Sickness and Slowing Down

Hi friends!

I hope you are well. Over here, at my house, we are... not well. We are unwell, as it were. Ill, infected, we have the plague (okay, not really, but doesn't a bout of diphtheria sound more impressive than the common cold?). I digress. We are sick over here. And it's thrown a wrinkle into my busy, productivity-minded self. In case you didn't know this about me, I struggle to rest. Like, if I'm ill, I worry about all the things that are left undone and I can't simply *relax* and lay down. I do take a weekly nap every Sunday afternoon like clockwork, but that's after church and before I do my Sunday reset of all the chores needed to start the week off right.

So, I am writing this blog to let you know that it's okay to rest, and sometimes our bodies become ill to remind us of this fact. Let's learn to listen to these messages, instead of being disappointed we are sick.

It's okay to rest.

It's okay to pause, before you say something you might regret.

It's okay to reflect, instead of live in regret.

It's okay to move forward and forgive yourself for the ways you fall short.

It's okay to simply be, without striving and struggling for love and acceptance from people who can't give that to themselves, let alone you.

You deserve rejuvenation, and you deserve it more frequently than the quarterly cold you catch in August, November and March. The world needs people who can simply be and recognize their own inherent goodness, without having a checklist of to-dos in order to prove their worth.

This month, take some time to figure out where rest and rejuvenation, pauses and reflection are missing in your life. Add some of those things in, and let some of the busy-ness go. You do enough. You are enough.

Take exquisite care of yourself,

Sincerity and Shipwrecks: Being Yourself in Therapy

Hi Friends!

I hope summertime is treating you well. I find that this time of year feels both slow and fast, which is an interesting phenomena and probably a great indicator of what it feels like to raise little children and age (two things I'm doing at this point in my life).

Today, I wanted to breach the subject that I think often crosses people's minds when they enter into therapy, which is some variation of the thought: 'How weird can I be in here? Will my therapist 'get' it? What if they think I'm completely nuts?'

I can't speak for every counselor and therapist in the world. However, I can tell you that your worries about your weird, obsessive thoughts are common. Your fears of being 'discovered' as untreatable, unlovable, unlikeable by your therapist are fears all clients carry into the therapy room. Judging your thoughts as bad, shameful, or even sinful, is something I encounter frequently in my office with my clients.

Let me reassure you, in my practice (and in many other therapists' offices as well), your weird is welcome.

I'd like to tell you a 'weird' thing about myself. After my daughter died, I went through a stage where I was obsessed with shipwrecks. I would spend hours reading about sunken boats, and my husband could often find me in the middle of the night scrolling furiously, diving down another rabbit hole of morbid curiosity. It all started with the tragic sinking of the Ducks in Branson in 2018. For whatever strange reason, I was equal parts captivated and horrified by this news story. I read everything I could, and then, this research devolved into studying all sorts of sunken ships. I was a woman possessed.

I spoke about this compulsion to research sunken boats incessantly with colleagues. One friend pointed out the following: 'Your soul was sorting through the deep loss, missing tangible treasure, and overall reconciling of sunken dreams you had for Harper (my daughter) and for parenthood.' This seemed to resonate and comfort me. Her words welcomed the weird in me, and I felt instantly at peace. I didn't need to read another shipwreck story for many years after that.

If you are struggling with bringing your full self to therapy in true sincerity, know this: a good therapist wants to see all of you. They desire to know you at your core, and they will sit with you in your weird for as long as you need until you heal. I hope you find relationships that help you come to your oddest, sincerest, happiest version of self. You deserve this.

Take exquisite care of yourself,

How to: Take Back Your Power

Hi friends! I hope you are doing well! Here in Oklahoma, we are enjoying a lovely summer so far. Last night, I sat on the porch while watching the rain softly fall, and it was a delight. If porch sitting were an Olympic sport, I'd be a gold medalist.

Onward to today's topic! How to take back your power... (after an event outside your control happens). This came to me when I was thinking about the later stages of working with clients who initially come in for trauma therapy, after a scary event happens for them, like a sexual assault, a natural disaster, a car wreck, etc. The first portion of trauma therapy is pretty similar for most clinicians and clients. I'll tell you a secret: all therapies work. There is no perfect therapy for trauma! EMDR works, CBT works, IFS works, CPT works, Brain spotting works, ART works, DBT works, and so on and so forth. Therapy works on trauma by doing a few different things: desensitizing the system to triggers by exposure and relaxation, and creating new belief systems after the trauma that allow us to re-establish our trust in ourselves and the world.

Taking back your power is typically a later-stage recovery period in trauma work. I'd argue that most clients don't always make it to this stage, because they get through a majority of trauma counseling, and feel better and they cease treatment. No shame in that at all. Sometimes that's all you want from counseling is to feel better and when you've accomplished that goal, you're good (for a while). When clients come to see me, it may be because they're like, "Oh, so I thought I was done, but this stuff is still stealing my power." Our work then becomes about how to take their power back, how to empower yourself again, after your sense of power and control has been stolen from you.

Step one is to define what a good life for you looks like post-trauma. It's different for every client. I can't define it for you, and neither can your mama, your boyfriend or your nosy neighbor. You have to say, "Okay, I'm alive. I made it after the terrible thing happened. How do I thrive again?" For one client, it was creating art again after an event had made her question her ability to create. All of us have to decide what thriving looks like for us as people and then go recreate that life in small measurable steps. You won't get there in one day, and you won't get there in one year. But, if you keep moving forward, you will get there. I promise.

Step two is setting boundaries that ensure your sense of safety, but still allow you to forge relationships at a pace that is doable for you. My clients that are healing from toxic relationships with childhood caregivers often still long to be close to those people. And to that, I say, "You are an adult now. You can keep yourself safe. You set the pace of any and all relationships in your life. You accept when people won't change and you change whatever you need to, to maintain your wellbeing."

Step three is learning to trust yourself again. If we think of trauma as disrupting our relationship with trusting ourselves and the world us, it makes sense that we have to work to get to a place where that trust can be fostered within ourselves again. Your child parts are longing for you to be in charge, to keep them safe, to listen to their warnings and heed their lessons. Trust is built in the small everyday actions of showing up for yourself and all of your parts, even the ones you aren't sure you love. It means taking care of your needs, and prioritizing them even in the face of a people pleasing attitude, often cultivated in a chaotic, scary childhood. It means giving yourself credit when you make mistakes, take responsibility and attempt to fix them. It means being there to catch yourself when you fall, to remind yourself that no matter what, you've got this. You will survive.

You are worthy of long-term recovery from trauma, and you deserve to take back your power. Know that I am rooting for you, and if you decide you want to work towards that goal, please send me an email or reach out to me for a consultation. I'd love to partner with you on the next step of the journey.

Take exquisite care of yourself,