There are moments in therapy when someone says something that lands with unusual force in the room. They say, “I do not know why I am always bracing.” Not anxious about one thing in particular. Not panicked in any dramatic way. Just bracing. Bracing for conflict. Bracing for disappointment. Bracing…
There are moments in history that are not “over there.” They cross borders the way weather does, and you feel them in your body before you can name them. Something tightens, something wakes up, something old and unfinished inside us stirs. Iran feels like that right now: not because the…
Mary Oliver, in her poem In Blackwater Woods, offers this fierce and tender instruction for being human: To live in this world, you must be able to love what is mortal, hold it close as if your life depends on it, and when the time comes to let it go……
Every year as the holidays get closer, a familiar theme shows up in therapy sessions: “My family is so toxic.” “I just need to survive the visit.” “Being around my relatives sends me straight back into trauma.” The language of toxic family relationships, trauma, and nervous system collapse has become…





