Good therapy promotes centeredness and a deep respect for truth. Good therapy helps us own ourselves and bring our gifts without concern for approval. We know our worth and celebrate the gifts of those around us. Good therapy makes us available to connect with others in community without compromising who we are, maximizing the gifts of all. Good therapy is #Resistance.
This Monday is the day we celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday. The irony of it also being a day when we inaugurate a President who stands against pretty much everything Dr. King stood for is just… I don’t even have a word for it. Remaining true to my preferred IndigenousThink ways, I will flood the space with what’s good and endeavor to make the rest irrelevant...
If you want to make a surface change that will ultimately leave you starting over again and again wondering what you did wrong, try to change a habit without healing the unhelpful stories that have been driving the behavior you don’t want. If you’re ready to get off of the hope-no hope-hope-no hope treadmill, read this!
If we are to move toward positive change in our communities and culture, we need you at full strength. Do not allow anyone or anything reduce you.
Hard autumn winds don't just blow away leaves; They can also blow away the things in our lives that no longer belong. Listen to find out what else trees can teach us about transformation and healing.
Many times when I start to feel wobbly about current or imagined future circumstances, I look to the trees. In addition to giving off an amazing energy, I’m struck with the reality that many of the trees I encounter have been standing here for centuries. We have changed and challenged their landscapes again and again, and yet, they are still here. As we move into literal Winter, and also a time in our life as a Nation that is likely to be quite challenging, I encourage you to carefully consider the trees...
The term “Andante” is a musical tempo. An Andante is a moderately slow, gentle pace. If you listen to the beginning of Carl von Weber’s "Andante e Rondo" you can hear what I mean. Notice how it just keeps rolling on, with a lilt here and lilt there? That’s Andante. 14 years ago, a different kind of Andante came into my life in the form of floofy little rescued “accidental” Lhasapoo. Since my daughter and I are both musicians we wanted to give him a musical name. We decided on Andante, and called him Dante for short. He has always just kept rolling on with a little lilt step here and there. That’s our Dante...
Not so long ago, we were all forced into a relationship that took precedence over many of our human relationships, including our relationship with ourselves. This relationship demanded the energy that belonged to other relationships, much like an affair. We all had a kind of forced affair with a pandemic. Just like we do in long term relationships with humans, we made compromises in order to do it well. We let go of things we like to do, the way we dress and spend our leisure time; The things that define and distinguish us. Now that we have broken up with the pandemic, (hopefully for good,) it’s time to reassess the things we’ve given up.
Feeling stressed about the outcome of the 2024 election? What if you could be ok NO MATTER WHAT?
Have you ever thought you had one kind of relationship with someone only to feel burned as you discover they had a totally different understanding of what you were to each other? Let's get up under some of those disconnects and offer a different way forward.
Here’s our third story in the “Story Time” series, “Three Young Eagles.” Let’s see what some discomfort can do for us!
"When we lose everything; When our stability is literally washed away, there is no help that will seem like enough... Trauma and grief are most often entwined. As such, in the aftermath of disasters, most of us do some iterations of Jack Worden's "Four Tasks of Mourning..."
Here’s the second story in the Story Time series, “The Anglerfish and the Squid.” I’ll meet you in the ocean!
It can be a tall order to stay informed about traumatic events like the recent hurricane, determine how we can be helpful, and not become traumatized in the process. Click here to find out more!
"The stories we tell literally make the world. If you want to change the world, you need to change your story. This truth applies both to individuals and institutions.” (Michael Margolis) In the recent “Tell Me a Story” blog series , I mentioned that storytelling...
“We are cured when we no longer have disease. We are healed when we are restored to community.” (Dr. Lewis Mehl-Madrona ) Cured? Most religious faiths have some sort of tradition around asking their understanding of the Divine to heal people of this or that...
Apologies carry the seeds of intimacy. Depending on how we handle them, we can either flourish or destroy that seed. Click here to find out more!
Psychiatrist, Neurologist and Lakota-Cherokee descendent, Lewis Mehl-Madrona, defines “healing” (as opposed to “cure,”) as being reconciled to community and to self. Storytelling in both Lakota and Cherokee traditions does exactly that. Stories remind us of what is true, support that healthy story of who we are, and remind us that we belong to something greater than just ourselves...
