, and the identity wrapped up in that life, I knew I wouldn’t emotionally survive it, it truly felt like non attachment was the only lifeline I had to hold on to to rebuild myself.
I had to live into flow, not just talk about it, I had to release the certainty and security of the structure of my life and allow so much of it to fall away.
I had to let go of the story that our love and our marriage was the calm after so many storms.
I kept thinking about how I felt like the winter trees I often talk about in my work, their essence is laid bare, and I tried to center myself in the beauty of that essence, the rawness and vulnerability of it.
I let non attachment begin to work its magic. I didn’t have to know who I was becoming or where I was going, just like the trees, I could just be in the day I was in. I could let what showed up in the present be enough. I could notice what remained. And in that raw vulnerability I started growing new roots, a few new branches and some tiny leaves. I started finding a rhythm in my life on my own. I was gaining confidence in my ability to accept my life on life's terms in this new chapter.
And then about 18 months into that process, he died.
I felt like I was right back at square one. The grief leveled me emotionally. It felt like I had just gotten my sea legs, and suddenly I was back underwater, clinging to denial, I felt like I couldn’t bear accepting that he was gone.
He was still woven into every part of me. I hadn’t even finished making sense of what fractured us and I had to somehow make sense of the fact that he was gone.
I would not ever hear his booming voice again or his infectious laugh. I wouldn’t ever feel the sturdiness of his energy, or the warmth of his hand.
Because even though our life together had fractured, I still felt connected to his physical presence. Life invited me to release more.
Non attachment offered me a path to release the certainty and comfort his physical existence still offered me. Again, more deeply this time; I had to release the attachments to him, to our story and to the whys, if I wanted to get through the grief.
Non attachment allowed the waves of grief to knock me down.
Non attachment allowed me to release the fear of the grief, and instead let it transform me, into someone new, someone I’m just starting to get to know.
Non attachment opened me so I could really lean into the gift of the love that my grief honored.
Non attachment soothed my fears about what the future would look like by connecting me to the beauty of what was present in my life now so I could experience the freedom of trusting myself.
Non attachment taught me how to let go of the whys and lean into what is.
And non attachment gave me permission to throw away the rule book I was still secretly attached to and instead create a living breathing work of art through living my life with my eyes and heart open. Open to hold, to discover and to release, not attach to.
I’m starting to realize and believe that just as deeply as our love, marriage and life together healed me and held me; the loss of our life together and of him, is also healing me and holding me. It just looks and feels different now.
Coming Soon…
Connection through Creativity 🌿
A 6-week journey to reconnect with your creative flow, ease anxiety, and find clarity in what truly matters to you. Through guided art, writing, and mixed-media practices, you’ll explore self-expression, build confidence, and set intentions for the life you want to create.
No artistic experience needed, just bring your curiosity and an open heart.
Stay tuned for dates + details!
Maiden, Mother, Crone ✨
A workshop for women centered on integrating these archetypal influences into your life to deepen your understanding of yourself and your power
Everyone Is Creative: Reclaiming the Joy of Playful Expression
At some point, many of us begin to believe a quiet but persistent myth: I’m just not a creative person.
Maybe it came from a childhood comment, a comparison to someone else, or the belief that creativity must look a certain way—paintings in a gallery, a novel on a shelf, a flawless performance. But the truth is, creativity is not a talent reserved for the few. It’s a relationship we each hold—with curiosity, with play, with the deeper parts of ourselves.
Creativity Is Playful Connection
At its heart, creativity is a form of play. It asks us to wonder, to explore, to follow a thread without knowing where it leads. It’s not about being “good” at something. It’s about staying open.
Psychiatrist and author Dan Siegel speaks about the “plane of possibility”—a spacious state of mind where we can imagine, discover, and expand beyond our habitual patterns. Creativity is one of the most direct portals to this place. When we draw, write, move, or make music without judgment or agenda, we step into that plane of openness. And from there, healing becomes possible.
No Outcome Required
One of the most powerful shifts we can make is redefining success.
Creativity doesn’t need to produce a result to be worthwhile. The act of creating is the value. Whether it’s doodling in a journal, dancing in your living room, or writing a messy poem no one else will read, creativity reconnects us with the process of doing rather than proving.
This is where many women rediscover a part of themselves that’s been waiting quietly in the wings—permission to play, to feel, to express without needing it to “go somewhere.”
The Benefits of Cultivating Creativity
Rebuilding a relationship with your creative self can be transformative. It's not just about fun (though fun is wonderful!). It also offers:
Stress relief – creative activities soothe the nervous system and offer a sense of rhythm and presence.
Emotional processing – art and movement can express what words cannot, giving form to feelings that feel too big or too complex.
Energy and vitality – engaging with your imagination can re-energize your body and mind.
Integration of self – creativity helps bridge inner parts that may feel disconnected or unseen.
Exploration – it becomes a sacred practice of curiosity, inviting you to meet new aspects of yourself.
How to Begin Reconnecting with Your Creativity
There’s no one right way. Start where there’s a spark—or even a flicker. Some simple ways to begin:
Movement – gentle stretching, free dance, or walking while letting your thoughts wander
Writing – try stream-of-consciousness journaling, a short story, or even writing a letter to your younger self
Music or performance – hum, sing, act out a scene, or revisit an instrument you once loved
Visual art – doodle in your journal, paint on canvas, play with color and shape with no plan in mind
Give yourself permission to be imperfect. To begin. To play.
Creativity isn’t something you have to earn. It’s something you already hold within.
It’s your birthright. A gentle power that helps you feel, imagine, and come home to yourself.
