Do you feel guilty when you say no or set boundaries? Learn why boundary guilt happens, how trauma and emotionally immature parents play a role, and how to advocate for your needs without guilt.

Womens support groups are a powerful way for you to deepen your therapeutic healing. Feel less alone, learn something new, and make connections with other people going through the same challenges. Read this blog to learn what the benefits of support groups are, what to expect, and how to make the most out of your experience.

Do you find yourself constantly criticizing yourself and being super harsh with yourself? Struggling to be kind, patient, and compassionate to yourself? Yet, you are all of those things to your loved ones? If you resonate with having a harsh inner critic always telling you why you are not good enough, this blog is for you. Self-compassion is the act of practicing kindness to yourself, the way you would a loved one, when you are suffering or struggling.

Rescuing is a term that describes an unhealthy version of helping/support. The lines can be blurred, but rescuing is more about enabling, trying to fix other people’s issues, and to change people. 

I will go over what rescuing looks like, why rescuing happens, and what is enabling & rescuing vs supporting in the context of relationships, and how to stop rescuing others.

I do want to mention that rescuing is can be an indicator of a codependent relationship and tendency. It is also a sign of an enmeshed dynamic whether with a friend, partner, or family member.

People pleasers are those who appease other people constantly, while self-abandoning, to try to make other people happy or like them for a variety of deeper reasons. You can read more in depth to see if you resonate with these signs of a people pleaser or if you’d like to understand people pleasing from a relational trauma perspective - fawning if that’s how it was developed for you.

The sad thing about people pleasing and always neglecting yourself to make the other person “happy,” is that you lose yourself in the process.

Most clients I work with that people please or struggle with codependent like habits are so used to putting other people above them self, so they don't even know what they want or what they need when they think on it. They lose their sense of trust, in themselves, their sense of self, and sometimes they are even unaware of their own desires, opinions, and values. So today we will talk about not only how to overcome people pleasing, but some ways to rebuild the trust in yourself because that's a huge component to healing after people pleasing. Here are the 8 steps.

Codependency is often a word that can be stigmatized or just not understood. I will share what it is and how it looks in relationships, however if you want to learn even more on the signs check out an old blog here. Today, I will explore the connection how relational trauma, family dynamics, and other patterns in your childhood have developed into codependency in relationships.

What is codependency? And What are signs/patterns of codependency?

It's a pattern in relationships where you are chronically neglecting yourself, prioritizing the other person's needs, feelings, and problems over your own. Codependency at its core holds a lot of self-neglect, self-abandonment, and avoidance of yourself in the pursuit of getting your sense of self & identity, validation, needs, and purpose from other people.

When it comes to codependency in particular, it mostly formed from relational trauma, unhealthy family dynamics, or attachment styles. They center around 5 types:

• Emotionally immature parents & destructive parentification

• Family members or loved ones with addictions, severe mental health, or caregiving

• Toxic relationships with narcissists or emotional abusers

• Enmeshed family dynamics & modeling

• Abandonment & attachment wounds

Two of the most common emotions I see with survivors of trauma, people pleasers, perfectionists, codependents, people who struggle with low self esteem, and accompanying those who are anxious are shame and guilt. They can be all-consuming, visceral, and impact our mental health. Today I will dive into both, the differences, along with tips to overcome.

So often in my therapy sessions, I hear my clients talk about doing just about everything and anything besides being alone. I live in NYC and that's an overstimulating environment, so I know we are not always being set up for stillness. But what it comes down to is most of us these days not only have an addiction to stress, busyness, and chaos - but it's so just hard to sit and be with ourselves and our thoughts alone. You may even have anxiety when you are alone. Here are some reasons for it and tips to overcome fear of being alone.

An attachment style is the way you behave and show up in romantic relationships now, that was first created forming an emotional connection to caregivers when you were younger. While there is also a genetic component in your wiring, the way we interacted with our caregivers has SUCH a big impact growing up. When you get into an adult romantic relationship, our attachment style often comes out with romantic partners. This can also show up in friendships . An anxious attachment is is someone who shows up in relationships fearing rejection and abandonment and never fully feeling emotionally safe or secure. Before diving into the signs of anxious attachment here are some of the causes.

When our nervous systems are so overloaded and on overdrive for so long or we've experienced trauma time and time again - sometimes we experience what's called “functional freeze” which is your nervous system getting so overwhelmed and exhausted chronically that it then actually shuts down. So particularly if you feel chronically anxious, stressed, and overwhelmed constantly during the day - it might turn into “functional freeze” to help get you through the rest of the day or you crash at night and experience all of this. Or this may be your automatic response to a stress or trauma trigger. Here are some signs you are in a functional freeze response.

