Trusting yourself again isn’t something we talk about enough in therapy. Not just boundaries or coping skills or communication—but the thing underneath all of that: how do you actually know what’s right for you? Not what sounds good. Not what keeps everyone else comfortable. Not what avoids the awkward conversation. I mean you. Your body. Your gut. That quiet inner voice that says, “this feels right”… or “absolutely not.” We throw around the word intuition a lot, but for

(From someone who’s seen behind the curtain… a lot) Most relationships don’t fall apart because of some big dramatic betrayal. We are often able to get through one time betrayal. They fall apart because of what people stop doing, what they start tolerating, and what they refuse to work through. I see it every day. People come in thinking they have a communication problem. What they actually have is a consistency problem, a resentment problem, or a we stopped choosing

I’m not saying my body and I are in a full-blown toxic relationship… but if we were on couples counseling intake paperwork, I’d definitely check “communication issues.” You know that time in therapy when your therapist asks “why are you still in this relationship?” You answer as through it was so painfully obvious “because we love each other.” I do love my body, my physical form including curves, muscles, bone structure…all of it, but damn it seems it doesn’t have the same

There are moments in healing that don’t look the way we expect them to. Moments where you cry harder than you thought you would, like something in you finally cracked open after being held together for too long. Moments where you say something you’ve been carrying for years, and it doesn’t come out perfectly, it comes out real. Moments where anger shows up instead of peace, and it throws you off because you thought healing was supposed to feel calmer than this. But this is th

There’s something about bare feet on the earth that reminds me who I am. Not the woman rushing through emails, meetings, and responsibilities. Not the mom, therapist, business owner, the planner, the fixer of problems. Just me. A little wild. A little messy. Hair probably unwashed, feet definitely dirty, heart wide open. Some people call it grounding. I call it coming home. When my bare feet press into the dirt, the grass, the sand, something inside me exhales. The noise quie

Have you ever left therapy feeling worse than when you started? Have you ever closed your computer screen and thought… what the hell am I paying this therapist for? Maybe you came in feeling okay. Maybe even good. And somehow, in less than an hour, you left feeling raw, emotional, and wondering why you opened that door in the first place. Now you have feelings you didn’t expect. Maybe a little homework. Maybe a lot to think about. And part of you wonders: Why am I eve

I moved a week ago. It feels strange to even write that not because moving is unusual, but because I haven’t moved in 14 years, and because this is only the second time in my entire adult life that a move wasn’t tied to a partner, a roommate, or some survival-based transition. Two years after the divorce, we leave the home that sheltered our memories and stitched us back together. What once held our healing now releases us to the softness and joy of a new place. But this move

I wasn’t a difficult pregnancy.But I was born into a life that didn't want me... My parents were just 18 when I arrived—teenagers trying to raise a baby while navigating chaos, domestic violence, and a constant lack of stability. Somewhere in that storm, the story formed that I made everything worse. I was told I was a “bad baby.”Too loud. Too needy. Too much.So much so that when my mom got pregnant with her third child—my brother—people cried. They offered condolences, hel

People love mentally ill folks when they don’t know we’re mentally ill. When they think the quirks are charm, the humor is personality, the “different” is something interesting instead of something stigmatized. But the second the truth is shared—medication, diagnoses, history, healing—the entire tone shifts. Suddenly every emotion is a symptom, every reaction is an episode, every boundary is a disorder acting up. People stop listening to the person and start listening to the

Childhood trauma does not stay in childhood. It settles into the body. It becomes instinct. It quietly teaches us how to survive connection long before we ever learn how to feel safe inside it. We don’t grow out of trauma. We grow around it. And unless it is healed, it shapes every relationship we enter, romantic or otherwise. When love in early life was inconsistent, conditional, or required us to be smaller than we were, we did not learn what we deserved. We learned what we

In therapy, there are moments where disclosure can be helpful. Sometimes it builds connection. Sometimes it offers normalization. And sometimes disclosure is just about the therapist needing to say their own new thing out loud. Because of that, as therapists, we really have to stop and ask ourselves: is this disclosure for them, or is it for me? Those of you who work with me, have read my book, or have poked around our website know that I am bipolar. Bipolar doesn’t rule my l

Somewhere along the way, happiness got confused with comfort. And comfort got confused with “this is fine.” You know the feeling. Nothing is technically wrong… but nothing is really right either. You’re not miserable. You’re just… muted. Here’s the thing no one says loudly enough: happiness doesn’t magically appear when someone else changes. It shows up when you decide that your life—and your relationships—get to feel alive, honest, and nourishing. Yes, happiness is a choice

One of the reasons I became a therapist, and I say this proudly, is because my all-time favorite movie is The Prince of Tides with Barbra Streisand. She was the coolest therapist I had ever seen. She cussed, she didn’t apologize for being direct, and yes, she even threw something at a client once. I remember thinking, yep, that’s the job for me. If I wasn’t going to be a prison guard, therapist was the natural next step. Period. There’s a line in that movie that I’ve always

This week someone said to me, “I just want to know why.” Why something happened. Why someone hurt them. Why life unfolded the way it did. And it stuck with me, because I’ve asked those same questions. Why did this happen? Why wasn’t I enough? Why was I pushed away? Why, why, why. The truth is, we don’t always get the answer to the “why.” And sometimes we do get an answer—and it’s so absolutely ridiculous, so shallow, so wrong—that we almost wish we never asked in the first p

Values are basically the invisible rules you live by. The stuff that decides: whether you return your shopping cart, whether you apologize like a grown adult, or whether you just quietly blame the universe. They’re not fancy. They’re not complicated. But they matter… a lot. Because here’s the deal: If your idea of “respect” is “we talk things out,” and their idea of “respect” is “I go silent for six days and expect you to read my mind,” you’re not in a relationship — you’

A couple weeks ago, I had this brilliant idea for a post — at least, I thought it was brilliant — and I started writing about the “Let Them Theory.” In my heart of hearts, I was convinced the whole thing was complete bullshit. Like… cute idea, but absolutely not rooted in reality. And then the universe, which clearly loves to humble me, started flooding all my social media with takes, videos, and articles about the Let Them Theory. So I dug in. And holy. shit. I was wrong. (A

“Are We Evolving or Just Losing It?” — Surviving Relationship Transitions Without Throwing a Shoe or a fu$king fit… As we transition through relationships, there are levels. First, you’ve got to figure out how to go to the bathroom in front of each other without killing the romance. Then comes the delivery room, where you both realize there’s no such thing as privacy anymore. And before you know it, you’re sitting in couples counseling with me like, “Wait… all of this was p

As the year winds down and the holiday season begins to shimmer around us, I find myself reflecting not just on what we’ve accomplished at Wings of Change, but on who we’ve become in the process. Gratitude isn’t just about success; it’s about awareness. It’s about learning from the messy, imperfect, human moments that shape us. The 30-Day Challenge That Humbled Me At the end of September, I decided I was going to do something simple but powerful: for 30 days, I wouldn’t say a

Love isn’t always romantic. It’s the love we have for our children, our friends, our family, and even for the stranger in front of us at...

Life rarely waits for the “perfect moment” to get easier before asking us to smile again. Chaos doesn’t pause for us to catch our breath....