And it’s never too late to begin again.
The Yin & Yang of Connection & Alonenss
I’m thrilled to notice the attention that connection is garnering, related to our mental health. It is true. We are relational beings and we need healthy consistent connections to not only survive but to also thrive. These connections feed our souls, hold our hearts and challenge our minds. A poverty of safe connections, especially over time, has an immense negative impact on a person’s sense of self and their ability to form and maintain safe relationships.
Yet, it is also true that we are living our lives alone, even if we are among others. Even when we feel seen and heard, valued and supported, we are the only ones inside our skin, having the experiences that we call our life. Existential philosophers like Kierkagaard and Sartre wrote extensively about these ideas in their works, generally saying that grappling with aloneness is an existential crisis all humans encounter.
Developing a strong conscious relationship with connection and aloneness cultivates a deeper awareness and trust in both ourselves and others; it becomes a guardrail to prevent veering off a cliff into hyper independence or faulty dependencies on other people or other things.
A few years ago, I experienced a family crisis and within 24 hours, a dear friend flew halfway across the country to be with me. She stood alongside me as I began to process the event and help my children absorb and process the event. She was with me at the start and end of each day for over a week. Her presence steadied me, comforted me and reminded me how we truly heal in relationship.
The day after she left, one of my sons had a sudden medical issue that necessitated immediate surgery. And I was alone. Not in every sense alone, there was hospital staff, and friends I was connecting with through text, but in the surgical waiting area at 1am, it was me and a sea of empty chairs. It was a sobering moment that felt like an opportunity to explore the hidden potential of aloneness in part, because of the stark contrast from the week before, when I felt seen, supported and held. So I sat with it, just like I invite my clients to do. I found it within my body; where that aloneness lived and how it communicated with me. I got curious about it and asked what it wanted me to know.
The answers weren’t deeply profound, or surprising. Instead, they were more intimate and grounding. Intimate because in my aloneness, I reconnected with the felt sense awareness that being alone, experiencing my unique life from my perspective, in that moment, felt sacred, like something to privately honor. Even though I was there physically with my son, he was experiencing the surgery alone and even though I had friends checking in; I was physically alone experiencing this event as his parent.
It felt grounding because even in the physical absence of people that love me and can support me, I felt their emotional presence, I felt all the love and support that they have poured into me. Also connecting to those truths, opened me to the sacred space available to me in that moment. The aloneness became centering; I could hear myself and I could listen. I could stay focused on his needs and I could trust the staff to do their jobs while I advocated for him.
I wonder how that experience may have been different if I had “gone into my head” and spun a narrative of isolation as opposed to being curious about the aloneness? I wonder what other choices I may have made if I needed to “get away” from the discomfort, if I had in various ways either abandoned myself or him or both of us in the experience?
What I do know is that the choices I did make, connected me more deeply to myself, more deeply to him (he recovered well) and more deeply to other relationships in my life. That feels like a conscious harmonizing of connection and aloneness, like the perfect salty and sweet snack.
Honoring the importance of safe connection while also honoring the sacred reality of aloneness feels like the harmonizing balance of yin and yang. Both are important - distinct in their value, yet together creating a grounding, steadying foundation. May each of you reclaim and reconnect to the beauty of safe connection and the hallowed ground of conscious aloneness in your own life.
14 Lessons from 14 Years: Insights from a Therapist in Private Practice
Knowing that I don’t know more than I know, is what keeps me open, curious and flexible.
This is based on an attitude of mindfulness called beginner’s mind. As soon as I decide that I know, I stop being truly open. When I’m not open, I’m not present. When I’m not present, I can’t really even see the person or people I’m with. That’s true in my work and in my personal life. If I stay centered in not knowing, there is an energy of discovery that inspires me to be more curious and helps me to be more present. In that energy, the people around me feel seen and I feel like I’m a part of something much bigger than my ego or the facts my mind says matter so much.
Owning a small business has taught me how to hold space for both the freedom of autonomy and the, at times, overwhelming pressure, which taught me that:
Creativity flourishes in an atmosphere of freedom, focus and consistency
These two beliefs highlight how freedom continues to be the perennial muse for me. In the pursuit of professional freedom, I’ve had to learn to deal with the pressures of being a business owner AND being the service/product I offer. Even on the days or seasons that it seems too risky, it remains totally worth it because for me, facing those pressures creatively is what deepens my sense of personal freedom.
Good therapy is grounded in science, really good therapy is a blend of art and science.
I’ve come to believe this wholeheartedly. I’ve witnessed countless times where the reigniting of hope, of faith, of trust comes from following a hunch based on a picture I see in my head, or a word I can’t shake during a session. That’s the art; it’s surrendering to the dynamic process of psychotherapy, trusting that the science is the paint and the painting is co-created from the openhearted connection between the therapist and the client.
You can only meet others to the depth you have met yourself (this is a hill I will die on).
I’ve come to believe this in my core. Clients can feel the energy of the therapist, they can feel if I’m genuinely ok going where they need to go. Being able to walk alongside them wherever they need to go, is often what is so reparative for them. You can’t fake it. It will erode the trust in a nanosecond. I think this is true in personal relationships too. When I stay centered in this construct, I don’t create unrealistic expectations of others, which actually helps me to see and appreciate people as they are (this is very much a progress not perfection thing for me).
This work restores my faith in the human spirit and at the same time, challenges me to not lose faith in humanity.