The holidays can bring up so much excitement, joy, love, and gratitude. They are often a time we associate with family, big meals, and tradition. We watch certain movies, see old friends, and get to exchange presents or have a traditional family style meal. There is so much joy and fun that may be felt. 

As a therapist, I am also quite mindful of the other feelings that commonly come with the holiday season. The holiday stress! It's not that you have to experience one or the other - joy vs sorrow, gratitude vs loneliness, ease vs stress. It's just that in addition to those experiences above, you may also experience some other hardships like grief, loneliness, extra stress, anxiety, sadness, or irritability. These are all normal.

Because holidays can be quite loaded with shedding light on complicated relationships or family dynamics, loss of loved ones or relationships, not having someone in your life you want, financial difficulties, or believing you are not where you’d like to be - I want to acknowledge some of the stress and challenges that may be triggered during this time. The flare ups of mental health challenges, regressions, and difficult emotions or experiences that you may have are common. Here are some common ones to be mindful of and tips to get through

Stress, anxiety, and overwhelm are all (most likely) familiar experiences and can happen at the same time or trigger one another. Today I wanted to break each one down so you can start examining which you are experiencing and need support with. This can help decide what you need to do to manage, decrease it, or cope with it.

I tend to stay away from calling people “toxic, narcissists, and gaslighters” especially in therapy because although its great w’eve shed so much light to those types of people - society has overused these words and we tend to slap these labels on anyone who’s behavior doesn’t align with ours. 

However, obviously there are people who fit the bill here and it’s important to know what some of these signs are that someone is toxic and may be bad for your mental health. I want to hold nuance though, I'm not describing someone who is necessarily a narcissist or sociopath (though a narcissist would absolutely have these traits too), a toxic person may also have some good qualities and could just need some therapy and support, but these are 5 warning signs of toxic unhealthy behaviors and tips on what to do.

Seasonal affective disorder is a type of depression, feeling down or sad, and loneliness that comes usually around late fall and winter. This is a very common phenomenon where nights get darker and colder quicker, holidays are coming which can be positive but also bring up a lot of complicated feelings around family, and many people generally feel down or depressed. The difference in weather and darkness has a biological impact on us and our ability to produce melatonin, so there is scientific impact here too. If you are proned to depression anyway or i f you experience this every year, especially on the east coast -you're not alone!

Sober curiosity is a movement for a person who is interested in exploring their relationship with alcohol, unsure if needing to go fully sober is the answer. It is questioning and being curious about their alcohol use and maybe even thinking about mindfully drinking, cutting back, or removing alcohol. This is someone who doesn’t identify with addiction, dependence, or the phrase “alcoholic.” Here is a sober curious guide on benefits of cutting alcohol use, who could use a break from alcohol, questions to explore your alcohol use, tips to take a break from alcohol or mindfully drink, and resources for alcohol use and sober curiosity.

Parentification is the reversal of roles between parents and child, usually in childhood and/or teen years where the child is still developing and maturing. While sometimes this will happen naturally, for the most part this can be quite impactful on the child which I will share more in the blog. When parents put responsibilities whether financially, logistically, emotionally, mentally, or physically it send messages to the child that their needs don’t matter, they are responsible for other people, and mature them before they are developmentally ready.

Hypervigilance refers to the heightened state of awareness, being overly alert of your surroundings, and scanning for threats and danger. Hypervigilance in relationships or anxiety in relationships looks like different and is often a response to relational trauma, attachment issues, or other ways your caregivers parented. Here are some signs and explanations of why you are hypervigilant and anxious in your relationships.

Anxiety is a feeling of fear, dread, and uneasiness like an impending sense of doom that something is wrong. It is often accompanied by worrying, fearing about the future, and also shows up physically. Here are some other signs of anxiety and 6 ways to manage it from a holistic therapist.

Self sabotage happens when we intentionally OR unconsciously hold ourselves back from progressing, growth, and allowing something positive for us in. Usually self sabotage happens from deep rooted beliefs about ourselves, fears, and unconscious behaviors. We typically don’t even realize we are even doing it.

The question may be, why? Why would we not want good things for ourselves? Well, here are 5 reasons!

I do want to point out that you don't need to wait to start therapy until you’re at a rock bottom, dealing with a crisis, or in the depth of a major mental health issue. Yes these are clearly good reasons to be in therapy, but there are plenty of other reasons you may want to go. And for the most part, I believe anyone can benefit. Here are 10 experiences that you may be going through that are signs it’s time to start therapy.