You Are Worth Staying With

This time of year is always reflective for me. Something about the quality of the light and the chill in the air moves me to sit in my favorite coffee shop and journal about my year and everything that I’ve learned. And this year was another doozy, wasn’t it? We have been through it collectively and individually.

I’ve spent quite a bit of my relational life working to earn love from others. I didn’t know it for a long time, but I became really good at figuring out what people were looking for in a partner, in a friend—in whatever role I was playing, really—and I learned how to meet those needs REALLY well and without them even asking. It allowed me to feel important, special, and most importantly, loved (hello, fellow Enneagram 2s! I see you!).

The Joys of Secure Attachment

If you’ve been doing attachment work in any capacity, you already know that our collective goal is to work toward a greater sense of security. Even those of us with secure attachment have the opportunity to bring more awareness to our interactions and be the safe, secure base for many people in our families and communities.

Taking Care of Your Attachment System

In my last blog post of the year, I want to explore how we can care for our attachment systems. We have collectively been thrown into phases of avoidant, anxious, and disorganized attachment this year—we’ve locked down, craved connection and community, as well as become fearful (rightfully so) of potential exposure to illness.

here to heal podcast, episode 3: moving through discomfort toward joy + liberation with bianca gragg, lcswa

Today I am talking with Bianca Gragg, LCSWA (she/her). Bianca is a community member and revolutionary mother in Asheville NC. Born and raised in the border city of El Paso Texas, Bianca has ancestral roots in Mexico, Germany, and Spain and identifies as part of the Latinx community.

here to heal podcast, episode 2: principles of healing

In this episode, I’m sharing the principles of healing I use in my therapy practice and daily life! These principles capture the important aspects of healing and remind us that we are all here to heal--regardless of where we’ve been or what we’ve experienced.

Being Gentle with Yourself as You Grow

There is something many of my clients realize once we start really digging in to relationship and self work: it doesn’t feel very good.

On one hand, I don’t enjoy seeing people experiencing discomfort or big emotions (I have had to learn to hold space for this and allow it instead of rescuing or fixing). But on the other hand, I have realized that the place where emotions are flowing and discomfort is welcomed and old hurts are received instead of pushed away is where the healing happens. Healing is feeling it all and changing your relationship with your feelings.

What does real healing look like?

One of the things I have learned from my therapy practice is that every single person has a story of healing. Even if they are in the midst of a difficult experience or transition, they are on their way to feeling whole and healed. These stories deserve space to be heard fully and explored deeply. The stories of others inform our own healing. When I’m going through something difficult and I hear from someone that they have navigated a similar challenge in a way that I never considered, I am able to move forward with new perspective and most importantly, more hope. When I hear that someone has done this before, I feel more confident that I can do it, too.

I want to share what real healing looks like. And to do that, I’m creating a podcast.

How to Tell an Avoidant Person That They're Avoidant

This blog post has been highly requested and I’m happy to share some insight into this tricky dynamic and shed some light on why it can be challenging to have conversations about our attachment styles in the beginning stages of learning about attachment theory—especially if we have an attachment style that is designed to protect us and reduce the impact of interactions that cause us to feel out of control or overwhelmed. Of course, this doesn’t mean the conversation won’t be uncomfortable (it probably will be to some degree), but remember that the emotional response from the person is more about their own experiences and less about you.

A Conversation with The Breakup Therapist

Y’all, I am so excited about the blog this week. As a proponent of healthy relationships, I am also a proponent of healthy breakups—because breakups are part of the relationship continuum. Sometimes after digging in to the personal and relationship work, we might realize that we have come to the end of a partnership (note: this comes back to the idea that the work in relationships may not have the outcome we were hoping for). This realization can be painful or liberating or unimaginable (or any combination of those emotions) and to me, it’s really important that we navigate this part of the relationship in a way that allows for dignity for ourselves and our partner.

Taking Care of You

We talk a lot about relationships on the Heirloom Counseling blog, but this week I want to talk about you.

I want to focus on you, in all of your complexity and wisdom. You, the body and mind and spirit that holds everything you have been through. You, who has transformed your pain into power and your experiences into empathy.

Family-Building + Attachment with Ariel Shumaker-Hammond, MPH/LCSW

In my practice, I work with lots of folks who are interested in growing their families. What we know is this: the family-building time of life is lovely and magical AND extremely stressful for many people.

Because this topic is so complex, I wanted to interview someone who not only has personal experience with the ups and downs of family-building but professional experience, too, and I couldn’t think of anyone more appropriate or skilled than my friend and colleague Ariel Shumaker-Hammond.

Are you a good partner?

We are usually not taught how to be in relationship with other people, at least not explicitly. Our learning comes from our experiences—and until we are actually in a romantic partnership, we don’t know how to do it. We learn as we go.

Many of us have a tendency to focus on what our partner isn’t doing rather than what we could be doing better or differently to improve our relationship(s). When we focus on what isn’t happening, we aren’t bringing our best selves to the partnership.

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