I’m moved to tears on a weekly basis, sometimes daily basis, by the courage and tenacity of the human heart. I’ve witnessed hundreds of people transform and recover from horrific atrocities to build meaningful, joy filled, lives. It’s truly the most humbling thing I’ve witnessed. At the same time, it’s hard to reconcile this with the depravity of the crimes my clients suffer, the systems that oppress them, and the seemingly unrelenting violence against vulnerability and innocence. I believe, at least I do right now, that inhabiting the space where I’m willing to wrestle with the ills of humanity while being simultaneously inspired by the human heart is an act of respect for my clients’ lived experiences. I hope staying in the discomfort of the tension between those two states will help me to keep growing, so I can contribute more to the solutions than I do to the problems.
The more I care for myself, the more I can care for my clients.
Energy doesn’t lie. When I care for myself, consistently, I have the energy I need to be present for each of my clients. They can feel the resonance of what I’m saying to them if I’m centered in the same practices. Again, there’s no faking it with this.
I think I’ve learned more from my clients than they’ve learned from me.
The relationships I have or have had with my clients has, and continues to transform who I am. What an incredible gift that is, one I don’t think I can ever pay back fully.
Therapeutic self disclosure, when used mindfully, IS a powerful tool for clients.
I’m not quite certain why it’s so powerful, it seems like a situation where the sum is greater than the total of its parts. What I do know, is that sharing my humanity, (intentionally and skillfully) is how a heart can remember it is connected to other hearts, it’s safe and it can heal.
I love lunch, and my lunch hour is sacred.
The entire time I’ve been in business, I’ve blocked off the hour of 12-1 for lunch. I think it’s one of the smartest business decisions I made. It gives me time to rest, to recharge and to eat without rushing, which I always enjoy, AND midday eating is simply the best. It’s when food hits just right. Lunch is a love note I give myself on a daily basis, and If you know me, you know it always ends with some dark chocolate.
Owning my mistakes with clients helps build trust as much as getting it right does.
We all miss the mark. Trust in relationships is built with emotional safety, and owning my mistakes creates an atmosphere of safety. Yes, clients need to feel like I’m competent to help them, but part of that competence is being human. In grad school, I worried a lot about making mistakes with clients. I was so concerned the mistakes would undermine the trust clients had in me. I was so wrong. Do I need to learn from my mistakes so I don’t keep making the same ones, absolutely. Owning them when they happen is the first step in learning from them.
The more we all learn to feel safe within ourselves in uncertainty, the more we will individually and collectively heal, (another hill I will die on).
Life is uncertain and there are so many unknowns as we navigate the uncertainty. If we pretend that isn’t true, it creates significant mental distress. Coping with uncertainty around us by building an internal sense of safety feels similar to living in a well built house with a sturdy foundation and good roof during a storm. It doesn’t influence when the storm ends, it does give you the felt sense of safety you need to help you feel your way through it.
Clear is kind, unclear is unkind, thank you Brene Brown.
Clarity reduces anxiety. It helps people to trust themselves and their perceptions and at the same time it reduces the risk of misunderstanding and misguided assumptions. It’s a way of demonstrating respect for yourself and others because it says I know there is nothing inherently wrong with expressing myself (it is our power) and I trust that you (the other) are capable of dealing with it.
Listening, truly listening, is the language of love.
This isn’t something that words can describe well. Try it, I think you’ll feel the same.
I am so grateful I get to practice what I love everyday.
Discover How To Nurture Your Heart’s Intentions: Cultivate Growth Through Shedding, Learning & Rebirth
Reserve Your Spot to Harness the Energy of Transformation—Shed, Grow & Rebirth with Intention ON SALE for only $375
In the transformative energy of the Year of the Snake, we invite you to step into the woods and embark on a journey of growth, stability, and creativity. This immersive, women-centered workshop is designed to help you shed what no longer serves you, engage in the dual process of learning and unlearning, and experience a powerful rebirth.
Who Is This Workshop For?
This experience is for Gen X and Millennial women who are ready to:
Deepen their curiosity, compassion, and connection to self
Release old patterns and embrace transformation
Engage in movement, meditation, and creative expression to nurture personal growth
When Is This Workshop?
April 12, 2025 10 AM to 2:30 PM
What to Expect in This 4.5-Hour Workshop:
Shedding – Letting Go with Intention
Collective Reiki and breathwork to cultivate curiosity
Embodiment-based movement to embrace openness
Journaling and group discussion to facilitate release
Learning & Unlearning – Embracing the Dual Process
Mindful eating to practice presence
Meditation to explore the layers of learning and unlearning
Expressive art to experience the freedom of transformation
Rebirth – Stepping into Your Power
Reiki and breathwork to ground into your inherent worth
Meditation to connect with the expansiveness of self
Art exercises to embrace inner confidence
Your Investment: $375 (Limited to 8 Participants)
Your fee includes:
✅ Workshop experience in a serene, rural setting in Stafford
✅ All supplies and nourishing snacks
✅ A journal to support continued growth and reflection
✅ A 90-day post-workshop Zoom check-in for integration and support
Spots are limited—reserve your place today and begin your journey back to self.
***If this retreat is something you're interested in, but your current budget doesn't allow for this price point. Please contact us alison@alisonsintegrativehealth.org
2023 In Review Using GLAD
Arriving at the end of another year invites us to focus on introspection and self reflection.
Rhythms and cycles are woven into every aspect of our lives, from the automatic rhythm of our breath as we inhale and exhale, to the continuous cycles of the sun, the moon and the seasons. We spend our lives entwined in these patterns, many times not exploring the power of consciously partnering with them. (And yes, this might be a teaser of a project I’m working on).
