I am writing this newsletter in the grip of a migraine — and as is common for therapists, I am being asked to practice what I preach — in this instance, self-compassion.

I wrote a piece published in Goop today about why self-compassion — not self-optimization — is what actually supports us in unstable times and facilitates lasting psychological well-being. Rather than repeat what I wrote there, I’d love for you to read it in full if you’d like and then sit with this question:

What comes up for you when you imagine treating yourself with tenderness rather than as a problem that needs to be fixed?

Lately, I have had to push back against my desire to override my current limitations. To soften against the frustration I feel looking at the unfinished to-do list, the sadness I feel at not being able to play a game we call “Feet Come Alive” with my kids in bed at the end of the night like we love to do, and the guilt I feel at canceling dinner plans with friends, yet again. It is tempting to let those feelings dictate my actions — to prescribe steps to push through, steps which fulfill the idea of who I think I should be, instead of allowing myself to be who I am in this moment. Instead I am opting for tenderness, and choosing to trust that a new version of me — one that I do not have to wrestle into existence — is unfolding. Might as well be nice to myself as it does.

Love,

Annie

I press play on the video again. My girl sits straight, parallel to the upright, walnut-stained piano, her feet wrapped in my black sandals, moving the pedal up and down. Her slender brown arms extend to the keys with tangerine painted fingertips finding chords. Then her voice comes—so sure in tone and pure in its expression of emotion. I see the glimmer of a power she is beginning to possess— a lump forms in my throat.

I send the video to our beloved friend, who held her as a baby, whose song my daughter is singing in the recital video. My friend and I exchange notes back and forth. Together we began to unravel the complexity of emotion we feel witnessing this child, this young woman, singing with maturity and grace. This friend and I have loved each other’s children since before they could walk, and as I share this simple, breathtaking moment I feel her company—navigating parenthood alongside me even though she is 3000 miles away. We share this moment of wonder. And we talk about the longing that rises up in these moments of seeing your child with clarity, in a new light. Longing for the past, longing for this moment to stay, and longing to see what unfolds in the future.

This complex experience of being human in relation to the passage of time is something I’ve always circled around, not always able to fully face it, as it reveals such vulnerability and depth of feeling. Recently my book publisher had me fill out an author questionnaire. In it, I was asked to name who I would be if I were a fictional character from literature. My mind went blank— shy, perhaps, or maybe it is just hard to see ourselves clearly in some particular ways. So I turned to my incredibly well read mother and another equally well read lady, an author and best pal.

I posed the question to them: “If I were a character in a book who would I be?”

My mom replied, “Hmmm….Anne of Green Gables—imaginative and kind, tender with animals, constantly curious.”

My friend responded, “A sort of modern-day Laura Ingalls Wilder— scrappy, adventurous, and full of yearning.” I clearly have a type.

I find the experience and contemplation of longing to be such a big part of my life and of many people that I come into contact with—patients, friends, family. Perhaps they open up to me about it because they sense my earnest inner Anne or Laura. Perhaps, it is because people often come to me to explore what matters to them, to find deeper meaning. And all this yearning is telling. It speaks to what we want more of, to what matters to us, to what we love and miss. It surfaces at the most important moments in our lives. It also reveals the deep ambivalence we hold around, well really most meaningful moments in our lives. So often we believe we must feel one way about something, when the reality is typically the contrary. We feel many ways at once— admiration, joy, bittersweet gratitude entangled with regret and grief.

I connect to longing often. I feel it this year as I recognize the sweet spot of parenting I am in — my children still small enough to be under my wing yet big enough to tend to themselves while I tend to myself. I feel it when I sit with my father recalling the songs we danced to in the living room of my girlhood. I empathize with the yearning I see in my teenage and young adult patients, on the brink of opening their lives up, ready for more of the world to hold space for all of them—their yearning mixed with fear that they will never arrive, mixed with the brazen belief that all is possible. It rises in me as I begin to wrap my head around a big creative endeavor that is new and equal parts intimidating and thrilling. But I feel it most often in raising my children, an endeavor that reminds us, we have no choice but to flow with time.