“He allowed himself to be swayed by his conviction that human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but that life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves.” (From Love in...
“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” (Maya Angelou) The Power of Story When we as human beings listen to stories, the neurons in our brains light up in a complicated and unique way . We tend to do what...
“To questions of life, chocolate gives an answer articulated in many chunks and flakes.” (Fabrizio Caramagna) Do you like chocolate chip cookies? Scotch tape? Do you like listening to music in your car? From the Ashes Toll House Cookies and their chocolate chips were invented...
“We can ignore the consequences of gravity, but remember, the consequences of gravity will not ignore us.” (Anonymous) The Anti-Hangover There's a new product on the market I keep hearing about on the radio. I won’t name it here because I don’t have the bandwidth...
“Trauma is a fact of life. It does not, however, have to be a life sentence.” (Peter Levine) Trauma Steals Imagination ME: Do you feel like drawing today? KID: Ok. ME: What do you want to draw? KID: I dunno. What should I draw? ME:...
“The first thing you should know about me is that I’m not you. A lot more will make sense after that.” (From a meme spotted on social media) From the Preamble of the American Counseling Association’s Code of Ethics: Professional values are an important way...
“If Freud saw my therapy practice? He’d need a therapist.” (Anonymous) A Well-Reasoned Decision To clarify, this is part two of a three-part series designed to help people candidly consider whether therapy might be useful for them at this time. If this is a decision...
“Steve” By Tiffany Sankofa pieces of my soul scattered weekly on your couch; You hand them back to me, one at a time, helping me decide what stays, where it goes, what i release, and what never belonged to begin with. This Isn’t For You...
“When your intentions are pure, you don’t lose anybody; They lose you.” (Nipsey Hussle) Feelings 101 I haven’t reviewed this in this space for some time, so it bears repeating: Emotions are the chemical firings that occur in our bodies as a result of the...
“God help you if you are a big girl, But too skinny is also your doom, Cuz everyone harbors a secret hatred, For the skinniest girl in the room; “So squint your eyes and look a bit closer I'm not between you and your ambition,...
“In a world obsessed with status, let our compassion and empathy define us.” ( Henry Johnson Jr.) All the Splains Mansplaining . Whitesplaining . Straightsplaining . Thinsplaining . ‘Splaining ‘splaining ‘splaining. Our culture appears to be obsessed with positional jousting. We are drowning in hierarchical...
“Forever is composed of ‘nows.’” (Emily Dickinson) As mentioned previously, I am working on a course designed to help people achieve their goals based on how human beings actually think and act, in contrast to how we seem to think we act. We seem to...
“The land is the real teacher. All we need as students is mindfulness.” (Robin Wall Kimmerer) Spring Above Here in Maryland, we are a little strange when it comes to Spring. We are very excited when it warms up and then curse the universe when...
“Don’t be afraid of your fears. They’re not there to scare you. They’re there to let you know that something is worth it.” (C. JoyBell C.) A Message from “the Gods” In my reading the other day, I stumbled onto a short piece about the...
“Assumptions are the termites of relationships.” (Henry Winkler) Simple, But Not Easy As mentioned in this space previously, I’ve been doing some beading lately. I love how easy it is to make something beautiful with beads. The patterns look so complicated. It’s an illusion. Beading...
“If you never go out on the branch, you’re never going to get the best fruit.” (Sarah Parish) New Year, New Word While I don’t do New Year’s Resolutions, ( see why here ,) I do pick a word for each year. This word is...
Humans are pattern-seeking story-telling animals, and we are quite adept at telling stories about patterns, whether they exist or not.” (Michael Shermer) Weird Maryland As a child growing up in Maryland, I remember thinking that the Maryland state flag was really weird looking. It seemed...
“You can’t wake a person who is pretending to be asleep.” (Navajo Proverb) I’ve been hearing and reading an awful lot of people lately expressing surprise over how messed up things seem to be right now. Costs are going up, customer service has become a...
“Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars and change the world.” (Harriet Tubman) We Can Do Better I’m grateful that a lot of people have abandoned the...