Using the end of a calendar year to reflect on your experiences of yourself and your life, the patterns, structure, choices and results, is a powerful tool for partnering with the ending and beginning of a new yearly cycle. It can also be an overwhelming exercise to consider, with thoughts similar to, “How do I review a whole year? I can’t even remember what I had for breakfast this morning.” Finding a manageable and meaningful way to begin a self reflection process can be challenging.
2023 was a transformational year for me, and even though I have developed introspective and self reflective practices for decades, I was finding that reflecting on my year in a meaningful way felt TOUGH. I kept listing events and experiences, which was helpful in acknowledging the content of the year but it wasn’t supporting my goal to find meaning.
So I pulled out an OLD mindfulness tool; one I included in the first workshop I created years ago, Mindfulness 101. The exercise is called GLAD and is significantly beneficial for general mood management and specifically depressive tendencies. The exercise as originally intended suggests that you acknowledge;
One small experience you are GRATEFUL for that day
One small thing that you LEARNED that day
One small ACCOMPLISHMENT for that day
And one small DELIGHT you experienced that day.
It’s effective when practiced consistently because it broadens your perception of your experience and opens you to notice daily experiences that bring meaning and purpose to your life. I decided to adapt it as a way to reflect on my year. I stayed with the basic approach and allowed myself to be flexible about how I described each category. If I wanted to add it more for each or wanted to summarize a category by describing a theme, then I did that. Here’s a bit of what I came up with.
This year, what I am grateful for is the grounded awareness that I can trust myself to live within my values, even when it is painful to do so. That doesn't mean I make “right” decisions, rather it means that I can trust myself to both be responsible for the decisions I make and change course when my values indicate that I need to. The grounded awareness of that trust has liberated me to take more risks and to be more vulnerable, trusting myself to care for myself no matter what the outcome.
This year, I learned that the love we offer ourselves and others as well as the love that is offered to us, is what can make the difference between surviving unexpected challenges and losses and learning, growing and thriving through those same difficulties. Love as a force, filled in the gaps when I reached my capacity, it lightened my load when I could hold no more, it witnessed with kind compassion, my grief and it preserved my connection to hope.
This year I accomplished a business restructuring to align with my current needs and I was able to make real progress on a decades long whisper in my heart, what I’ve come to refer to as a heart seed, this seed was planted during 2023 and is currently growing. It has stretched me and unsettled me and excited me. As all heart centered pursuits tend to do.
This year I delighted in gathering my first crop of dahlia seeds from my own harvest. I delighted in a few spontaneous and fun trips that made my belly ache from laughing and my feet hurt from dancing. And I delighted in a few new relationships I cultivated this year that reawakened some dormant, neglected aspects of myself that I deeply love.
If you are looking to start a relationship or perhaps deepen your relationship with New Year’s reflection, using GLAD can support you in both broadening your perspective on your year while also helping you to find meaning in your experiences this year.
Looking ahead to what is beginning; in 2024 I’m looking forward to offering a 4 part talk series aligned with each season, the first, Harnessing the Power of Winter Stillness will be offered sometime in late January. Details about the event and how to sign up are on the way!
I’m also looking forward to so many additional creative projects both within the practice and in my personal life, and as always, I’m looking forward to walking alongside many of you as you rediscover your voice and reclaim the power of using it in support of all your selves, past, present and future.
I wish each of you a new year filled with deep authentic connection to yourself and others and real moments of joy as you continue discovering and rediscovering how beautiful you are in mind body and spirit.
Harvest Season
Let’s be real, it’s what we look forward to in our gardens and in our lives, especially if we have planted seeds with intention, care, support and weathered the storms and uncertainty of the germination and growing process.
When I think about harvest season metaphorically, I think about heart centered seeds. Heart seeds of dreams, values and hopes. Harvest season rewards us with evidence of those heart centered energy investments. It confirms our hopes and fuels our dreams.
We celebrate fruition.
Unless you are experiencing a disappointing harvest in your garden or life. One with depleted blooms, injured or diseased crops, crops that either never germinated or died earlier in their growth cycle. Those harvest seasons tempt us to avoid reflection or even connection in any sense with what contributed to a harvest we didn’t want or expect. Of course there are factors that are outside of our control, even if we shelter our gardens filled with the seeds of our heart from storms. Even if we provide extra supports to help them weather the storms, sometimes that’s not enough and the storms will wipe out a crop despite our best efforts to protect it, to help it survive, and give it a chance to thrive.
Those are heartbreaking cycles that also provide us with opportunities to let go; to practice nonattachment to outcomes and stay engaged with a heart centered process.
Disappointing harvests are also opportunities to reflect on how you may have contributed to an outcome you didn’t anticipate.
Reflecting on your decisions and behaviors with questions like; Did I plant with intention? Or was it more with distraction? Did I consistently attune to the needs of those heart seeds in the garden, learning, fertilizing, watering, and supporting? Or did I engage in a more haphazard way, when I felt like it, because, I was busy? Was I disengaged because I was growing something someone else wanted that I don’t even care that much about?
Reflecting on your personal contribution to the harvest you are reaping builds capacity for growth, it desensitizes you to paralyzing shame by reinforcing your humanness, your flawed nature and it builds self trust. Self reflection when paired with personal accountability can become rocket fuel to build consistency in heart centered endeavors. When you become more intentional not only about what you plant but why you are planting it you then are more motivated to support those seeds into a bountiful blooming season.
