The Therapist Diaries

 Hello and Welcome Back to The Therapist Diaries,  As the holiday season approaches, many people find themselves pulled in different emotional directions. There’s excitement, connection, and celebration, but there can also be stress, overwhelm, and the pressure to make everything feel “just right.” If you’re noticing your shoulders creeping up toward your ears or your mind moving faster than you'd like, you’re not alone. This is a time of year when mindfulness can become a gentle anchor, something steady to return to when everything else feels a bit chaotic. This year is the first year that I'll be spending the Christmas holiday away from my parents and while I'm very excited for the plans I have made, a few days ago I suddenly found myself overwhelmed with the anticipation of juggling work, travel, cooking my first dinner, and the feeling that everything needed to be perfect. After having a good crying session and talking it through with my loved ones, I stopped and took a...

 Hello and Welcome Back to The Therapist Diaries,  In the United States, many of us have just wrapped up celebrations for Thanksgiving, a holiday where friends and family come together and enjoy each other's company. It's not, however, always as joyful as it seems. As many of you know, one of my gigs as a Trauma Therapist is to work for the Mobile Crisis Hotline. This week I went to assess a teenager at the hospital, and she said something which really struck me. She said, "I hate it when the house is full of people. I feel so lonely, and I hate it." At first, I thought she had misspoken. What does she mean she feels lonely when the house is full of people? Surely that makes her feel the opposite. I asked her to repeat herself and she said the same thing again. She hadn't misspoken the first time; I just hadn't  heard  her.  The truth is that loneliness is a complicated emotion, and it often shows up in ways that don’t seem to make sense. Many people come ...