“Santa had the right idea: Visit people once a year.” (Victor Borge) Holiday Lights December is a month filled with holidays of all kinds. Some are religiously oriented, some culturally oriented, and some exist just because we want some fun! I’ve noticed that a whole...
“ We must use money to heal where people are hurting and to stop more hurt from happening.” (From “ Seven Steps to Healing” by Edgar Villanueva in Decolonizing Wealth: Indigenous Wisdom to Heal Divides, second edition, copyright 2021, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc, Oakland, CA )...
“We need to put all our money where our values are.” (From “ Seven Steps to Healing” by Edgar Villanueva in Decolonizing Wealth: Indigenous Wisdom to Heal Divides, second edition, copyright 2021, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc, Oakland, CA ) How Much Can You Invest? Bearing in...
“We must build whole new decision-making tables, rather than setting token places at the colonial tables as an afterthought.” (From “ Seven Steps to Healing” by Edgar Villanueva in Decolonizing Wealth: Indigenous Wisdom to Heal Divides, second edition, copyright 2021, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc, Oakland, CA...
“We need space to share our whole selves with each other and understand we don’t have to agree in order to respect each other.” (From “ Seven Steps to Healing” by Edgar Villanueva in Decolonizing Wealth: Indigenous Wisdom to Heal Divides, second edition, copyright 2021,...
“We must acknowledge the wisdom of those excluded from and exploited by the system, who possess exactly the perspective and wisdom needed to fix it.” (From “ Seven Steps to Healing” by Edgar Villanueva in Decolonizing Wealth: Indigenous Wisdom to Heal Divides, 2nd edition, ©...
“We must apologize for the hurts we’ve caused.” (From “ Seven Steps to Healing” by Edgar Villanueva in Decolonizing Wealth: Indigenous Wisdom to Heal Divides, second edition, copyright 2021, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc, Oakland, CA ) Today we look at step two of Edgar Villanueva’s “Seven...
“We have to stop and feel the hurts we’ve endured.” (From “ Seven Steps to Healing” by Edgar Villanueva in Decolonizing Wealth: Indigenous Wisdom to Heal Divides, second edition, copyright 2021, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc, Oakland, CA ) As promised, this blog is the first installment...
“The only thing you have to fear is an elephant in your kitchen.” (Riley Eaton… my 8th grade Civics teacher) Just In Case… Fear protects us, but by nature, it overestimates threat. As such, fear cannot help but to create collateral damage. Fear is an...
“Play is the mediator of the visible and the invisible.” (Dora M. Kalff, Jungian Psychologist) Finding Fun Those of you who listen to my blogs on SoundCloud know that I end each recorded blog by saying, “Take care of yourself, care well for others, and...
“ Without lines, spaces have no definition.” (Anonymous) The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein arrived on the earth two years before I did. It was a popular book to read to young people as I was growing up. My memory of those readings is dusty...
"In every curving beach, in every grain of sand, there is a story of the Earth." (Rachel Carson) Stubborn Stuff Ever notice how sand finds ways to carry itself home from the beach with you? You might find yourself puzzling over sand in your dryer...
“Never try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.” (Robert Heinlein) You’re Not Listening! One of the more common wounds we human folk tend to carry into adulthood wraps around not feeling valued or heard. It can leave...
One of the most common repeated themes I’ve come across in a quarter century as a therapist is the childhood-instilled belief that we are Not Good Enough. In the limited scope of a child’s experience, the child assumes that the “big nostril people” know more...
“Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says, ‘I’ll try again tomorrow.’” (Mary Ann Radamacher) Rough Terrain My husband and I are both self-employed. While there is a lot of wonderfulness that goes along with...
“Don’t fear mistakes.There are none.” (Miles Davis) What We Tell Ourselves Does this sound familiar? “I really want to ____>fill in the blank with the change point of your choice.< I’m sick and tired of _____ >the opposite behavior and choice< This time I’m really...
“If you can't understand what your intuition is conveying to you, the key is to pay attention and listen to your body. It tells you everything that you need to know.” (Robin S. Baker) Respecting Emotional Data I frequently focus on self-regulation in my practice....