This month I’ve entered a second harvest season within a year. The first, was a heartbreaking harvest season, that required acceptance of storm damage the heart seeds in this garden couldn’t withstand and reflection on how my own decisions in the planting stages influenced the probability of the disappointing harvest. It was a reckoning in which I came to understand that the new knowledge I was implementing in crop support, fertilization, and expansion, wasn’t ever going to produce the results I hoped for with this heart centered garden, the soil it was planted in was not going to adapt and evolve.
So, I changed course and utilized that new knowledge in planting new seeds, while at the same time staying consistent in caring for the emerging blooming season of one of my oldest and most heart centered seed crop.
And this November I’m celebrating the incredible blooming cycle of this aspect of my garden. I’ve witnessed the results of authentic tenacity and the true belonging that accompanies that steadfast commitment to heart seeds planted decades ago, consistently cared for, even when the care was uninformed, even ignorant to important care factors that would support the seed growth cycle more comprehensively.
These seeds still thrived.
In the blooms, I saw the strength of the roots, the impact of the learning, the fertilizing and most awe inspiring, the unique expression of these flowers in the world. It frankly took my breath away…
To witness the expression of who these blooms are separate from me and yet inextricably linked to my intention and care is an experience that confirms my beliefs in the power of love. It strengthened my own roots as a person and my vision as an intentional gardener of dreams. I’m also beginning to witness some of the newer seeds germinating into exciting seedlings of potential.
Harvest season is of course both/and.
It’s a season to celebrate the bountiful harvest and to grieve the disappointing losses. Always learning and celebrating both for the wisdom and growth potential they invite us into relationship with. What is your current harvest season about? And how are you planting your heart seeds for the next harvest cycle? Take a look at your contributions to both, it matters and so do you.
Choose to Bloom
In the middle of a recent Reiki attunement, regular attunements are a vital aspect of my self care as a therapist, I heard the sentence “Choose to bloom.” so clearly in my mind. Although it’s typical for me to get clarity about various aspects of my life during these attunements, singular sentences that ground the entire session are a fairly new trend, in another recent attunement I heard, “Hold the line, and stand your ground”, but more on that in another blog.
I sunk down into the concept of the sentence, choose to bloom, and overlaid it onto experiences I've had as a flower grower, experiences I’ve witnessed as a therapist and experiences I’ve had and witnessed because I’m a human, living a life. The powerful truth in that simple sentence was deeply apparent across all of them.
As a flower grower, (and social worker) I understand the importance of soil. Soil is the foundation that nourishes the potential of the flower seed. If the soil is depleted or imbalanced, the seed will not absorb enough nutrients to germinate and grow into its potential, much like people. So I care for the soil I plant my flowers in. Once the seeds germinate and become seedlings, they need water, sunlight, extra nutrients and support during various stages of growth and development, again similar to people.
I take pride in the care and attention I provide my flowers across all of their growth cycles. But there comes a time in a flower’s development where fertilizing it, or attending to it in other ways, creates confusion in the flower’s energy and can lead to the flower not blooming, it may bud, but the bloom won’t mature and open. Many times, in fact most of the time, when growing flowers, this is where the magic is so loud and spectacular that it highlights the truth of that sentence, you have to choose to bloom. Overnight, in the secrecy of darkness, many flowers will open their blooms to greet you in the morning sunlight, others begin in the morning with a bud and by the end of a sunny day, have opened into a full beautiful bloom. On their own, they harnessed all the growth that gave them the energy and understanding, the support and timing to bloom. It truly feels like they do choose to bloom.
I think we are the same. At some point, we understand the soil of our lives, its issues, its beneficial aspects and at that point we can amend the soil, enrich it and rebalance it so we can grow, heal, nurture and support ourselves. That’s when we begin a blooming cycle. If we become too attached to healing, repairing, nurturing, we will confuse our energies and delay our ability to bloom into the full potential of what we have been growing in ourselves and in our lives. It doesn’t mean that there won’t be another season of growing and healing, rather it means, we also have to allow ourselves to bloom into the expression of the growth that has already occurred.
How do you recognize when it’s time?
Essentially, your gut knows, that deep inner wisdom and your connection to it, knows. You’ve done the repairs, you can see and document the work you’ve done because there is evidence EVERYWHERE, and you probably feel a little afraid or maybe doubtful to step into the fullness of that work, which is the bloom. It’s potential energy that is able to be expressed in a beautiful way in the physical world. Every part of you knows, the ingredients, the structures, the space is there, you just have to choose it.
That’s when you’re in your blooming cycle.
That’s when it's time.
If this resonates with you, I encourage you to choose to bloom. Trust that you’re ready. It’s time, you deserve to feel the full expression of all the work you’ve done and the world needs to see your beautiful bloom.
Burnout, What Why and How
Does it ever feel like your to do list never ends?
Do you feel like you can’t do anything for yourself until you knock another chore off your list?
Girl, same. And we all feel this way sometimes. Do you ever wonder why we feel like we can’t do what we want to do until our list is done?
And who decides what we have to put on our list anyway?
Well, for those of us who identify as women (which is a social construct by the way), we have things that society decided we have to do. Society also decides how women should behave, what is normal for us, what roles we take on, and what we HAVE to do for everyone but ourselves.
Because of what society has decided that we must do, we can feel like our jobs are never ending. Whether it be working, going to school, taking care of our families, cooking dinner, or cleaning the house.
We have to realize that competing values are happening within everyone. And what you choose to spend your time on is ok, as long as you say it’s ok.
So what is burnout then?
If you ever find yourself just completely overwhelmed and exhausted then you might be in the neighborhood of burnout.
Because what it’s like to be a woman and what is expected of you can be two completely different things.
