Good therapy isn’t about fixing your problems– it’s so much more than that! Good therapy is about having a safe place to unpack those problems, figure out what’s lying underneath those problems, understand their impact on you and your life, and having a support as you begin to deal with those problems in whatever manner befits it, whether that’s acceptance or change. A good therapist will be a companion on that journey.

But realizing that I can’t change them has also been freeing, because now I am no longer burdened with a task that has always been impossible.

If shame thrives off of secrecy, silence, and judgment, then the opposite of those things is honesty, vulnerability, and empathy.

Week 6 – Mid-Week Update I’ve been making friends in my therapy program, and it’s been awesome, but it also has been making me a

The basis of nonviolent communication is compassionate communication, in which there is no violence, anger, or blame present within the heart, with a goal of allowing everyone’s needs to be met through the innate sense of compassion present within all of us.

The response another person’s pain calls for is empathy, which requires that we are “willing to be present to someone’s pain” (Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart, pg. 122) – not that we feel their pain for them, but that we are capable of and willing to sit with the uncomfortable feelings that arise when we see someone else in pain.

Feelings of Inferiority Recently in group we talked about resentments, not in the sense of what we usually consider resentment, but in the sense of

Mental Illness x Art This weekend I came across a song that’s been living rent free in my head since I saw it. It’s not

I can still hold them accountable, while understanding that they had a context and a history and trauma in their past too; they could have done their best with the circumstances they had AND their best could’ve been not good enough; I can empathize with them and still know that they mistreated me.

It’s very easy to go from sending the message that you’re there for someone when they’re in need, to sending the message that you’re only available when they’re in need.

Learning to Let Go This weekend I wasn’t able to read much of my current book, Atlas of the Heart by Brené Brown, but I

The idea of dialectics is that there are many aspects to any one thing, and that there is a middle path that we can take, rather than seeing things as all great or all terrible, all painful or all wonderful. Dialectics is essentially the idea that the world is not black and white, but a full spectrum lies in between, and that the things that we face in our lives are usually somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, not on either end.

The first week of my DBT program as well as reading Brené Brown’s Atlas of the Heart have inspired me to work on staying connected

“What we regret most are our failures of courage.” – Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart, pg. 53

The DBT Mindfulness Scale Today’s the end of the first week of group, and I think it’s gone pretty well. One of my favorite things

  I started my new intensive outpatient program (IOP) this week on Monday. It’s a dialectical behavioral therapy(DBT)-based curriculum. For those who are unfamiliar, here’s