Writing About Therapy, Health, and Change

"Passive-aggressive" gets thrown around a lot, usually as an accusation aimed at someone else. But most of us have done it too: given a clipped "no worries" when there were, in fact, worries. Agreed to help and then quietly let it slide. Said yes and complained about it to everyone except the person who actually needed to hear it. At some point the term became a catch-all insult, which means it's lost a lot of its actual meaning. So what is it, really, and how does it fit int

People with autoimmune disease are sometimes told that stress is making them sick. Others encounter the opposite problem: medical care focuses entirely on the body, while the psychological effects of illness, pain, frightening symptoms, and difficult medical experiences receive little attention. Neither approach is adequate. Research increasingly demonstrates a relationship between trauma-related mental health conditions and autoimmune disease. That does not mean trauma is th

This is the practice-only version of the guided exercise from my YouTube channel. If you feel exhausted but alert, tired in your body but unable to settle, you can return to this practice as often as you need. It’s not designed to force sleep. It’s meant to reduce the fight with being awake and help your nervous system soften. Some people use it occasionally. Others come back to it nightly for a period of time. You don’t need to do anything special. Just listen.

The first time you feel sharp pain in your chest, your mind goes to the worst place. Heart attack. You might end up in the ER, or you might spend hours on Google at 2 a.m., convincing yourself something is seriously wrong. Either way, the fear is real. Then the tests come back clear. Your heart is fine. Your lungs are fine. The relief is immediate, but it doesn’t last long. Because the pain is still there, and now you’re left with a diagnosis that doesn’t feel like much of an

If sleep has been a struggle, this post is not about doing it “right.” Supporting sleep, even imperfectly, can make other kinds of change more possible.

Being told to take the high road often ignores how much effort it takes to get there and how exposed it can feel once you do.