WRITING

Words for the Things We Live but Don’t Always Name

I write about the inner lives we carry into ordinary days: our emotions, protective patterns, relationships, bodies, nervous systems, contradictions, and the parts of ourselves we are still learning how to understand.

Much of my work begins with something I keep noticing. A pattern in the therapy room. A conversation that stays with me. A familiar way we abandon ourselves without realizing we are doing it. The strange intelligence of a response we have spent years trying to get rid of. The cultural expectations women absorb and eventually mistake for personality. From there, I follow the thread.

My writing draws from Internal Family Systems, nervous system science, embodiment, psychology, lived experience, and more than two decades of studying the ways people make meaning of their lives. Research matters to me, but so does what happens beyond theory: in relationships, in the body, in the moments when we know something intellectually and discover that knowing it is not quite the same as being able to live it.

This is a place for both.

Hand holding a closed beigebook with textured cover near a beige stone table with a decorative vase, by a waterfront with rocky cliffs in the background, sunlight creating patterns on the wall.
A granite tabletop near a window with a view of water and trees. On the table are a glass of water, two ceramic bowls, a closed beige notebook, a gold pen, and some stacked papers, with books in the background.
Stack of handmade paper next to a large speckled bowl, with a dark cloth, on a stone surface near water.
A cozy, sunlit table with books, a ceramic cup, and decorative bowls, topped with a large potted plant, set by a window with a view of trees and mountains outside.
A person sitting outdoors near a window, writing in a notebook, with a view of a body of water and rocky coastline in the background.

FEATURED WRITINGS

Permission To Be A Glorious Mess

Why You Know What To Do But Still Feel Stuck

The Parts We Judge Most May Need The Most Love

In A World On Edge: Neuroaesthetics

When Life Feels Too Much: Our Relationship To Stress

WORK THAT TRAVELS BEYOND THE SESSION

The work I do with people inevitably informs the questions I keep returning to in my writing, although the lives and stories of my clients remain their own.

Occasionally, a client describes what our work together has meant to them in a way that says something I could never quite say from my side of the room.

Sydnie has generously allowed me to share her story here in full.

Still life of textured linen fabric, handmade paper, a smooth stone, and delicate leaves in neutral tones.

READ MY LATEST WRITING
ON SUBSTACK

New Pieces

I publish new pieces on Substack, where I explore the questions and patterns that continue to interest me in my work and in life.

You’ll find writing about parts and protective strategies, emotional life, nervous system patterns, self-trust, relationships, identity, embodiment, midlife, and the complicated business of becoming more fully ourselves.

Some pieces begin with research. Some with something I have observed. Others with a question I cannot quite leave alone.

You can read along without subscribing, or subscribe if you’d like new pieces to find their way to you.