What would you give up in order to feel loved? In order to be able to deeply receive love and truly belong? What would you give? Would you give up your status? If you knew that doing so would make you feel love, would you give up your beliefs about what makes a person important?…… Continue reading Caring for others
In video games food seems so simple. PacMan eats the fruit to gain powers. Mario eats a mushroom to grow. You eat a piece of meat or a candy bar and your health restores. In the real world food is smothered with shame and moralizing and control. For generations our dominate culture has taught us…… Continue reading Nourishment
As part of my trauma therapy I did a big personal narrative project where I went back over all my journals and wrote my life story through my adult eyes. It was one of the best things I ever did for myself and I gained so many insights. One that particularly struck me is how…… Continue reading Reclaiming Movement
Journaling. In some rooms I’ve been in, that word would instantly get hackles raised. It’s one of those things like yoga and mindfulness that get recommended to people all the time as if they are a magic cure. I practice each one of those strategies, I know they’re great, but so often they are offered…… Continue reading Reflection
When Atticus was small he would regularly be playing happily with his toys when seemingly out of nowhere he would begin screaming and crying, reacting as if he was in mind-splitting pain but with no obvious source. It would be many years before one of his teachers suggested autism. Usually people blamed everything on his…… Continue reading Becoming Aware
When I started singing classes, the first thing I had to learn was how to breathe. I always thought singing classes were scales and sight reading, but not with my friend Emily. With Emily it was learning how your instrument worked. We spent most of our time experimenting to get me aware of my body…… Continue reading Breath is Life
You know, in all my years of being a patient full time, the only doctor who ever asked about my sleep was a psychologist during treatment for depression. I would ask my physicians, but the best they could suggest was a melatonin gummy and less screen time. They would never bring it up. Ever. Meanwhile,…… Continue reading Your Right to Rest
I really get why medical misinformation is so seductive. After 23 years of living with a stigmatized chronic illness, I’ve got stories about medical trauma that would curl your toes. I could talk all day about paternalistic systems and medical bias and the overall failures of the medical system. All the times I was called…… Continue reading How to Spot a Con
I’ve learned this lesson twice, once through Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and once through Quality Management: “Yesterday’s solutions are today’s problems.” The problems you frequently address in both therapy and in business often spring up from doing things as they have always been done, when the present circumstances are very different from past circumstances. Like trying to…… Continue reading Different Solutions for Different Circumstances