Mantra for the Week
“I do not need to make sense of everything I am feeling. I can allow myself to be witnessed in it.”
Let this meet you gently as you move through your next few weeks.
I am so incredibly grateful for the “work” I get to do.
To hold space for another human being, to be invited into the places they don't show everyone, is such an honor.
And after long relationships with clients, sometimes the lines can feel a little blurry.
Are we friends?
Maybe?
But not really.
There isn't the reciprocity of friendship. You don't know the details of my life the way I know yours. You don't hold space for me when I'm falling apart. The relationship is intentionally oriented toward you.
And yet, there is reciprocity.
Because I get so much from this work, too.
Humanness truly fascinates me from the inside, and always has.
I am endlessly curious about how we become who we are. How our families shape us. How culture shapes us. How attachment shapes us. How entire societies and systems, systems human beings essentially created, can begin to feel so permanent that we forget we made them in the first place.
And right now, so many of those systems feel like they are breaking.
Maybe some of them need to.
Joanna Macy described this period as The Great Turning: the movement from an industrial growth society toward a more life-sustaining civilization. Her work doesn't ask us to bypass the grief, fear, anger, or uncertainty that comes with living through enormous change. It asks us to remain awake and engaged within it.
Watch Joanna Macy speak about The Great Turning here.
There is a quote often attributed to Jiddu Krishnamurti:
“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”
I think about that often in my work.
Because sometimes anxiety is anxiety.
Sometimes depression is depression.
Sometimes trauma has deeply affected the nervous system and needs care.
And sometimes our distress is also evidence that we are paying attention.
Being affected by what is happening around us (feeling grief, anger, disorientation, uncertainty) doesn't automatically mean something has gone wrong inside of us.
Sometimes it means we are in touch with our humanity.
And if we are all living through this together, shouldn't therapy make room for that?
Shouldn't a therapist be another human being who is also here, grounded enough to accompany you through your experience rather than standing outside of it, analyzing and pathologizing the way you're moving through it?
This is one reason the work of psychologist Dr. Shari Geller resonates so deeply with me.
Geller's research on therapeutic presence describes presence as bringing one's whole self into the therapeutic encounter: physically, emotionally, cognitively, relationally, and even spiritually.
Her research has found that when clients experience their therapist as present, they report stronger therapeutic alliance and positive change.
In other words, technique matters.
Training matters.
Knowledge matters.
But there is something underneath all of it:
Can I actually be here with you?
Can I remain grounded while you are grieving?
Can I stay curious when you don't have an answer?
Can I resist the urge to immediately turn your pain into a diagnosis, solution, coping skill, or homework assignment?
Can I trust that something meaningful might happen simply because another human being is willing to stay?
Geller describes therapeutic presence as helping create the conditions for someone to feel met, understood, and safe enough to move toward their own natural wholeness.
Maybe that is one of the most important things therapy offers.
Witnessing.
We are relational beings.
We were never meant to figure everything out alone.
There is something profoundly healing about allowing another person to see what is actually happening inside of you (the grief, contradiction, anger, longing, confusion, beauty, fear, expansion) and discovering that none of it makes them leave.
Being witnessed in your own process of unfolding is not indulgent.
Allowing yourself to be fully seen, even if the person witnessing you is your therapist, is an act of self-love and self-care.
This is much of the intention behind my PUPS: Pop Up Process Sessions, or Personal Unfolding Processing Sessions :)
You don't have to be in crisis. You don't have to have a diagnosis. You don't even have to know exactly what you need to talk about.
Maybe something is shifting.
Maybe you're grieving.
Maybe an old identity doesn't fit anymore.
Maybe you're noticing patterns you can't quite name.
Maybe you're changing faster than the people or structures around you.
Or maybe you simply need somewhere to bring the experience of being you right now.
PUPS are a space to be witnessed in that unfolding.
No fixing. No performing wellness. No requirement to arrive with a problem that needs solving.
Just space for whatever is here.
No fixing, just unfolding. Schedule a 60 minute session here; a 45 minute session here. And of course, you're always welcome to get (back) on my regular schedule.
A Simple Grounding Practice: Let Yourself Be Here
Before moving on to the next thing, take 60 seconds.
Feel whatever is supporting your body right now.
Notice your feet.
Notice your breath without changing it.
Let your shoulders soften.
And ask yourself:
What is here in me right now that I have been trying to fix instead of simply allowing myself to feel?
You don't have to do anything with the answer.
You don't even have to understand it.
Take one slow breath and imagine offering that part of yourself the same presence you might offer someone you deeply love.
You are allowed to be witnessed, even by yourself.