How a simple technique can help you approach your fears with curiosity — Like most of the country, I’m tuned in every week to NBC’s This Is Us to see what’s new with the Pearson family and to, undoubtedly, cry crocodile tears over a heartwarming moment. While I enjoy most every character on the program, I particularly love Beth and Randall’s relationship dynamic…

The refreshing and uncomfortable experience of positive anticipation in the middle of a pandemic — Attempts to increase vaccine accessibility accompanied with the CDC’s (controversial and confusing) updates about recommendations for vaccinated individuals have led many in the US to prep for re-entry into society. Social calendars are beginning to fill up prompting the vaccinated population to reflect on how they want to spend their…

According to relational-cultural theory, boundaries don’t have to be a rigid line of separateness — they can be a tool of connection and mutuality — Everywhere you look online it seems that people are talking about boundaries. A quick search through the 1 million Instagram posts tagged with the term highlights an assortment of content with the words no, stop, and enforce somewhere in the image or the caption. From my non-scientific research aka three…

Three key steps to turning compassion inward — As the great Tina Turner once famously said, “We never ever do nothing nice and easy.” These days so much of the collective focus is on hustling and grinding — attempts at trying to do and be more; however nebulous or out of reach this might seem on any given…

Try listening with a present mind and open heart — This past year has been brutal. The pandemic has left few unscathed with some people mourning intangible losses such as shifts in routines and sense of freedom, while others are grieving more tangible losses of loved ones, homes, and all sense of what they once knew. When being tasked as…

Revisiting Prince’s legacy five years after his death — With so much palatable Black pain and suffering, I thought, on the anniversary of his passing, that I’d share some musings on someone who provided me with so much Black joy. I wrote this the day Prince died. While some Black families consider themselves Jackson homes or Marvin Gaye residences…

When you acknowledge the weight you’re carrying, every step feels important — In the past year, many of us have had to alter, expand, or completely re-conceptualize the definition of progress to make room for the daily tasks that, one or two years ago, wouldn’t have appeared remotely noteworthy. You watered all of your plants? Congratulations. You finished reading that book you…

Curiosity can help you bridge the gap between intellectual understanding and emotional reality — I know better than this. Why am I still so stuck in my feelings? We’ve all been there — in that uncomfortable space between knowing something to be true, but the intellectual knowledge not being enough to fix or change the emotional experience. Maybe you last encountered this discrepancy after…

If we want to combat imposter syndrome, we have to stop thinking about it as an individual problem — “Facilitating adaptation to unhealthy systems does not lead to healthy development or fully lived lives.” — Arthur M. Horne I first learned about the imposter syndrome as a first-year counseling psychology PhD student researching articles for a class assignment. What I had always referred to as “self-doubt that doesn’t fully…