Beyond the Armchair
In my armchair - therapists carry loss, and pain, and grief. Megan Devine, a licensed psychotherapist dedicated to grief work, emphasizes that inside grief tending can be incredibly healing. A plant, a pet, a cake… your time in the shower. I find this the most invaluable piece of my practice, over and over again: tending as a licensed professional counselor keeps my life’s things in perspective.
Please help your “strong” friends, too
We abandon strong people when we assume they don’t need our help; this arises out of our misunderstood definition of what it is to be strong. We overlook the mess made to survive trauma. A lack of rest, of expressed sadness or fear, a perceived lack of weakness gives us cause to turn our heads the other way. To avoid offering a helping hand. The mess a strong person created is theirs alone to manage. Then, mystified, we click our tongues when the strong fails to get up after another round. When did they become so weak?