Pacific storms continue to pound the Bay Area as of late and beyond absolute wonder at how hail and summer heat can emerge simultaneously within the span of ten minutes, I’ve felt a respect for nature that has, at times, transcended words.

It’s March of 2020 and I emerge from a session to hear swirls of chatter racing, billowing from the back office at my then-clinical training center. “They’re saying it might grow to pandemic levels”. “Do you think it’s gotten to San Francisco yet?”. “There’s no way we’ll all have to work from home, right? Can you imagine doing therapy online?”

Knowledge is often framed to us as power. Yet, for many of us, we’ve approached knowledge as a single-mindedly intellectual pursuit when I’m here to argue that it is, in fact, a full body experience.

Something happens when your 20’s and 30’s fade into the distance, and you’re confronted with the 4th, 5th (and beyond) decades of life. We face all the things we thought we would be and grieve all the things we’re not.

In my last post, I introduced the topic of boundaries with the hope of supporting those of you who may need them as we simmer in the lollapalooza that is the holiday season. I talked about what a boundary is, the choice it offers, and the enormous implications it has on our and others’ well-being.

We’ve officially entered the portal that is the collection of days between October 31 and January 1, where time either speeds up to a nauseating rate or slows down to barely perceptible levels.

At some point in the meanderings of long-term therapeutic work, there comes a time when a person begins to confront the ways in which they play a key role in perpetuating their own pain. It’s one of my favorite parts of therapy - when we start to question our subjectivity, the ways we contribute to our (and others’) suffering, and free ourselves from our own mental cages.

Years ago, I took a research methods class as part of my master’s program. For context, most of the psychology curriculum at CIIS was centered on understanding the depths of human experience. We studied psychoanalytic frameworks, Gestalt, trauma-informed therapy, transpersonal psychology, humanistic-existential therapy models…you know - the juicy stuff.

As a therapist, I have considered the pros and cons of blog writing since I started seeing clients in 2018 (in good old pre-pandemic life when you knew what your mental health professional looked like from the neck down).