It is the best of times; It is the worst of times. (What Charles Dickens might have written if he had been alive in 2023.) Watch Out, Fingers Many of life's gifts come wrapped in barbed wire. I wrote about the barbed wire-wrapped gift of...
“Each generation must discover its mission, fulfill or betray it, in relative opacity.” (Frantz Fanon) Coming of Age My clients and those who follow me digitally range in generational identity from The Silent Generation down to Generation Alpha. Personally, I am an early Gen X....
"I don't measure myself by others' expectations or let others define my worth." (Supreme Court Justice, Sonia Sotomayor) Numbers Numbers Numbers The temperature numbers are going up and clothes are getting thinner. This time of year puts a whole lot of people face to face...
"You cain't always git whachu want, You cain't always git whachu want, But if you try sometime, you might find Ya git what you neeeeeeed." (Mick Jagger & Keith Richards -- see link HERE) Batter Up It's baseball season. Watch out for curveballs! Ok, ok,...
“‘No’ is a complete sentence.” (Anne Lamott) A Good Thing, and a Differently Good Thing I was in my office doing some contemplative writing the other day when my husband slipped in to give me a nice hug and a gentle kiss. He lingered there...
“Everyone is a good example of… something.” (Dr. Robert O. Burdette) Fear Makes Us Fragile Last week we looked at the challenge of fear with in-the-moment decisions. When we carry fear and fearful thoughts about the world around us over time, it can be a...
Our problem is not fear. Our problem is that we misuse fear. Haunted Mansion In the movie, Haunted Mansion, the children of one of the main characters appear with a pair of ghosts who have told the story of the Mansion and why they, (the...
“Expectations are …” (Yah, you know the drill by now. Thanks, Anne LaMott!) The Grains, the Fruits, the Critters… In the previous blogs in this series, we covered the way our culture has us going against the grain with seasons, with time, and with sleep....
“Expectations are (YUP… STILL) resentments waiting to happen.” (Yup… still Anne Lamott) Time Doesn’t Fit in Bottles In last week’s blog Against the Grain Part 2 , we covered how going against the grain of our seasons can foster Seasonal Affective Disorder. This week let’s...
“Expectations are (still) resentments waiting to happen.” (Still Anne Lamott ) Remember Myrtle? Remember our friend the crepe myrtle from last week’s blog ? She has some important seasonal wisdom for us. If we go into Autumn expecting to have the same energy and outlook...
“Expectations are resentments waiting to happen.” (Anne Lamott) Follow the Trees Imagine for a moment that you have never seen a crepe myrtle. (See this link if you really haven’t, or if you’re unsure.) Someone tells you that crepe myrtles are these beautiful, graceful, low...
The Grinch That Didn’t Steal Thanksgiving “We are all one child spinning through Mother Sky.” (Shawnee Saying) Full Disclosure: I Am the Thanksgiving Grinch I offer you 8 points of evidence: I hate turkey. (The bird – I have nothing against the country that sits...
“We’re all ‘crazy.’ ‘Sane’ just means you figured out how to make your particular crazy work for you and not against you, at least most of the time.” (Robert Davenport, one of my grad school mentors) All Things in a Circle As mentioned in this...
“If we aim at nothing, we are sure to hit it.” No More Therapists I got some interesting feedback when I ended a blog the other week with the idea that increased community empathy would likely lead to a greatly reduced need for therapists, and...
“Life is like an ice cream cone; You hafta lick it one day at a time.” (Charles Schultz as Charlie Brown) The Story in Our Heads I was having a conversation the other day with someone who is hard-struggling financially. We were talking about creative...
“A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle.” (James Keller) Two weeks ago, I wrote about Individual Empathy and how to use it well without burning out. Last week I covered Collective Empathy . This week, let’s broaden that circle one more time and consider...
“All Creation is one. What we do to one, we do to the entire web of Life.” (Chief Seattle, of the Suquamish and Duwamish) Collective Empathy Last week I wrote about empathy on the individual level . This week we will look at the collective...
“Never turn a single drowning into a double drowning.” (First Rule of Lifeguarding) Mirroring As infants, we lack the neural circuitry to regulate emotions for ourselves. We rely on the adults who care for us to scoop us up when we are in distress so...