She plays our friend’s song on the piano in the dining room. I can hear it from the kitchen as I chop zucchini small enough to melt undetected into the soup. My husband asks if we could ever get an electric piano with headphones and I vote no. For me, I share with him, listening to the music— the painful learning of the notes, voices finding their pitch—makes me feel like our house is full of love. It connects me to my childhood which I often long for. I can track where a child is in the house without vigilance, something else I long for—the peace of just being with them. And I can hear them growing, almost like a form or peripheral vision, as I season the soup.

In my last post I talk about giving ourselves grace to sit in the feeling of “meh”, anhedonia, depression, burnout or the blues. This feeling is a fundamental part of our human experience and may often contain some hidden wisdom, even a deeper understanding of ourselves. And it is also a very isolating state of being. It disconnects us from our joy, sense of self, and feeling seen by our beloved people.

As I continue to develop the format for this Substack, I want to follow the rhythm of creating a set of pieces – the first for deep reflection, the second to offer ideas, solutions, or salves to support you, dear reader, and myself, as we find our way. This is similar to how I would operate when working with someone in session. So, this note, in service of exploring the blues, will offer a framework to move through or out of them.

We can think of depression as a lack of energy in the system. How do we then infuse our system with energy? This is so particular to the individual I won’t bore you by expounding upon platitudes of the obvious but necessary: eat well, exercise, and sleep. The work is really about discovering what gives you energy, in the specific state you are in. When we are feeling burnt out it is hard to access joy and it takes extra effort to do the most benign things, so shrink it down. Shrink it down so small so that whatever little moment of joy that exists, that surfaces, take notice—then allow for it, insist that it grow and expand within you. That song you love pops up in rotation, try and stay with it a moment, let it fill you up top to bottom. Your child’s laughter down the hallway, invite it to roll over and around you— resist the urge to move on. Like holding your breath before making a wish on birthday candles to really lock it in, let the moment saturate and cement in you.

Naming how you are feeling to a few trusted confidantes who can sit with you in your defeated state can work wonders. It reminds you that you are not alone in your state of being, you are held and loved in all your forms by those dearest to you. Naming it also gives you the slightest bit of objectivity around what you are feeling. You understand that you are reacting to circumstances from a depleted point of view—it is a skewed version of the truth, not the truth.

I work with patients who move in and out of deep depression and I sometimes hold an image of them at sea, on a life raft, weathering a storm. They are not far from shore, and what they must do for now is hold on. Ride the storm with the knowledge that it will pass, they will return to shore, and it is enough for now to just simply hold on.

After a few months of intense activity, stress, and output, I found myself exhausted and depleted in a way that felt a lot like anhedonia — a general malaise, diminished joy. As I wrote to a friend: I feel like a deflated balloon.

You hear me talk a lot about overwhelm. One of my clinical specialties is anxiety, so I’m always thinking about ways to manage it — ways to regulate the nervous system, to slow the body and mind down, to allow energy to move through and out of the body, to ground us in a felt sense of safety. But the flip side of anxiety and overwhelm is depression. I see this time and time again in my work with patients—they come down from a heightened state into a flat state. We call it burnout, feeling blue, rudderless, depressed. The psyche works toward homeostasis.

Chronic stress creates neurological conditions in the brain that dampen neurogenesis, increase inflammation and make it easier — neurologically easier — to feel more stressed. Which perpetuates a cycle: stress and depression, depression and stress. The brain’s regulatory ability to turn off the stress response lessens, meaning the brain becomes more sensitive to stress.

One of my favorite authors and clinicians is the former monk and psychotherapist Thomas Moore, who wrote the book Care of the Soul. In it, Moore talks about depression and encourages people to ask what it might be calling for. This is a depth psychology approach to emotional and mental states that disrupt our lives or leave us questioning meaning and purpose — the idea being that our symptoms carry information. Even depression may have a reason for being, may reveal some information about how to care for our self.

So, in the flatness, the anhedonia, the low: what is it asking for? Is our sadness an invitation to get clearer on what fills us up, what matters, what brings us joy? If depression is a depletion of energy in the system, how do we bring energy back in?

