Today is the anniversary of my Aunt Susie’s death, and if you have followed any of my writing for very long, you probably already know that saying she was my aunt doesn’t really explain who she was to me. Susie was my person. She was one of those rare people who becomes so woven into…

You finally did it. You made the appointment. Maybe you stared at a list of therapists for weeks before choosing one, reading profile after profile until they all started sounding exactly the same: safe space, evidence-based, compassionate, client-centered. Maybe you researched specialties and credentials, or maybe you picked the person with the first opening because…

There are moments when I genuinely feel like if one more person talks to me, I might lose my mind. And I don’t mean that in the funny, haha, it’s been a long day kind of way. I mean there are moments when the television is playing, my phone is buzzing, someone is asking me…

I think one of the strangest things we do as human beings is decide what we’re capable of based entirely on who we are right now. We look at ourselves in this exact moment, with the skills we currently have, the confidence we currently feel, and everything we currently understand about ourselves, and somehow decide…

There are some survival stories that are almost impossible to wrap your head around because the numbers themselves feel ridiculous. Seventy-six days. Seventy-six days alone in a life raft in the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by water you can’t drink, with no guarantee anyone is coming to find you. I think about that number and immediately…

There is a moment I see happen in therapy all the time. Someone will be talking about a pattern they keep repeating, and somewhere in the middle of the conversation they’ll stop and say something like, “But I already know why I do this.” And they do. They can trace it backward. They know where…

I think sometimes we make joy way too complicated. We imagine it waiting for us somewhere up ahead, attached to something bigger. When I finally get the job. When I make more money. When the kids are settled. When I lose the weight. When I finish the degree. When the house is clean, the schedule…

I think most of us carry around some kind of invisible map for our lives, even if we don’t realize we’re doing it. We have an idea of where we’re going, what should happen next, who we thought we’d be by a certain age, what our relationships would look like, what our careers would become,…

Every August, something shifts. The mornings get busier. The evenings seem shorter. Store aisles fill with backpacks and lunch boxes, calendars begin filling with practices, meetings, homework, and appointments, and before we know it, we’re wondering why we suddenly feel anxious, exhausted, or irritable. Most people assume it’s because life is getting busy again. I…

Over the years I’ve watched people become angry, cry, go completely silent, apologize before they even know what they’ve done wrong, or work overtime trying to fix the situation as quickly as possible. The more I’ve watched these moments unfold—in my therapy office, in my own relationships, and simply by paying attention to the people…