“Life is a journey/ Not a destination/ There are no mistakes/ Just chances we've taken/ Lay down your regrets/ ‘cause all we have is now.” (India.Arie) Great Ideas Many of my fellow ADHD tribe members know what it’s like to be driving, or in a...
“Humans are pattern-seeking story-telling animals, and we are quite adept at telling stories about patterns, whether they exist or not.” (Michael Shermer) Are We There Yet? Are We There Yet? Are We There Yet? It’s very common in therapy for people to become frustrated with...
“There’s a voice that doesn’t use words.” (Anonymous) Cranial Hierarchy Traditionally, we have a strong bias against emotional and intuitive logic in the US. “Don’t trust your feelings,” is a phrase that I’ve heard more times than I can count. Many like to believe that...
“Trust yourself; You know more than you think you do.” (Anonymous) Seeing and Not Seeing As I mentioned in my last blog, ( “Why We Vacate” ) I recently spent some time at a very special cabin in the woods, ( Moonridge Cabin .) One...
“Sit in reverie and watch the changing color of the waves that break upon the idle seashore of the mind.” (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) As I mentioned in the People Are Not Mushrooms blog, we human folk rely on patterns to stay alive. As I also...
“We co-create our reality with others in unseen ways.” (Doug Dillon) Mountainous Perspective I’m a fan of mountains. I don’t love them quite as much as I love the ocean, but they do take my breath away. I’m told that I have not even seen...
“I don’t know why you say goodbye/ I say hello.” (Paul McCartney) Each Goodbye is Hello When we graduate from a school it’s called a “commencement.” By definition a “commencement” is a beginning. I don’t know about you, but when I go to a “commencement”...
“How do you get a ‘bikini body?’ You get a bikini. And put it on your body.” The People in Our Heads We all have “people in our heads.” Some like to call this self-talk, our inner children, the mean parents within; They are pieces...
Quordlers I am one of those people that plays Wordle and Quordle every day. (Fortunately for my social media friends, I’m not one of those people who posts their score every day. To each, their own.) I use the games to jumpstart my brain. Today,...
“Grace” is that thing that happens when we don’t expect ourselves or others to be anything but our stumbling, bumbling human selves, all full of mess and magic, doing the best we can as we learn forward. Lazy? Sometimes I'm only motivated enough to admit...
“Listen to the wind; It talks. Listen to the silence; It speaks. Listen to your heart; It knows.” (Native American Proverb) “Listen, or your tongue will make you deaf.” (Anonymous) Letting Go of Linus’ Blanket As more and more painful and difficult things happen in...
Being reactive and screaming might feel cathartic in the moment, but sustainable change is born out of centered responsiveness. Inde-WHAT-ence Day? It’s interesting to me that we are about to celebrate another “Independence Day,” right on the heels of a Supreme Court decision that goes...
“Adolescence is just one big walking pimple.” (Carol Burnett) Woohoo Middle School. Friend, what was your middle school, (or if you’re old like me, “Jr. High School”) experience like? Have you ever asked someone that and had them say, “Oh it was great! I loved...
“Love involves a peculiar, unfathomable combination of understanding and misunderstanding.” (Diane Arbus) This Is Us Let me start by saying that I am one of those people; The ones who cried every week at the TV show, This Is Us , and are feeling ridiculous...
On June 11, 1967, I was seven and a half months old. On June 11, 1967, my husband, Amari, was six and a half years old. On June 11, 1967, “interracial marriage” was illegal in the Commonwealth of Virginia and 20 other states. If Amari...
I have a cousin who is a school-based Social Worker and Peaceful Parenting Coach, (>shameless plug< ** Confluence Parenting, LLC.) He’s married to a dedicated, creative, tenacious public school Math teacher. They are also parents to two totally awesome young boys. As hard as the...
“Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional.” (Karen Casey) Expectations It’s often said, in various forms, that “expectations are resentments waiting to happen.” A lot of people I’ve shared that with, hate it. When I probe deeper it almost inevitably turns out that the naysayer has...