Psychologist Kay Redfield Jamison says in her book Fires in the Dark: Healing the Unquiet Mind, “We learn that bold action can be an antidote to suffering.” Sometimes filling ourselves up and pulling ourselves out of malaise requires a big leap. I have worked with patients whose depression signaled deep faults in their marriage, or the real need for a career change—the shift in external circumstances shifted their state of being. In less dramatic stakes, just last week, at the most inconvenient of times, I planned a trip, with few plans, to see some of my oldest, most beloved friends to shake off my blues. It worked, cup filled. Sometimes it’s smaller: noticing the way your child’s head now rests on your collarbone when what feels like not so long ago it came to your belly button, the way the chubbiness of their cheeks has dissolved into fine cheekbones you can graze with your fingertips—cup filled.

I find the refilling of the balloon has its own timing. We have to be diligent in our care, but I always imagine holding the feeling lightly, trusting it will, as all things do, eventually pass. I think of what fills me up, and the truest answer, for me, is love.

We spend so much time navigating the complexities of work, family, and society. A period of stillness can be an invitation to navigate the complexities of the self. It is okay to sit in the stillness, or in the sadness, and ask: what makes me feel love?

Last time I wrote about the ephemeral nature of parenting — the necessary self-reflection, the tension of tolerating your children’s pain in their learning, and the grueling demands which often sneakily offer grace when the impermanence of it all feels too much to bear. Rather than offer up more content or advice in this moment, I thought I’d share a poem I return to that provides some solace for when my heart feels tender, my nerves tattered by the news of the times, and for when to be fully present to my love for the children stirs up my sometimes sentimental nature to the point I might melt.

Here you go. And thank you to Barbara Crooker and all the poets who give words to the elusive elements of being human.

In the Middle

By Barbara Crooker

of a life that’s as complicated as everyone else’s,
struggling for balance, juggling time.
The mantle clock that was my grandfather’s
has stopped at 9:20; we haven’t had time
to get it repaired. The brass pendulum is still,
the chimes don’t ring. One day you look out the window,
green summer, the next, and the leaves have already fallen,
and a grey sky lowers the horizon. Our children almost grown,
our parents gone, it happened so fast. Each day, we must learn
again how to love, between morning’s quick coffee
and evening’s slow return. Steam from a pot of soup rises,
mixing with the yeasty smell of baking bread. Our bodies
twine, and the big black dog pushes his great head between;
his tail is a metronome, 3/4 time. We’ll never get there,
Time is always ahead of us, running down the beach, urging
us on faster, faster, but sometimes we take off our watches,
sometimes we lie in the hammock, caught between the mesh
of rope and the net of stars, suspended, tangled up
in love, running out of time.

April 1

Today is my daughter’s 12th birthday, and it has me wondering about how I’m doing at parenting this beautiful, bright, sweet child of mine who leaves a trail of books in her wake, who rescues bees with her bare hands. A few years ago, I wrote a piece about how to support children on their path of self-acceptance, and in honor of her birthday, I thought I would read my own advice and see how I’m measuring up.

The modeling of self-acceptance: so-so. The active listening: sometimes stellar, other times an outright fail. Not putting my ideals and ideas onto her: so-so. The apologizing when I mess up: well done, mama. The shining a light on her strengths: nailing it.

The truth is, being a therapist who often works with adolescents, children, and their parents is quite different from parenting them. I tell this to my patients all the time: we can have coherent conversations about the ways to engage with or support your kid in the rational moment created in my little guest house office. But in real life, in the overstimulating heat of the moment, it’s much harder.

One of the sources of my lackluster parenting moments lies in my struggle with losing sight of the impermanent nature of life. When my children are struggling or going through a phase, I find myself, like many of those I work with, imagining that this is going to be the rest of their lives. When working with a kid as a clinician with objective perspective, I understand that we are getting a glimpse into certain parts of the child that they may need to tend to throughout their lives — but it won’t always be as acute or intense as it is in this moment.

