This element of secure functioning can be a bit provocative at first. “You expect me to put my relationship first?? Even above my family? My children?? My job?” Simply put, yes. Putting the relationship first doesn’t mean foregoing all other priorities, but it does mean that for both partners to feel truly stable, they must know—and more importantly, feel—that their partner prioritizes caring for their relationship above other tasks (including substances, hobbies, and, for many of us, those pesky iPhones).

In the past several weeks since the 2024 presidential election, I’ve felt myself as well as held space for feelings of frustration, division, anger, and worries about safety, rights, and personal freedoms. These issues can create a perfect storm of anxiety, grief, and fear. I’ve noticed myself moving from hopeful, to numb, to powerless especially when it seems like the problems are so big and out of our control. And then there’s confidence in our ability to make a better future peeking through as I engage with my community. It’s an interesting time to be a therapist.

I’ve been reflecting a lot on the 2016 election. I remember the night that he won, crying to my boyfriend of 7 months, saying, “We can’t have a baby while he’s in office.” He agreed, even though it felt somewhat dramatic to say since we weren’t necessarily moving towards those steps soon, but for me, it felt important.

And now? Me and my then-boyfriend have been married for 7 years (as of this week), and I’m 8 months pregnant. Fuck. It didn’t start sinking in until this summer that I may be going against what I had promised myself 8 years ago– promising that I couldn’t bring a kid into this world while someone like T*ump is in the office. It felt amoral and it felt selfish.

Life changes can stir up emotions—some we expect, others may catch us off guard. A new job, a big move, or a relationship ending can make us feel like the ground beneath us is shifting. It’s natural to feel unsettled or even lost during these moments.

Talking with someone can make all the difference. Therapy offers a place to sort through the highs and lows, to make sense of the change, and to find a way forward.

The Kindman & Co. team recently gathered for lunch to share our thoughts on this year’s ballot propositions and measures. Together, we explored the potential impacts of each initiative on our communities, weighing their benefits and drawbacks from an equity and justice standpoint. It was a meaningful discussion as we aligned our values with our votes.

In my first blog on the subject, I covered the show's attempts to find feminism within a patriarchal institution and the fascination of loopholes within religious guidelines. In this post, I will be discussing the inherent hierarchy of power dynamics and comparison politics when in a binary based religion as well as beauty standards depicted in the show.

I kind of worked out recently that maybe if we didn't call what BetterHelp was doing necessarily psychotherapy, I might be able to be a bit more comfortable with it maybe. I still think it would be problematic, but I think it's the conflation of psychotherapy as I know it, and mental health support in a whole variety of different ways. So it could be, well, it is the fact that you have this platform that's offering something to people in the world of mental health, mental health professionals to speak to in some way or fashion. But the way that BetterHelp works is completely antithetical to how I was trained to offer a psychotherapeutic space, which was about consistency, regularity, space between those sessions. Generally very little contact between sessions, generally a commitment of more than a very short period of time...

The first thing that comes to mind is this degree of some kind of personal responsibility, regardless of disservices done in places we may want to blame or criticize or complain. At the end of the day, it kind of feels like I'm an agent in this body and I have so much ability to choose what I'm going to do with it, and fingers crossed, I do what's useful for myself and others....

As a therapist my preference is to not assign homework to clients but there are occasions where I feel it can actually be helpful. One assignment I like to invite clients to complete is creating a list of self-care activities meeting a set of criteria. The goal is to help folks break the narrative that they do not have enough time for self-care or that it takes financial resources that they don’t have. Follow the steps below to help build a tangible list of self-care activities you can reference frequently. All you will need is a piece of paper and a pen or your notes app on your phone.