“Would it surprise you to hear that a man’s unhappiness is due in large measure to the way he is seeking after happiness?” (from The Seven Paths pub. by the Anasazi Foundation) I recently read, (ok, listened to,) the Kent Nerburn book, Neither Wolf, Nor...
“Take what you need. Give what you have. Live in harmony; Not competition.” (A saying found among many different Native American peoples.) Pearls of …well, something. If you have any age on you to speak of, you likely hear one or more of your parents’...
“Mothers are the Mt. Everest of Relationships.” (Tiffany Sankofa) Not That Kind of Blog So, before you go assuming that I had some wonderful relationship with my mother, we were best friends, blah blah blah… Please know this isn’t that kind of post. Neither is...
Have you ever noticed that large, rigid trees get uprooted or snapped during hurricanes? It’s the palm trees that survive: They can flex their heads all the way to the dirt and snap back up every time. It’s the water inside of them that makes...
“If you're in the middle of the ocean with no flippers and no life preserver and you hear a helicopter, this is music. You have to adjust to your needs at the moment.” (Tom Waits) Weird I went into the vet’s office the other day....
“Listening is a lost art that can be gracefully recovered in silence and solitude.” (Robert J. Wicks) Balance I usually pick a word to focus on each year. My word for 2022 is “balance.” I used to think of opposites as being at odds with...
“Give me knowledge that I might have compassion for all.” (Anonymous) An Un-Blog After spending several days going around in circles in my head over what to write this week, I’m going to take a different approach. As some of you know, I serve as...
** For those of you who are not “Dog People,” I promise… this blog is only secondarily about dogs. These are my “buddhas.” You have your own. My Life in Dogs I have shared my life with dogs for about 50 of my 55 years...
“…You can’t save time. You can only spend it. But you can spend it wisely or foolishly.” (from the Tao of Pooh, by Benjamin Hoff) That Russian Guy… and Us Ok, show of hands? How many people are contending with more anxiety now than they...
“There is no power for change greater than a community discovering what it cares about.” (Margaret Wheatley) Ukraine This isn’t about politics; This is about people. In October of 1949, Wasyl and Marie Pawluczkowycz gathered up their first three children and left their homeland, Ukraine....
"Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, the human race cannot survive." (The Dalai Lama) My husband, Amari, likes to do this thing he calls, “Turning the cube.” Whether it’s a news story, something he just read in his ravenous study of history...
“An identity would seem to be arrived at by the way in which the person faces and uses his experience.” (James Baldwin) Recap In Step One , you tuned into your gut brain and realistically assessed where you were in the Cycle of Readiness for...
If a flamingo can achieve balance standing there on one leg for hours, maybe I can too. Balance I was doing my morning meditation just now. I reached over to the wall to grab my dry erase board. I didn’t want to forget my focus...
Most People are “Expecting” this Holiday Season! “Expectations were like fine pottery. The harder you held them, the more likely they were to crack.” (Brandon Sanderson) While some of you are expecting babies… that isn’t what I’m talking about today. The rest of us are...
What people think in their hearts gets out, no matter how hard they try to hide it. (Munshi Premchand) Undercover Panic Attacks Have you ever watched reasonable enough, generally sane people turn into utter control freaks in a crisis? How about this one: You are...
"Holidays have this way of pushing us to do an inventory on whether our lives and relationships are what we want them to be or others are telling us they 'should' be, especially when people or dreams have died, when relationships reveal themselves as unhealthy, when people disappoint us or leave us or blow up our goals and dreams, when we feel like we are not measuring up to what and who we 'should' be? We are going to feel some very un-holiday-like feelings. "In other words, the field is ripe for both depression and grief. "Depression and grief are these obnoxious doppelgänger emotions. They can look so much alike on the surface, but they have opposite needs. It’s sort of like 'Starve a fever, feed a cold.' But fevers are obvious. Depression and grief? Not so much..."
The only thing you have control over at times is perspective. ~ Chris Pine What the heck is that?!?!?! That is an AFGO for Tiffany. That’s my car. And what I believe is ceiling paint. Yay me. Lemme explain. Cars and Life My current car...
“Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of overcoming it.” Helen Keller How We Traumatize We humanfolk think we are SO smart! And yet, that very thinking gets in our way and makes things worse all the time! When people go...