When we try to close the gap between society’s expectations and who we really are, we can become burned out.
When we neglect our personal wants and needs habitually it leads to burnout.
It’s hard being a woman in our society. But, there are some things that can help us to keep burn out at bay.
How to recognize that we are in fact, burned out?
Physical exhaustion- you may notice that your energy level is extremely low and you feel like your body can’t do even one more thing.
Mental exhaustion - you may feel like you’re lacking mental clarity, can’t think straight, and have trouble concentrating.
Fatigue- your body is done, just done. This can last for short or long periods of time.
Regular headaches- you may notice that you are experiencing more headaches than usual.
Isolation- you may feel like you want to self isolate, don’t want to leave the house, and find yourself not doing the things that you normally enjoy.
Irritability- you may notice that you are quicker to get angry, become frustrated, or more irritable in situations that normally would not bother you.
What can we do about it?
We have to figure out and embrace our own authentic sense of who we are and what’s important to us.
The more that we live authentically and listen to our values, the less we allow outside expectations to affect us, thus living the lives that we wish to live.
If we are living authentically, burnout is way less likely to happen to us, because we are listening to what we need within ourselves.
Our authentic selves are made, not found. We have to work to find what really matters to us, what we do for ourselves to stay happy and balanced in our hectic lives.
These are some things that help us to live authentically:
Pursuit and achievement of goals that matter to us.
Loving, emotionally connected relationships with others.
Serving our spiritual or religious beliefs.
Our meaning in our lives is the answer to “what am I doing when I feel most powerfully that I’m doing what I am supposed to be doing?”
The next way to combat our burnout is by completing the “stress cycle”. The stress cycle is when we encounter an obstacle, and our body goes into that fight, flight, freeze, or fawn response.
In the old days completing that cycle was easy, but in today’s society, we must figure out how to complete this cycle of stress that our body gets stuck in after something happens in our lives.
So, how do I complete this stress cycle? Well, you have to signal to your body that you are safe, or it will stay in this state of stress and burnout.
Here are a few simple ways that you can complete your stress cycle, to bring your body back to homeostasis.
Physical activity- go for a walk, a bike ride, dance in your living room, or anything that gets your body moving.
A 20-second hug with someone who feels safe to you.
Long deep breathing or meditation, while being mindful of your thoughts and feelings.
Real, genuine laughter, like the kind of laughter that takes over your whole body.
Finally, a big old cry. Letting yourself release all of these emotions will take you to the very end of your stress cycle.
If you’d like to know more about burnout and how to move away from a burnout cycle, I’ll be conducting a 4 week group in the near future.
Stay tuned for details.
Relay Race Wisdom, a metaphor for intergenerational family patterns
One of my favorite activities growing up, in track and field as well as competitive swimming was the relay race.
I loved it because I had an individual stake in how our team performed AND it wasn’t just on me, there were three other team members that were also stakeholders in our overall performance; shared risk and shared victory or sometimes defeat. I can still feel the jittery excitement of that baton hitting my hand as I was starting to run and the momentum of diving off the starting block when my teammate touched the pool wall.
Because of the running and swimming events I participated in, I was often third or fourth in the lineup, so by the time it was my turn, I had some information about how we were doing and what I needed to do in my leg of the race for our team. Sometimes that meant I needed to dig deep and run/swim at the top of my skill level, sometimes that meant I had the opportunity to run/swim in my comfort zone and sometimes it meant I needed to run/swim beyond what I was consciously aware that I could do.
Family patterns across generations can be explored from a similar lens.
We are each responsible for our unique adult life AND how we experience our unique life is also connected to the folks that came before us, how they were raised, the social conditioning that influenced them, the specific aspects of identity that marginalized them and privileged them and the trauma they experienced, witnessed or were raised with.
Those factors impact not only what we each see as possible for our lives; they also impact how we see ourselves, how we think about ourselves and how we process our challenges, our opportunities and our environment in general. We can’t truly experience ourselves and our life in isolation and those folks who raised us and the folks that raised and influenced them aren’t totally responsible for our lives either.
It’s a team effort, another both/and. We both have the responsibility of creating a life that makes sense to us AND that life is influenced by those that came before us and are around us.
Doing the work to understand that shared responsibility supports us in consciously creating our lives which involves making decisions that align with our values, our hope and our dreams.
I’m at the point in my family’s evolution where I can start to evaluate how I’ve shown up “in my leg of the race”. I can see where I’ve made up some ground from the team mates before me and I’m starting to see the challenges and opportunities my children have in their own “legs of the race” because of who they are and because of how they’ve been influenced by me and other family members.
Taking responsibility in this way, I believe, continues to hold us accountable for our decisions and invites us to stay in relationship with ourselves gently and compassionately; we aren’t in charge of the whole team, just our part.
We're Moving!
We’re moving!
It’s true… after 9 years in our current location, we’ve decided it’s time to move.
Change can be exciting and scary. Leaving behind the memories we’ve built with each of you in this beautiful space, feels sad and yet, I’m also grateful to be able to hold those memories in my heart no matter where the practice moves. Because at its core, the healing community AS&A has built over the last 9 years here, is created and sustained, not so much by our physical location, but more from the energy and shared healing intentions of us as your providers and each of you as our clients.
So… the details!
We are still going to be downtown, I’m a downtown girl at heart so we’re staying in The Burg.
We’re moving to 826A Caroline St. on the third floor, above Juan More Taco and beside Fredericksburg Cupcake. Y’all have been telling me for years you often go to Carl’s after therapy, now you’ve got cupcakes and tacos right next door! The move is scheduled for October 8, so your appointments scheduled the week of October 11-14 will be at the new location.
