My husband and I recently sold the house that he has lived in for 15 years and for the last few weeks we’ve been actively and exhaustively preparing it for moving day, which was Friday. This is our first move together and, like most changes, it brings stress, excitement, uncertainty, and mishaps (i.e. hot water…
Cheryl Strayed is one of my favorite writers/authors. What I love about her work is that it delivers hard truths in a direct, compassionate, sometimes humorous, and always wise way. Hers is a style that packs a punch without leaving a bruise; a style that, in my opinion, mirrors what good therapy is all about. …
I wish Chicken Little had been around last week to let my little corner of KY know that the sky was, in fact, falling! In what seemed like the blink of an eye, rain, hail, and wind engulfed the city, churning about everything in sight, plucking trees from their roots, and bringing traffic to a…
One of the issues I discuss most frequently with clients is perfectionism. In Brené Brown’s book, The Gifts of Imperfection, she defines this pattern of thinking and behaving as “…a self destructive and addictive belief system that fuels this primary thought: If I look perfect, and do everything perfectly, I can avoid or minimize the…
Many years ago I read “The Year of Magical Thinking” by Joan Didion. In it, she writes about her grief process in the year following the sudden loss of her husband, John. I remember being struck by her ability to capture such raw, intense emotion with unusually dry expression and tone. I also recall feeling…
Nothing makes me feel more anxious than being on an airplane that’s experiencing turbulence. As soon as the plane begins to bump and bounce, my entire body constricts. My shoulders rise and meet the bottoms of my ears, palms begin to sweat, and I freeze…as if my lack of movement will somehow lull the frenzied…
Springtime is rich with the spirit of renewal and resurrection in all its many forms. As a therapist, I’m particularly interested in these themes as they relate to the healing process. It is very often the case that the origins of dysfunction and impairment begin with how we think about our experiences and, more specifically,…
Two weeks ago my dad slipped on black ice and broke his leg. Less than 24 hours before that my mom was in a car accident; she was hit from behind by someone going too fast when everyone else was slowing down. Her bruises are healing and, in time, her nervous system will settle down…
Eight months ago I moved to Kentucky. Two weeks ago I moved in. I had been staring at many of my things that I’d unpacked, but hadn’t placed…at least not in a way that felt helpful, satisfying, or practical. Typically, I move faster to get settled, but for various logistical reasons my process has been…
I’ve been wearing my Elf cap over the last several weeks, perusing the aisles of different stores and clicking on one website after another in hopes of finding the holiday trifecta: an inspired idea, a great bargain on said idea, and (if buying online) an arrive-by-Christmas shipping guarantee. Every year I find myself in a…