“I define vulnerability as uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure... Loving someone leaves us emotionally exposed. Yes, it's scary, and yes, we're open to being hurt, but can you imagine your life without loving or being loved?” (Brené Brown) A-Ha! I've been talking a lot about...
Where the ant sees a tree, the giraffe (barely) sees a twig. Cinder Ella Grace, and Family Cinder Ella Grace is a 16-year-old whose mother passed away when she was born. Her father, Ferdinand Grace, married the Widow Rocks when Cinder was 12 bringing her...
“Is not the whole world an illusion? And yet it fools everybody.” (Angela Carter) Who?? My mother was a big Dr. Who fan. My daughter is also a Whovian. Me? Not so much. However, having spent so much time surrounded by Whovians and Who references,...
"The court of human relationships does not pivot on justice; it pivots on connection." Politics are like gravity I have a lot of political opinions. It was a bit unavoidable. I grew up in and around DC, where the federal government is simultaneously everywhere, and...
“Security is mostly superstition.” (Helen Keller) Gone to the dogs, totally Last week we talked about not channeling our inner Zenifred. (You can catch up here .) Today I’ll pick on Andante. …Oh, don’t you start too! I tried to say something about Dante’s post-surgery...
“Inner stillness is the key to outer strength.” (Jared Brock) Many people reading this blog have had the pleasure of my assistant, Dr. Dante D. Dawg’s company. He is a gentle, quiet soul. He was never formally trained as a therapy dog. He seemed to...
“The notes I handle no better than many pianists. But the pauses between the notes - ah, that is where the art resides.” (Artur Schnabel) I wrote about the Alchemy of Words the other week. Today, I’d like to talk about the Alchemy of Silence....
Music does not exist without tension. However, too much tension quickly deteriorates into chaos. (Anonymous) >Someone< very near to this computer right now, **** might **** have recently learned that it is possible to destroy a guitar string by over winding it >coughcoughcoughmeculpacoughcoughcough.< That person...
“To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.” (Lewis B. Smedes) Nice idea That’s a nice idea, isn’t it? It’s right up there with the quote attributed to St. Augustine, “Harboring resentment is like drinking poison and waiting...
Al·che·my / ˈ alk ə mē/ noun 1. The medieval forerunner of chemistry, based on the supposed transformation of matter. It was concerned particularly with attempts to convert base metals into gold or to find a universal elixir. Similar: Chemistry , magic , sorcery ,...
“’No,’ is a compete sentence.” (Anne LaMott) If nothing else, the past 13 or 14 months has taught us the power of thinking outside of the box and challenging what has “always” been expected of us. My Stepfather, Charles, taught me something amazing about this...
“None are so empty as those who are full of themselves.” (Benjamin Whichcoat) The butter battle Imagine that you go to the grocery store. On the shelf, you see two packages of butter. The package on the left is in pristine condition, shiny and bright....
Sometimes we get so used to words that we look right through them. Have you ever really thought about the word, “’belonging?” We long to be. Just, to be; To be who we are, and still find ourselves connected to others. Isn’t that the dream? Belonging. Are you longing to be? To be seen? To be valued? To be joined? To be embraced? Some people are longing to be left alone, feeling crowded out by people who are nearby, but not safe-enough people to just “be” with. Our places of belonging hold up a mirror to show us who we are, what gifts we bring, and how we fit into something bigger than ourselves. Belonging shapes our sense of purpose and our sense of identity.
"Chaos does not mean total disorder. Chaos means a multiplicity of possibilities. Chaos is from the ancient Greek words that means a thing that is birthed from the void. And it was about that which is possible, not about disorder." (Jok Church) Therapist/Blogger M.I.A. Those...
Although the world is full of pain, it is also full of overcoming it. (Helen Keller) And then… So this has been a fun week… Regardless of where one’s politics land, the Capitol building being breached, two people killed and four others dead is just...
“Grief always comes bearing gifts. Unfortunately, they are sometimes wrapped in barbed wire.” Seeing clearly Welp… To be fair, I really did believe that 2020 was going to be a year of focus and clarity. I wasn’t wrong. I really wish it had been delivered...
