Have you ever gone on a handful of dates with someone, hopeful that the budding relationship would blossom, only to find that weeks later, none of your messages or calls to them are answered? Or has a friend at school suddenly cut off all communication with no explanation, and is now avoiding you in the community? Maybe you have felt such intense disconnection from someone that you can no longer maintain a relationship—yet the thought of reaching out to explain this to them fills you with so much dread that you’re considering just deleting their contact info and sweeping it all under the rug?
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A variety of things might come to your mind when you think about rest. Many of us likely have different definitions of what rest looks or feels like, and we may go about it differently based on our own understandings, backgrounds, and lifestyles.
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For people who identify as highly sensitive or empathic, intense embarrassment and shame might be particularly difficult experiences. Making a mistake can be followed by intense physical sensations and emotions: your face gets hot, your heart rate spikes, and sometimes you may even want to disappear. While this is normal and might even feel manageable for some, people who are highly sensitive may struggle to recover from these feelings.
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Growing up with childhood emotional neglect (CEN) and/or abuse can make it so hard to build loving relationships. If you were told over and over how sensitive you are, or your feelings were rarely acknowledged as natural reactions to the sharp edges of life, it's hard to feel like anything you think or feel is normal, acceptable, or bearable. This makes it really hard to share our true feelings with others or seek their support. Furthermore, responses from our parents that don't seem to match our experiences can contribute to feelings of distrust, both for ourselves and others.
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With today's packed schedules—parents juggling careers, teens balancing school, activities, and social lives—families often operate like ships passing in the night rather than a connected unit. It can be hard to find a feeling of connection when we’re all so busy with our own stuff.
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As highly sensitive people (HSPs), we are especially prone to overwhelm and burnout. It can feel as though the world moves too fast, speaks too loudly, and asks too much. A powerful way to honor your sensitivity is by creating intentional rituals. Rituals are not about productivity or performance; rather, they’re about creating containers of safety, softness, and meaning. They help mark transitions, calm the nervous system, and create a sense of continuity in a world that often feels unpredictable.
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Let’s be honest: Feelings get a bad rap. Somewhere along the line, many of us got the message
that emotions are inconvenient, dramatic, or unhelpful. We try to stuff them down, ignore
them, or tell ourselves, “It’s not a big deal”, when on the inside our emotional experience
continues to simmer just beneath the surface.
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There is often a disconnect between the convenience of the modern world and the distress we witness in many of our teens. They have so much knowledge, entertainment, and capability at their fingertips and yet, many of them seem to struggle with overwhelm and paralysis around life tasks and social emotional connection and growth. How do we support them while also helping them to be more capable, confident, connected human beings? Here are 3 ways to build resiliency in teens.
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I wake up sweaty and tense. I’ve had another dream about wandering through a hotel as I desperately try to get to my room. The catch is that the hotel keeps changing. The stairways move, levels don’t connect, elevators only go to certain floors and they constantly change course.
I’m up against terrible odds, and this seemingly easy task of going to my room has become a nightmare. No matter how much I try, the circumstances keep changing, and there’s so much that’s out of my control.
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Over the course of his tragically short career, singer-songwriter Jim Croce became famous for his world-weary love songs and comic ballads of bullies getting their comeuppance. In his public persona, Croce embodied a very particular masculine archetype in American music and pop culture: a working-class guy with high emotional intelligence, rough-hewn but romantic and with an almost religious dedication to poetic justice.
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If you’re human you probably don’t like discomfort. I mean honestly who does? But what if discomfort is where the growth is? What if discomfort is the hill we have to climb on the way to experiencing confidence? Or joy? Motivation? or Connection?
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If you’ve been in a school, at a doctor’s office, or even frequented social media lately, you may have noticed that ADHD has been getting a lot of attention in recent years. While there is a bit of controversy about whether ADHD is over- or under-diagnosed, there’s no question that it’s on a lot of peoples’ minds these days.
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There is enough to contend with being an HSP in a healthy and functioning world, but what do you do when the world feels like it’s unraveling? When it feels like every few minutes there is a news update about a cataclysmic natural disaster, ongoing conflict in war torn countries, reversals in civil rights policy, and increasing division in the world, what pressure do we put on ourselves? Do we expect ourselves to be unimpacted, to separate emotionally, to not react or respond. Being a highly sensitive person means we are highly attuned and keyed into the world around us — so naturally, an HSP would pick up on the intense emotional experience happening in the world right now and have a correlating reaction to it.
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As an older millennial, I find myself reminiscing a lot about the “before times”. Life before smart phones, before social media, before AI. I was one of the lucky ones to experience a teenhood and young adulthood smart phone free until I was about 25 years old. I often wonder if time moved so slowly back then because I was just a kid growing up in a small town where nothing ever happened. Or if it’s because now I'm middle aged and one year of my life is a tiny increment in proportion to the 40+ I’ve lived, versus when I was 12 and a year felt like a lifetime. Or if it’s because now the world around us is moving so fast. Thanks to smart phones and immediacy culture, almost anything we want is accessible with the tap of a button, we barely have to wait and we no longer get to lose ourselves in the moment without a notification ding pulling us right out of it.
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We are living through extremely difficult times right now. Stress, fear, anxiety, and animosity seem to be at an all-time high. The news cycle can be overwhelming and yet, we can’t tear ourselves away. What is the best way to respond in times like this? Should we be watching more or less news? Following social media or turning off our phones completely? Donating time and money to worthy causes? What is the answer and how can we do it in a way that isn’t completely exhausting?
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As a parent, watching your teen begin the complex journey of self-discovery and identity development can feel like an emotional roller coaster. At times you may feel at odds with their means of self-expression or find it challenging to broach the conversation about identity with your teen who feels more resistant to opening up than ever before. Finding the balance between respecting your teens' unique journey and desire for greater independence with guidance and support can feel like an impossible juggling act!
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Have you been feeling worn down, burned out, or exhausted to your very core? Most of us have been there, we’re there right now, or we’ll be there again. As Hemingway wrote, “the world breaks everyone.” Being human means that we’ll know loss and struggle, that there’ll be times when life goes along smoothly and times when it’s all we can do to slowly inch our way forward.
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Therapy is not a straightforward process. It can be challenging and downright painful at times, but can also be profoundly healing. While I hope that all therapeutic relationships contain a free flow of information and feedback between therapist and client, this too can be complicated, and we might benefit from some simple suggestions from a therapist’s perspective. To that end, I wanted to share some thoughts and encouragement that may provide some clarity and even improve your experience of therapy.
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Think about a recent conversation you had with your teenager - especially if the topic was a difficult one to broach or one with a history of tension or conflict. Did it feel tough to “get through” to your teen? Or perhaps the attempt to check in lead to an explosive fight, after which you find yourself seething and thinking (or, let’s face it, yelling) “how dare you talk to me that way!” Everyone has a different approach, or primary style, to navigating communication and conflict. Which one is your teen’s go-to?
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What comes to mind when you think of someone who is described as “sensitive”? Something in the realm of overly emotional, weak, or fragile? If so, you’re not alone. In a world that often glorifies toughness, sensitivity is frequently misunderstood and sometimes even dismissed as a flaw. But here’s the truth: sensitivity is not a liability—it’s a strength that allows people to process the world deeply, form meaningful connections, and navigate life with heightened awareness.
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