One of the hardest things about talking about childhood experiences is that many people feel like they have to prove they were “bad enough.” They’ll say things like, “Nothing terrible happened.” “Other people had it much worse.” “My parents did…
Have you ever caught yourself thinking, “I’m an adult now.”“Why does this still bother me?”“Shouldn’t I be over this by now?” It’s a question I hear surprisingly often. Especially from people who don’t think they had a “bad” childhood. They’ll…
Today, I want to talk about something I’ve never really touched on before—because honestly, it only recently emerged for me in my own personal therapy. Most people have heard of the fear of abandonment. It gets talked about a lot…
Some insights don’t give you an immediate life hack—but they can change how you understand yourself forever. Today, I want to share one of those insights. It’s not a quick tip or a 3-minute skill to practice at home. It’s…
Big T traumas are the known and spoken abuses and traumas: Little t traumas are the other stuff. I heard this definition of trauma: “overwhelm plus alone.” I mention elsewhere on this site that my 10yr old son may have…
We have friends who recently had a baby. I kept saying “Oh, there’s this great baby book on self esteem that I want to get for them.” God bless my husband. What he thought (sarcastically), and did not say, was “oh, that…
My son recently made the cross-country team at his school, and although all of the kids “made the team”, he was still very excited. But it got me thinking about the question: Why do some kids get upset when they…
I’m a big fan of Dr. Becky’s “Good Inside” podcast, and I love a concept she talks about. I’m going to share a mental image with you: Picture a huge, beautiful garden filled with benches. Each bench represents a different…
Generational Legacy. That term is becoming more common-place today, thanks to Encanto and Twitter. It simply means negative behavioral patterns get passed to the next generation because we aren’t even aware that we’re doing it. I’m a therapist. I know…
Your brain has implicit and explicit memories. Explicit memories are factual events or information from your past. When you think about these, you actually know you’re remembering something: Your last birthday. Getting your last job offer. The movie you watched…