“You find peace, not by rearranging the circumstances of your life, but by realizing who you are at the deepest level.” (Eckhart Tolle) There’s that internal locus of control again Well thank you, Eckhart Tolle. Frankly, there are an awful lot of circumstances of our...
“Before you heal someone, ask him if he’s willing to give up what made him sick.” (Hippcrates) Holiday challenges and New Year’s resolutions Given that most of us are now officially in one iteration or another of “the holiday season,” I thought it might be...
“If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water.” (Loren Eiseley) Maryland I grew up in semi-urban neighborhoods inside the DC Beltway. One of the things that I appreciate most about Maryland is that nearly anywhere you go, even in urban spaces,...
“Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.” (Chief Seattle, 1854) COVID marathon number six… I don’t know about you...
“People can’t hear what you don’t say. Thinking isn’t communicating.” ( Frank Sonnenberg) Asking and guessing My 23-year-old daughter explained the concept of “Ask v. Guess Culture” to me the other day. Apparently it’s been “a thing” for a while, but I missed it. The...
“When we don’t know who we are, we act like someone else” (Tiffany Sankofa) Yes, I am STILL on that… If you’ve worked with me or read my blogs, you know that this is a frequent and repeated theme for me. I want to revisit...
“Have a great day… No matter what.” Why suffer? I have been known to close texts and email exchanges with, “Have a great day… no matter what.” It seems that many people think I’m trying to be cute. I’m actually supporting a much, much more...
“I think... we have to really accept that anger is a normal human emotion that can be a positive force for change.” (Koren Zailckas) As many of you know, I’ve been taking a fiercely candid look at anger and rage for the past couple of...
[caption id="attachment_6052" align="alignnone" width="618"] (Illustration by Jazmyne Craig and Tiffany Sankofa) [/caption] “I accept chaos. I’m not sure chaos accepts me.” (Bob Dylan) What month is it? I’m going to share an embarrassing story with you. It’s only fair – people share their embarrassing stories...
"Happiness is not a goal; It’s a biproduct." (Eleanor Roosevelt) Why settle for just happy? I have a number of clients who are either naturally positive people, or who have worked hard to become so. It’s important to them to “look on the bright side,”...
”It has been said that time heals all wounds. The truth is that time does not heal anything. It merely passes. It is what we do during the passing of time that helps or hinders the healing process.” (Jay Marshall) Looking back and looking forward…...
I've been doing trauma work clinically for over 21 years. The arcs of personal trauma and community trauma are, not surprisingly, entirely parallel: There comes a time when we are strong enough, well-enough endowed at every level that we can boldly refuse our Perpetrator's definition...
“Hope begins in the dark.” (Anne Lamott) The eyes of a child… Children have a tendency to be more hopeful than adults as a general rule. Even, (and sometimes especially,) traumatized children can find and cling to what’s good, even when things are so very...
“Anger tells us something needs to change; Rage tells us something needs to heal.” ~ Tiffany Sankofa Afraid of Anger? Are you afraid of anger? I have to say, most people that walk into my counseling office are. You are not alone. However, you are...
Easier said than done, I know. However, we DO have the power to manage challenging situations well. First, calm your body and come out of Sympathetic Nervous System dominance so that you have access to your creativity and wisdom. (How? Go to www.TiffanySankofa.com/anxiety and I'll...
I hate snow. I hated snow through much of my childhood, then I hated it in Ohio for a year. By the time I had gotten through three years of living in Chicago? I was through . I've been utterly done with snow since at...
Where do feelings come from? Do they simply drop out of the sky and invade our minds? Is there some rampant toddler storming through our minds picking emotions off of a shelf and throwing them into play in our lives? Feelings often seem to be...
Growing up, I often heard the phrase, “Don’t trust your feelings!” as if feelings were some alien invader intent on destroying our lives. In truth, feelings are simply the chemical firings in our bodies that correlate with our assessments of situations. In a way, they...
Fear has the ability to derail us like few other emotions. It sneaks in and infiltrates our thinking without our awareness at times. We feel, “passionate” about an issue; convinced of a cause. When we peek behind the curtain, however, we find Fear quietly pulling...