We’ll be sure to send reminders to you in your client portal as the move approaches.
I look forward to creating new healing memories together in our new space!
The Process of Change
The process of change.
February 4th marks my 33rd sobriety anniversary, so I’ve been thinking about the concept and process of change in our lives. When I stopped drinking, a relationship that simultaneously functioned as a lifeline and a nuclear bomb in my life; I began the process of one of the most monumental changes in my life. That decision to change and the process of implementing that change has shaped the rest of my life, arguably more than any other single decision or change has, since then. Sobriety has transformed my relationship with myself and my relationships with others, as well as my world view, my aspirations, my values and my actions.
And WOW, so often, learning how to live sober felt overwhelming, uncertain, confusing, sad and yet other times the process felt exhilarating, relieving, hope filled and adventurous. Which I’ve come to understand through my work and my life is the true gift change can sometimes offer us. It can invite us into the unknown to fuel hope and possibility, to learn new ways of understanding ourselves and our lives and to unlearn what isn’t helpful to us or isn’t in alignment with our values and beliefs (both of which evolve across our lives).
If change can do all this wonderful stuff for us, why do we resist it so much? And is there anything we can practice to reduce the resistance to change so we can learn to partner with it?
The reasons we resist change are many and varied, and definitely a topic to be covered in future blogs. For this blog, to understand the process of change, it's useful enough to accept the notion that we tend to resist change. And yes, there are plenty of tools we can use to reduce the resistance to change in our lives. Below are 5 tools for you to use and get you started:
For additional tools you can use to reduce the resistance to change check out our Mindfulness 101 Online Course.
Notice when the resistance shows up, with curiosity.
Often, resistance shows up as limited or fear based thinking, in the present, future based or both.
Validate whatever you are feeling with statements like, “it makes sense I’m confused, change can be disruptive”. Or “It’s ok to not have all the answers, I can just do what's in front of me right now”.
Find support beams.
This consists of people who CAN BE emotionally supportive and people who demonstrate they can give you support. If you don’t have those relationships in your life right now, that’s ok too. I’ve been there. That’s when books, podcasts, videos, creativity, nature and spiritual practices can function as support beams.
Use beginner's mind.
Beginner’s mind is one of the most powerful mindfulness attitudes you can cultivate. By allowing yourself to be in a present moment without rushing to “know what’s going to happen”, you open up to what Dr. Dan Siegal calls the Plane of Possibility, a perspective that allows new insights, new outcomes and innovative problem solving.
Offer yourself compassion.
Especially when you’re in the messy middle of the change process. Insta snaps are just that, they aren’t reflective of the awkward, clumsy experience of change.
Are you looking for additional tools to reduce the resistance to change in your life?
Mindfulness 101 Online Course equips you with additional mindfulness based tools to help you reduce your resistance to change.
You can start using these mindfulness based tools today to empower you as you embrace the change in your life. Get the Mindfulness 101 Online Course below:
Do you want to be more present in your daily life, be able to shake off the distractions that weigh you down? Unlearn anxious patterns that restrict your connection to yourself and others?
Mindfulness 101 Online Course is designed to empower you with mindfulness tools and practices to increase your presence in your daily life, to support more focus, and to successfully shake off distractions and anxious thoughts patterns that weigh you down.
Filled with video lessons, audio meditations, an eBook FULL of reflection prompts and weekly mindfulness practices. PLUS bonus info… You are able to complete this online course from the comfort of your own home, your favorite coffee shop, or even as you are traveling!
In this course, you’ll receive:
Over 90 minutes of video instruction from me
Over 80 minutes of guided meditations to deepen the learning in each module
4 shorter guided mindful meditation practices
Several mindfulness based practices
Reflection questions and weekly ideas to make mindfulness a daily part of your mental health toolkit
With this course, you are given an eBook that gives you access to all of the modules, videos, and audio meditations, enabling you to set your own schedule with this course and complete it at your pace.
Start living your life more Mindfully today with the Mindfulness 101 Online Course.
2021 Reflections: Learning How To Lean In & Unlearning The Resistance In Letting Go
This year I’ve struggled with how to authentically and accurately write a year end reflection; mainly because it wasn’t coming out in “the form I’m used to”, so I let go of what it “needed” to be and allowed it to be what it is. This year, I’m sharing some things I’ve learned and relearned, what I’m letting go of more readily and what I’m leaning into more often. Because noticing life in this way, doesn’t feel rigid and restrictive; instead, it feels open and more honest.
What have I learned and relearned?
That adapting to change with openness fuels creativity and lessens anxiety.
That I value the willingness to continually grow even more than I realized.
That for me, right now, acceptance is more useful than forgiveness. It is a process that liberates me from pain; and includes acknowledgement and accountability for the harm done.
That fear and shame create so much pain and disconnection.
That I love listening to podcasts.
That interdependence is the truth. Independence is an illusion. Conscious interdependence fosters deep belonging.
That chronic suppression of self is the loss I grieve over most in my life.
That kindness is active and courageous. And kindness is not niceness.
What am I letting go of more?
Perfectionism.
Overfunctioning.
Certainty.
Expectation.
Obligation.
Shame.
What am I leaning into?
Uncertainty.
Hope.
Creativity.
The magic of flowers.
Acceptance.
Yoga.
Reading.
Imagination.
Possibility.
Music.
To our client community, thank you from the very center of my heart for inviting me to walk alongside you, it is a sacred invitation that I honor.