In parenting, I lose sight of that quite often. I know that growth isn’t linear, and that we cycle through certain issues in our lives time and time again, gaining deeper understanding of who we are and how we move through the world. The hope is that we evolve well enough to manage the parts of us that stir up trouble with grace and perspective.

Yet it is painful as a parent when our children suffer, and so we want to fix it, ignore it, or will it away. We get locked in, despite knowing how fleeting it all is.

On her birthday, I marvel at the wonderful person she is and the person she is growing into. The marveling is married with heartache and longing for the versions of her that have gone as a new one unfolds. My husband and I, like many parents I know, send each other pictures and videos of our children throughout the day that pop up in iPhoto. Round cheeks and pot belly smeared with fingerpaint, tiny voices with soft r’s, fat feet spilling out of sandals. Sometimes I can’t even look at them. It hurts. It takes my breath away. The fleeting nature of it all is almost too much to bear — and then, begrudgingly, perhaps mercifully, I am pulled back into the drudgery of it all: the noise, the meal-making, the bodies and snacks spilled across the minivan seats.

People joke that toddlers were made ridiculously adorable so that you don’t ditch them somewhere out of frustration. Perhaps that is why the daily act of parenting is so intense, so demanding — we are brought back to earth by the endless dishes, stream of school emails, the mysterious rash, and negotiations over homework. The grit of it all is in place so that we don’t dissolve into a puddle of longing, or hold on so tight we crush them. We are mercifully, messily brought back to earth by the work of keeping them alive and loving them.

Two weeks ago I wrote about energetic budgeting in service of moving wisely within instability. I have certain people and images I return to as reminders to move slowly, to be thoughtful—like the news anchor mentioned in the last volume. I also think of our little backyard tortoise, aptly named Shelly, who hibernates each winter, then spends the rest of the year moving at a steady pace through the yard looking for food. To watch her eat is a definitive mood stabilizer.

While we might understand the importance of being mindful of our capacities, we might not be clear about how to honor our limits. How do we go about budgeting our energy?

One way to do this is through looking at how we naturally orient to our lives, responsibilities, and values. In analytical psychology, Carl Jung described several distinct psychological types. These types shape how we move through the world, how we experience our environment, and what drives our decision making. I’m skimming the surface on this theory here, but I think you’ll still find it useful. Some of us are more intuitive (intuitive type) others more grounded in the present, sensory world (sensation type). Some are driven by logic (thinking type), others by connection and emotion (feeling type). Some orient better through external interactions (extroverted), others through solitary introspection (introverted).

For the thinkers and sensors, budgeting energy may come most naturally through creating schedules, checklists, and detailed planning. Feelers and intuitives might lean into how something feels emotionally, or follow a path that is connected to something bigger that matters to them.

I lean toward feeling and intuition—but that can also lead me to overextend. I really want to spend time with that friend, take on that new patient, volunteer at that sweet event at the kids’ school. I’m excited by a big new idea and dive in headfirst. So, I try to balance myself by engaging my thinking and sensing functions: mapping out what has to be done, how much time it will take, and what the realistic energetic cost will be.

The instinct is to rely on our superior functions and disregard the rest. The wiser route is balance. I invite you to notice what comes naturally to you—step into that first then invite the other perspectives to weigh in. If you are like me, sit down with an actual schedule, don’t say yes to something right away even if you have the appetite for it. If you are already rooted in your practical systems of time management, ask yourself: Does this activity align with my deeper longings? How does it feel when I imagine myself doing the thing? That way you are honoring all your needs and not falling into familiar patterns that may not always serve you.

Take Care!

I spent the weekend at my parents’ house editing my manuscript—long days, squirreled away in their guest room, choosing words wisely, letting go of sections, refining others. It was an extended exercise in clarity and containment.

I drove home Monday morning feeling spent—in a good way. A bit wrung out from the focused attention and fine-tuning of my work. As I drove, I daydreamed about the sweetness of my life that awaited me back in Los Angeles. A rich life of three children, my dear husband, a cozy home, a robust private practice, and a small urban animal farm of pets. I felt a surge of gratitude and love for a life which is filled with meaning and fulfillment in every corner. I also felt the pull of the demand that is waiting for me.

