Being personal online… let alone publicly is scary for me and yet, just like in my clinical practice, I believe some transparency builds rapport. Not oversharing. Not emotional dumping, but intentional visibility. Irving Yalom speaks about the healing power of authentic presence. Carl Rogers emphasized genuineness as a condition for growth. Carl Jung wrote about integrating the self rather than performing a version of it. Those ideas live in me.
There’s something I call “therapeutic code switching.” It’s the discernment of who you are with, how much you share, and when. It isn’t about being fake, no no. This is a skill. It’s about being attuned. It’s knowing that safety and intimacy are built gradually and in a therapeutic setting. Not every client can handle a therapist’s transparency moments. That rings true for out in the world. Not every friend is the one you should turn to just because they are a friend. Not every family member is safe. I think many of us are still learning that skill especially in friendships, and almost always in romantic relationships. I want to be more personal here. Writing this. Letting you see that this work as much as it is for my dendrites, yes 🤗lol — it is also for you. And that is vulnerable. Having this many eyes on me gives me the eww feelings, but also shows me just how much we all share in what we carry silently.
But being seen enough for someone to invest consistently, inwardly, presses on an old wound. The part of me and maybe the part of many of us, that learned lovability is measured by performance. By productivity. By what we can do, provide, or prove. So yes, I’m public and yes, I offer education. But humanity doesn’t bridge gaps without relatability. We are relational beings. I know societal conditioning has another agenda about that. But, We regulate through…connection. When it comes to love, I think many of us struggle not with whether we want it, but with how to receive it without turning it into something we must earn or lose ourselves for.
Now, for my love letter to you all I am skipping the edits and obsessive proof reading and seeing what happens to my nervous system when I hit send and say “bugger off with it.” Perfectionism is a trap I have found myself looping in since being online and its annoying to say the least. My writing, my recordings. It. Must. Be. Perfect.
Ew Sav, why?
The old script of people pleaser perfectionist wanted to poke it’s head out and audition for it’s role again. Doing what you love is one thing, when it becomes all you think about is a completely different thing. The exposure therapy of my data revealed how lost we can get searching for answers, the why… This month not only marks the anniversary of getting online. Something my dear friend would be proud of. It also marks the 10th year of her passing. At the young age of 26 we lost her. This month is always a reminder of that loss. This work is a reminder of how hard it has been to let people in as close as we were. 11 years old, making flower crowns and talking about life. Little did she know she saved me during those moments. Losing a friend to suicide is …
confusing.
As an intuitive though— I knew… This isn’t Minority Report, as much as I wished it was.. Wondering what life would be like to have that friend that has known you since you were a kid. I have watched many have that in their life and always wondered what it felt like.
Then I zoom out.
And I look at how the world can get divided by a vote in a system that’s universally corrupt no matter what side you think is the morally “correct side”and yet we will burn nervous system calories defending our chosen side, as if that is going to save us from something.
We will mobilize.
We will argue.
We will subtweet.
We will rehearse conversations that never happened.
We will gaslight each other.
The energy expenditure is impressive, but wasted on the wrong things.
The same emotional energy expense we use to divide, to prove, to defend could be redirected inward. We could use that energy to walk away from dynamics that drain us.
To move on.
To lift something heavy.
To build something steady.
To sit in therapy and actually tell the truth.
To log off.
To go for a walk.
To eat better.
To rest.
But we don’t.
We stay activated.
We choose the familiar distress over the unfamiliar quiet, despite saying — we want peace.
So we suffer.
And that contradiction… fascinates me.
Even as a little kid I noticed tat about adults. Always “maybe” with everything, caught up in their own emotional mind movies. I was always the little milkdud kid that pointed and asked why.
Curious.
Nosey…
I am the block watch captain of the neighborhood…😂 Archie, Charles, and I… (2 out of the three of us are dogs by the way🤭) I observe never from judgement. I know that’s hard for some to believe. I use to do Uber throughout college in SF-Sacramento area. I met a lot of humans. Humans are like library books we can check out and listen to.
There is a story in each of us.
Do we listen though?
1 year of being online and I faced many emotions. Each one a somatic time capsule catapulting me through memories that were sedimented deep deep in the hippocampus archives. Memories, wounds, I thought I had sorted through. Resurfacing through this work and what I teach. Epiphanies, is what some clients call them. Sharing these moments with clients is probably one of the best parts of the job. Just two humans experiencing a moment.
but together.
I have such huge vision for this corner of the internet, but a border collie level of ADHD that was masked by the years of college, now suddenly surfacing when it’s time to pour fully into myself.
Executive freeze.
Yup— I experience it too. It’s bullocks if you ask me, but I have to check myself. We all do. I see it in my clients, I see it online, I see it in myself.
We are loading our plates to the brim then wondering why it’s too heavy to carry…
Symptoms start showing up.
One of the common themes I see across the board with us all. The pressure comes from within. Literally, it’s like someone is pushing on the internal suffering button but it’s really us stuck on it. Choosing suffering because the ideal alternative would be too painful to lose.
See,
Lose.
Already thinking of the worst.
*Can we Squirrel real quick.
I was watching the Love is Blind new season… I know I know.. I talk my shit throughout it okay…😂 One of the women was saying how her dream is to be “The Super Bowl house.” How many of us right now are the Super Bowl house and the Super Bowl house comes with its own sets of emotions.
Struggles.
Challenges.
Where did we get this idea that being an image meant joy comes with that image?
What would being the embodiment of that image look and feel like?
Homestead dreamers? Do you just want the chickens and the land or do you want the discipline to maintain the chickens and the land?
Do we want the husband, the wife, the house. Or do we want the safety, regulated nervous system, and the ability to rest and not feel the need to jump up and “be productive” in our marriage and in our house?
What if the external image is what many of us already have, but the feeling we thought we would feel hasn’t showed up yet. Or it did— but it was fleeting. What if instead of wishing for the image of the person you can laugh and chill with. You also imagined an image where you were both chilling and regulated, calm, at peace. Nothing is unspoken, no emotional debt is in the tank. People feel heard.
What would that feel like?
What if we didn’t have to fill our plates to the brim because we could actually surrender into relaxation time, or self-care time. We can take off the mom or dad role for a day or two and take care of (insert name). Yeah… Remember her? Remember him? What are they up to? When was the last time you check in with them?
That’s what this work is for me. A check in. I am excited to see where we take this corner of the internet. I am learning a lot about myself in the process. Sometimes I just want to write without the expectation (I place on myself.) Just to show up as this version —Sav. I created the Chasing Milligrams Free community so we can all see the world through each other’s eyes. What brings us dopamine and joy. What can we motivate each other to do for ourselves.
I hope to see you all over there. So we can get a bit more personal and remind ourselves. Despite the noise. There are humans who still want to connect with each other.
—Till next time
Come as you are Where you are.
good stuff nice to hear your voice very calming 😊