If you made it this far and actually clicked on Reflections, first of all, thank you.
I appreciate you being here.
There is already a lot of information out there about mental health, healing, relationships, trauma, and all that jazz.
And a lot of it is really helpful.
But can I say something?
Sometimes it all starts sounding like... therapeutic crap.
I say that lovingly. 😂
People should absolutely communicate and write in whatever way feels authentic to them.
But I've noticed that the posts, reels, stories, and conversations that stay with me aren't usually the ones teaching me another psychological term.
They're the ones where someone shares something real.
Something from their own experience that makes me stop and think, Oh shit.
I know that feeling.
That's what I want Reflections to be.
A place to write about healing, relationships, culture, travel, parts, life experiences, things I've learned as a therapist, things I've learned simply by being human, and probably some things I'm still trying to figure out myself.
I have no expectation that everything I write will resonate with you.
If it does, great.
If it doesn't, that's okay too.
Maybe we've lived different lives.
Maybe we see something differently.
There's room for both.
So... who is the human behind the therapist?
One thing you should probably know about me is that English is my second language.
Which means I'm a big fan of simple words.
Sometimes I read mental health content and see phrases like negative cognitions, interpersonal effectiveness, or distress tolerance and think... what in the world?
I know what those things mean.
I went to school for this shit. 😂 But do we always have to talk like that?
You don't need to know the "right" words to tell me what happened to you.
You don't have to know whether something is a trauma response, an attachment wound, a negative cognition, a protector, or whatever psychological term TikTok taught us this week.
You can just tell me: "I don't know.
I feel like shit." Cool.
We can start there.
People aren't scripts
I remember learning how we were "supposed" to talk to clients in grad school.
We had something called SIM labs.
We would walk into another room and practice being therapists while being recorded live.
Meanwhile, the rest of the classroom watched us and later gave us feedback.
So basically... no pressure whatsoever. 😂
We practiced certain words, silence, eye contact, how to respond, what to say next.
In many ways, we were all learning versions of the same script.
And listen, I understand why.
We had to learn somewhere.
Those foundational skills matter, and I still use many of them today.
But experience taught me something that couldn't really be taught from a script: People aren't scripts.
Silence can be incredibly powerful for one person and painfully uncomfortable for another.
Eye contact can feel connecting to one person and unsafe, unfamiliar, or just plain awkward to someone else.
The "right" therapeutic words can create understanding.
Or they can create distance.
Culture matters.
Language matters.
Life experience matters.
The person sitting across from me matters.
I didn't stop using what I learned.
I stopped assuming it would work the same way for everyone.
You don't have to perform therapy for me
If you ever sit across from me in therapy, I don't want you worrying about whether you're "doing therapy right." I want you to tell your story in whatever way feels possible.
Need to show me the text messages from the person who hurt you or pissed you off?
YESS.
Show me.
Need to cry?
Cry.
Need a minute because you genuinely don't know what to say?
We can do that too.
Need to make a wildly dark humor joke in the middle of talking about something painful?
Uhm... yes.
I will probably understand.
And when something needs to be serious, trust me, it will be serious.
There are moments when humor isn't what someone needs.
There are moments when we need to slow everything down and give something painful the space it deserves.
I got you there too.
My approach isn't about making therapy casual.
It's about making room for you.
The invitation is simple: Come as you are.
And please tell me when I'm wrong
This one is important.
Therapists hold a certain amount of power in the therapy room.
I have the license.
I'm asking some of the questions.
I'm writing the notes.
And depending on your experiences with culture, healthcare, authority, therapy, or other systems, sitting across from someone in my position might already bring up some caution.
I get that.
There are parts of me that say approach with caution when I'm sitting across from someone who uses a bunch of words I don't understand, when I don't feel culturally understood, or when I get the sense that there's a "right" way I'm supposed to behave.
So I'm not going to pretend that a power dynamic magically disappears just because I'm a nice therapist.
What I can do is pay attention to it.
And part of that means you are allowed to disagree with me.
Actually, I want you to.
Tell me if something I say doesn't resonate.
Tell me if I misunderstood you.
Tell me if I made an assumption that doesn't fit your experience.
Tell me if something I said upset you.
And yes, tell me if something I said pissed you off.
I'm not perfect, y'all.
I'm going to get things wrong sometimes.
I might misunderstand what you meant.
I might miss something important.
Sometimes I'll pull something out of my sleeve that surprises both of us.
And sometimes whatever I pulled out of there might not land at all. 😂
You don't have to protect me from knowing that.
I want to know.
Because I don't believe good therapy is me sitting across from you knowing more about you than you know about yourself.
I bring training, experience, and a whole lot of curiosity into the room.
You bring the expertise on you.
We figure out the rest together.
There isn't one "right" way to do therapy
If I'm going to use one of those bigger therapy phrases, I'll use this one: my work is influenced by a decolonizing approach to therapy.
For me, part of that means questioning some of the rules Western psychology has created about what a therapist "should" look like, how a client "should" show up, and what healing "should" look like.
That doesn't mean I throw my clinical training out the window.
There are things I've learned through school, training, and experience that are incredibly valuable.
I just don't assume they're universal.
I want to understand what healing means to you.
Your culture.
Your language.
Your family.
Your beliefs.
Your relationships.
Your history.
Your body.
Your humor.
Your protective parts.
The things you were taught to talk about and the things you learned were better left unsaid.
I'm curious about all of it.
Because none of us exists in a vacuum.
And I don't think therapy should treat us like we do.
So why am I writing this?
Honestly?
Because... why not?
Because I can.
But also because learning Internal Family Systems (IFS), being a therapist, traveling, experiencing different cultures and languages, taking risks in my career and my life, and going through my own shit have taught me something: Sometimes something shifts when we recognize ourselves in another person's experience.
Maybe someone finally puts words to something we've felt but couldn't explain.
Maybe we realize we're not the only person who has a certain part of ourselves.
Maybe we read something and think: Holy shit.
Me too.
I believe parts of us can begin to heal when we feel seen, when we feel comfortable enough to show up as ourselves, and when we feel understood.
And I don't believe all healing happens inside a therapy room.
We heal in relationships.
We heal through experiences.
We heal in community.
And, well... this is me.
These Reflections will be about therapy sometimes.
Other times they'll be about Internal Family Systems, culture, relationships, travel, running, identity, or something I haven't even thought about yet.
Some will probably be deeply personal.
There will be humor.
Definitely some cuss words.
A whole lot of curiosity.
And probably some calling you out.
Nicely, I promise. 😂
You won't have to agree with everything I write.
You don't even have to relate to it.
But maybe every once in a while you'll find something here that makes you stop and think: Oh shit.
Me too.
And if you do?
Maybe that's enough.
Welcome to Reflections.