Simultaneously, I felt the rumble of destabilization that is happening on a larger scale. The times feel increasingly tumultuous— as if the center cannot hold. When the broader culture feels unsteady—politically, economically, environmentally—it unsettles the psyche. For even if you are not in imminent danger, the news of the day, the reality of current events, can erode our overall sense of safety. It breaks the heart, takes a toll on the nervous system. I see it in patients, myself, my city: a heightened sensitivity, an overwhelm, an edginess.

It has me thinking about capacity—mine and that of those around me. Not productivity, nor time management per se, but rather, energy. I have been thinking of energy in budgetary terms.

Where do I need to give my energy? What must I let go of? What is expected of me in the weeks and months ahead? If there is a big ask ahead, what do I need to cut? What can I reasonably expect of myself?

Patients often come to me wanting a formula to solve their problem or direct them through a crossroads. I’m not a traditional analytic therapist—I share my opinions, thoughts and feelings when appropriate; I offer tools when helpful; and I certainly become directive when people are in crisis. However, therapy by and large is not prescriptive in the “you have strep throat, take amoxicillin” kind of way. The goal of therapy is to help patients help themselves. It is less do as I say, more collaborative accounting—a space to help clarify what works for and against them.

In this way, therapy can be thought of as an audit of your life. We sit together and parse out: What fills you up? What drains you? When do you feel held by something bigger than yourself? What happens to you when life feels out of your control—which it mostly is—and how do you stay connected to your center? It is not always easy, it requires honest assessment and sometimes difficult decisions.

Then, these new insights are put into practice. In a sense we map out an energetic budget.

It is not about the delivery of a perfect formula, nor finding a way to control your environment in a volatile world, rather a way to gain clarity on your center, and learning how to return to it.

An old family friend used to produce for one of the great news anchors. When I asked my friend how this anchor managed to hold it all, do it all, my friend reflected, sharing,

“When she’s not working, she moves very slowly.”

I pictured this force of a woman, making a cup of tea, slowly dipping her tea bag, stirring in cream to quietly sip before processing, digesting and then sharing the major stories of the day. Budgeting her energy.

This feels necessary. I will move slowly and budget my energy, so that I can return to my center and navigate these times with grace and fullness.

Two weeks ago I wrote on the power of pausing—about asking yourself, “What do I need? Why am I doing this? Does this serve me?”

We understand the value of these moments. Yet, when we deal with chronic overwhelm, the ability to pause may remain elusive.

When overwhelm becomes persistent, the nervous system organizes around urgency. We develop a heightened stress response, and our capacity to tolerate it narrows. And round and round we go. Stillness becomes unfamiliar, relegated to a later date, or can even feel destabilizing.

Sometimes, when you find yourself unable to do the thing you know will help— when you avoid it, consistently forget, or feel resistance when you near it—it can be a clue that something unconscious may be at work. An implicit memory. An old adaptive strategy. An invisible tide.

This is where image can help.

Imagery reaches us differently than the instructions of the thinking mind. The brain and body respond to imagined experience in ways that are strikingly similar to lived experience. Imagery elicits emotion, memory and sensation all at once.

The images that support me in pausing came to me in a dream

— a hummingbird and a snake. The hummingbird never paused. She was bright, alert, suspended in air by effort. The snake was still, coiled in patient observation. She moved, close to the earth, only when necessary.

When I feel myself in that heightened state, buzzing in mind or body, I imagine the snake. In my mind’s eye, I see her moving steadily, belly on the soil, stopping to notice what is around her. She has become my shortcut to pause. Imagining her reorganizes me. It invites a stillness within to emerge, a way of being that is opposite the bright, buzzing hummingbird. The snake brings me back to center.

In practical terms, what image represents your overwhelm? Perhaps it’s an animated, irritated dust ball, bumping into walls, or a racehorse en route to the starting gate. Then look for its inverse. Not calm in the abstract but an embodied counterpoint. Maybe it’s a beloved laughing, chubby-thighed toddler or a fat tabby cat stretched out in the sun.

What are your images?

