We all know the feeling: racing heart, racing thoughts, vibrating body, sweaty palms, shallow breathing. This is us humans’ - and actually all mammals’- way of springing into action. It’s very useful, except when it’s not. Everyone feels anxious sometimes: do I need to get out of the way of this speeding car? did that interaction go okay? How will this _____ (fill in the blank: performance, meeting, project, decision, trip etc) work out? And it may not be bad to experience once in a while: it can mean that you deeply care about whatever you are worried about and trying to think through growing and nourishing it.

The question for me is how much of your space and energy is anxiety occupying? Another way of thinking about this is ‘who is leading the boat?’ has your anxious part trapped you in the hull of the boat and started steering, or is it helpfully playing its role on the crew (‘watch out for this ice berg coming up!), and allowing you, the Captain, to ultimately make the important calls.

Learning to mindfully pay attention to the topography of your anxiety- the physical sensations, thoughts/words, images, and emotions that come up for you- will help you develop a working relationship with your anxiety. You’ll be able to listen to your anxious part without being overtaken, and it can begin to trust that ‘you’ve got this’, and therefore become less intense.

Whether you’ve been struggling with intense anxiety for years and would like a new way of relating to it or are more recently noticing that your go-to is anxiety and are curious about doing things differently, working together in this way can give you a sense of choice that you will cherish.

You know the symptoms: feeling continuous sadness, or walking through your day numbed out to emotions and feeling shut down. Having trouble getting going in the morning, physically taking care of things (eating properly, sleeping, getting dishes or plans done), perhaps separating from friends and family when you most need support. Criticizing yourself (I’m lazy, if I only had more willpower, what’s wrong with me?) or losing faith that the feelings and situation you’re in won’t last forever.

Or maybe it feels less extreme than that, but there’s a constant lack of ease and low grade sadness, a feeling of there being an invisible barrier between you and your life that others may not even know is there.

Depression is tricky, especially when we live in a culture that demands action and showers us with criticism (that we’ve internalized) when we don’t meet its expectations for success.

And yet, depression may be your body’s way of telling you that you must stop and listen. That you can’t prod and push and perform anymore based on your own and others’ expectations: that you must, for your own health, stop and give yourself the space to slow down and find out what you really need in order to be here, in your body, in this world, living out your life.

Sounds scary? You might be thinking: ‘if I slow down, I will literally grind to a halt- I’m already barely moving forward’, or ‘if I slow down and let myself really feel, I will be overwhelmed and never come out of it’. And the truth is: you know for yourself what you can handle and when. It may be that at this moment, managing to function somehow, and numbing out as much as you need to, is just what you need, and having a therapist just hold that reality with you, is just right.

But maybe you are in a place where there is some opening to listen to the sadness and the numbing in a different way, to learn how it’s been trying to help you and what you need, to soften where softening is available, and to get to know yourself, your strength and your pain, and the love that you are capable of: the complex reality of this human life more fully. I can help you be with yourself in a way that honors where you are and helps to soothe the expectations and criticisms about that. Just that practice can open a door, open your lungs, and give you clarity about the next step for healing, and the next, and the next.

‘The only thing that is constant is change’ -Heraclitus

True, and yet, none of us can gracefully flow with it all the time. Whether a painful death or an exciting birth (by which I mean all endings and beginnings: relationships, creative endeavors, settings…), our habits of holding and protecting ourselves from potential pain, regret, and disappointment, can take over our experience, and leave us gasping for air.

Sometimes the change isn’t even yet perceptible to someone outside of you: you may be envisioning a change or there is a death of an old self or pattern, and an emerging birth brewing on the inside, and the external changes will come later, but the discomfort of change is definitely perceptible to you.

Either way, the process is often the same.

To allow the change to unfold in a way that is authentic to our spirit requires trust and practice, and we often need support with this process.

How do I stay present and loving to the parts of me that are freaked out and want answers, to know how this will turn out?

How do I help myself soften and get connected to the part of me that knows that I am fine, and will be fine? The part that knows that I need to ride this out: pain, loss, fear, happiness, buzzy excitement, numbness, and that when I’m present to myself, I really can’t go wrong?

Transitions are often painful, scary, and life-transforming times. They enable us to be with our habits of holding ourselves tight, and to do things differently, change the story line.

Finding out what it’s like to soften into reality rather than debating with it, bracing against it, numbing it out, and all the usual shenanigans that we’ve developed over the years, gives you a sense of choice, strength and endurance that you can use for the next change, and the next and the next….

Self-expansion -allowing yourself to be/show up in the world as big as you are- is what happens when we work regardless of what the initial impetus for therapy is (depression, anxiety, transitions etc), and yet it is such a major outcome, that I wanted to honor it with its own page.

I find that the people I work with ‘grow out of’ or ‘into’ their life situations in a major way. Whether moving on from a job, creating, embracing more fully, or moving into work that you are passionate about, ending relationships or stepping into/deepening relationships, moving somewhere new, or showing up somehow ‘bigger’ and more confident in your life just as it is, there is an energetic ‘bigness’ that you embrace when you commit to practice listening deeply and lovingly to yourself.

I often work with bright, creative people, who are externally functioning, creating, and producing at a high level, and yet are feeling like the fullness of their energy is stuck somehow, that old patterns are holding them back from showing up, shining their light, and living their lives to the fullest. Clients literally come to trust their legs, their lungs, and their wings to take off.