There's a box of tissues in my office. I mention it once — and then I leave it alone. Here's why that matters more than you might think.

Every year, the holidays arrive with this strange mix of comfort and tension.
There are the foods I look forward to, the rituals I’ve known forever… and then, almost on cue, the uneasy flutter in my chest. It’s like standing between two worlds: the one where I want to savor everything on the table, and the one where I’m bracing for comments, comparisons, or the familiar pressure to “manage” my body.

I used to think identity was something I could sculpt. That if I looked a certain way, ate the “right” things, or performed enough emotional strength, I’d finally arrive at the version of me who was enough.
But healing has a funny way of undoing the stories we were never meant to carry.

As a relational therapist, I see every day how we exist in relationship—to our partners, our parents, our clients, our friends, our communities, and even to the parts of ourselves we’re still learning to understand.

Every Halloween, bowls of candy seem to appear everywhere: on desks, counters, and in our feeds.
And right alongside them comes one of the most persistent myths we hear about Intuitive Eating:

“It’s just about letting yourself eat all the candy.”

Sometimes prioritizing my well-being means doing something I don’t enjoy, like letting something go.  Not because I’ve stopped caring about it. Not because it doesn’t matter. But because holding onto it — at least right now — costs me more than it gives back. The weight of it may be invisible to everyone else, but I feel it in my shoulders, in my calendar, in the way I sigh before I start another task.

This past week marked Weight Stigma Awareness Week (WSAW), an annual reminder of the deep impact that anti-fat bias has on people’s lives. The theme this year, “Healing Without Harm: Ending Weight Stigma in Healthcare,” shines a light on an issue that affects millions of people every day. Often silently, often painfully.

When a dear friend gets three different cancer diagnoses in six months, it changes the way you look at bodies. Every week seems to bring another plot twist, scarier than the last. And through it all, I keep thinking: how senseless it is that so much of our cultural energy still goes into worrying about how our bodies look. Flat stomachs, toned arms, wrinkle-free skin—these standards feel so small when you’re face-to-face with a body that is simply fighting to survive.

September always sneaks up on me. One day I’m wearing sandals and sweating in the late summer sun, and the next, I’m reaching for a sweater in the cool morning air. The change feels sudden, but it also carries a sense of comfort. The shifting seasons remind me that change doesn’t have to mean something has gone wrong. It’s simply a natural part of being alive.

A few weeks ago, I had to make the gut-wrenching decision to put one of my dogs down. She was very ill, getting worse, and suffering greatly. Even with the knowledge that this was the most sound decision given the circumstances, it was, and still is, very painful. I experienced a huge sense of loss and things felt surreal that day and over the next several days as I came to terms with my “new normal.”