To our social media community, thanks for taking your valuable time to look at our stories, watch our videos and engage with our posts. We work hard to bring valuable content because we value you and the importance of your energy investment on behalf of your mental health.
To the Fredericksburg community, we get to work in, thanks for taking such good care of us for another year. We sure do love being here.
Happy New Year everyone.
Mindful Movement
This week I wanted to take some time to talk with you all about one of the most important things in my life: mindful movement. In order to fully understand mindful movement it's important to first reflect on your own life and needs, and how you can first begin to incorporate movement from there. Many of us at some point in our lives have heard about the positive benefits of incorporating exercise or physical activity into your routine. These positive benefits include things such as improving your sleep, giving you more energy, maintaining a healthy weight, strengthening your muscles, and keeping your heart healthy. But beyond these physical benefits, regular activity can also have an immediate positive impact on your brain health in a multitude of ways.
Reduces Anxiety
Each time you engage your body in physical movement you are releasing several beneficial neurotransmitters into your brain including dopamine (increases feelings of pleasure), norepinephrine (increases blood flow and provides energy), serotonin (stabilizes mood and promotes feelings of wellbeing and happiness), and acetylcholine (plays an essential role in alertness, attention, learning, and memory). Together all of these chemicals have been proven to work together to decrease feelings of anxiety and depression.
Improves Focus and Concentration
Julia Basso and Wendy Suzuki conducted a recent study which showed that a single workout can have an immediate benefit of an improved ability to shift and focus attention as well as improving your reaction speed. They recommended the best exercises to create this effect are cardiovascular exercises that elevate your heart rate such as taking a long walk, running, swimming, cycling, or jumping rope.
Promotes Brain Cell Growth
One of the most significant benefits of exercise is the promotion of neurogenesis, or the birth of new brain cells. More specifically physical activity has been shown to catalyze the creation of new brain cells in your hippocampus, the part of your brain which works towards memory formation and storage. This is essential to improving cognitive function. Physical exercise has also been shown to improve the health and function of the synapses between neurons in your hippocampus, which allows your brain cells to communicate more effectively and efficiently.
Protects Your Brain Against Neurodegenerative Disease
In addition to aiding in the growth of brain cells within your hippocampus, regular exercise can also promote the growth of your prefrontal cortex. Your prefrontal cortex is the part of your brain which is implicated in a variety of complex behaviors, including planning, and greatly contributes to personality development. Both your prefrontal cortex and your hippocampus are the parts of your brain which are susceptible to neurodegenerative diseases such as dementia and Alzheimer’s. So, similarly to muscles in your body the bigger it becomes, the stronger it gets. Now by no means will exercise cure or prevent the onset of a neurodegenerative disease, but consistent physical activity has been shown to reduce or delay its onset. Think of it like an insurance policy for your brain!
All of these things are great reasons to start working towards incorporating physical activity into your daily life. However, exercise also creates a unique opportunity to practice mindfulness. For me exercise is a great outlet to release pent up stress or frustrations, but even more important for me is it creates an opportunity to feel connected with my own body. Each day that I go to the gym I focus on a specific group of muscles and while working out I pay particular attention to how those muscles are feeling. I may notice small pains in certain areas which gives me a sign that that spot may need more of a rest or focused stretching. Or maybe I notice certain muscles are not struggling with certain exercises as they did a couple of weeks prior, which provides me with a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction. Ultimately, being mindful of the way my body is moving and feeling during exercise helps provide me with a sense of overall holistic peace.
If going to the gym and lifting weights isn’t your thing, Tai Chi, Yoga, and Qiong are great alternatives to help introduce mindful movement into your life. Tai Chi is a healing and meditative practice that combines martial art movement with Qi (energy circulation), breathing, and stretching techniques. This practice consists of a series of graceful movements with deep and slow diaphragmatic breathings performed while standing. Practicing Tai Chi has been shown to have both physical and psychosocial benefits for many different populations. Yoga, a mind-body exercise, involves a combination of muscular activity and an internally directed mindful focus on awareness of the self, the breath, and energy. This practice integrates an individual's physical, mental, and spiritual components to improve physical and mental health, particularly stress related illnesses. Yoga provides a unique opportunity for people to practice grounded mindfulness by fostering a deep connection with your breathing while also improving your vagal tone, an unconscious activity in your brain which regulates your calming and connecting response. Qigong exercise, similar to Tai Chi, consists of a series of breath practices with body movement and meditation to attain deep focus and relaxed state. Simply speaking, Qigong exercise is practiced/used to cultivate the balance and harmony of vital energy in the human body.
Another form of mindfulness that you can do during physical activity can be thought examination. When doing a long-form or repetitive exercise like walking, running, swimming, or riding a stationary bike, something where you can allow your physical awareness to take a bit of a back seat, pay close attention to the thoughts or feelings that arise during this. A mentor of mine in grad school spoke on how she would start each of her days with mindful movement journaling. At the start of each day, she would go for a brisk walk and allow her mind to wander towards whatever it was naturally drawn to. Then once she returned home, she would journal about those thoughts and emotions, which helped her start each day with a feeling of mental clarity.
Exercise can be a daunting thing to incorporate in your life’s schedule, especially if it is something that is new to you, so remember not to be too hard on yourself or create too much pressure. Additionally, it is important to mention that exercise can be potentially triggering for some folks, so make sure to check in any professional you may be seeing before making any lifestyle changes. You don’t have to adopt a professional athlete’s regimen to achieve the benefits from this blog. Any consistent movement that is an outlet for your energy and makes you feel good at the end of the day will only provide positive benefits for you!