Sometimes, when we cannot convince ourselves to pause, when we struggle to connect with ourselves in a grounded way, an image that resonates can do the work on our behalf. It can reach parts of us that reason cannot. Over time, such images become symbolic—linking us to our instincts, our essence, and offering us a true, felt sense of something we need or long for.

I want to explore the experience of being overwhelmed with you all.

I’ve been spending a lot of time in session lately, tending to people’s overwhelm—and in my life, managing my own. The world is topsy-turvy, and the demands on your schedules, pocketbooks, and attention continue to grow. How do you hold onto the joy, beauty, and peace in your life when your nervous system is frayed and you are stuck in default ways of operating that do not serve you?

Getting curious about the source

Your overwhelm can come from many places: societal demands, limited resources and support, the flood of news and information on our phones, the unstable political landscape, past emotional wounds or trauma, sensitivity to stimuli, not enough sleep, too much caffeine, sugar, or alcohol, wanting something to change but knowing how to change it — and on and on and on…

There are numerous approaches out there to help.

The neuroscientists might remind you of neuroplasticity and the brain’s ability to re-wire itself out of a deficit mindset through practices as simple as nightly gratitude lists. The mindfulness folks might encourage you to practice equanimity—the non-judgemental, non-reactive observation of your internal experience supported by the understanding of impermanence. The spiritual leaders would have you connect to your higher power.

As a therapist who likes to delve deep but balances the practical with the symbolic, I will begin by inviting you to pause.

My body taught me this

In my early 30s, I was planning a wedding, writing a graduate thesis, working part-time and treating patients, ramping up towards the end of my 3,000 hours of clinical training. Now, as a mother of three, that juggling act seems like the norm, but at the time, the combination of logistical and emotional burdens was overwhelming.

I could feel myself ramping up, solving imaginary problems three weeks, three months and three years down the line. Everything had huge importance (I struggled to differentiate between the crisis of a patient and choosing the type of salad to serve at the wedding reception).

My body was starting to literally get dizzy, but I ignored it. I skipped meals, overcaffeinated and pushed on and on until I woke one morning, unable to blink my left eye. Bell’s Palsy had set in, and I was forced by my wise body to stop everything and rest.

The next six months were a long journey of recovery, in which I had to listen carefully to what I needed. I began to get curious about why it was hard to slow down. I would pause and regularly ask myself, “What do you need in this moment?” and “Why are you doing this? Does this serve you?” I would wait patiently until answers came.

The importance of the pause

In a world that is increasingly tumultuous, it is more important than ever to caretake our tender selves. To find moments to pause and reflect on our state of being.

When you start to feel overwhelmed, but before you spring into action, pause and connect to your intuitive self by simply asking, “What do I need? Why am I doing this? And does this serve me?”.

See what answers, debates, and emotions show up when you ask these questions. Hold what comes lightly, with tenderness and curiosity.

The invisible tides underneath

A lot of what drives your behavior, which may contribute to your feelings of overwhelm, is unconscious. For now, imagine that under every mysterious emotional reaction and over-booked calendar, there are tides moving—currents of desire, grief, longing, creativity, and joy.

These invisible tides are always in motion. When you start to learn about them, you slowly trade survival mode for something more honest and chosen, like when to say yes, when to rest, and when to stop performing.

When you pause, and ask, “What do I need? Why am I doing this? And does this serve me?” you are bringing a sliver of consciousness to those invisible tides. In turn, you create a small clearing where something different can happen.

The intuitive self finally has the space to speak. Self-agency returns in tiny reclaimed decisions: saying no to the volunteer opportunity in favor of the rest you need, saying yes to the dinner with your friend who fills you up instead of doom scrolling, choosing to take a walk at lunch to move your body and daydream at the trees instead of powering through, hyper-fixating on work.

Pausing encourages more presence in your life, more connection, along with wisdom and authority over where you spend your precious energy. As you tend to the overwhelm, you begin to reconnect with the sense that you’re held by something bigger than your to-do list of shoulds.

Take good care, and I hope you find a few moments to relish in the pause.

Love,

Annie

Subscribe now