Stephanie's Blog

Embrace emotional ups and downs as natural responses to life. Self-awareness grows when we stop chasing constant emotional stability.

Perspectives on ways to heal division in our culture, through embracing hope and curiosity.

What happens when the exceptional becomes the norm? Perhaps aiming to be good enough, is exceptional in itself.

Like any stage in life, midlife comes with its own set of benefits and challenges. Rebranding Midlife is a way to embrace the journey.

Discover ways to be okay with conflict.

Texting is emotionally complex, especially for adolescents and in particular, when. a text is left unread.

Have you ever found yourself jumping from one bad story to the next on your phone or your computer? Or watching the news and it feeds you an anxiety provoking story and you channel surf to see who else is leading with that story and if there is more information you can glean from the tease of the first story? This common experience is called doomsurfing, or doomscrolling, a habit we get into which has us surfing or scrolling from news feed to news feed gathering info on some

After a year of global warnings against bigger get togethers, many families are reporting increased gratitude for being able to celebrate the holidays together this year, whether locally, or with a new appreciation to travel. As Thanksgiving marks the start of the holiday season, it is a great time to reflect on gratitude and what new insights we might have gained from the last year and a half when it comes to family and togetherness. Historically, many people report that th

As we have re-entered life after all the limitations of the last year and a half, many of us find ourselves feeling out of sorts. At a time we are regaining freedom, we thought we would be in a happier state getting back to the norm of what our lives looked like pre-Covid. For adults, this was getting the kids back in school and having time more delineated between the work/school week and the weekend, not having to negotiate our day work with teaching our kids, and for many

In a family, there is often a dynamic referred to as "The Humpty Dumpty experience". This concept centers around an issue that has been spoken of in many therapist's office, "I feel like I am constantly walking on eggshells around him/her". Whether this experience is uttered by a partner, a parent, a child, or a sibling, it all means the same thing, one member of the family holds a great deal of power to control the atmosphere in the home. This dynamic creates many challen

Lately, the news has spotlighted elite athletes struggling under the pressure of expectations. First we saw Naomi Osaka withdraw from the French Open, and then we witnessed Simone Biles withdrawing from many of the events at the Tokyo Olympics. Both cited mental health issues being at the center of these decisions. These two experiences alone, both athletes at the top of their game, bring into debate two sides of a discussion. First, and foremost, we must look at what we a

I don't know if anyone struggles with meditation like I do. For me, meditation is an exercise in stress induced anxiety. I just cannot sit quietly for any great length of time and not think. Yet, I do appreciate the mental health benefits of being able to access a quiet space in one's mind. Often, through the day, we are running from this place to that, either literally, or within the confines of our minds. Does it ever feel like you have a traffic jam going on inside your

I often tell clients when they come into the office that art was our first communication skill, as we learned to draw before we could talk. Many times, when a client is stuck in a loop, drawing can unlock some powerful connections that have long been locked because of how we create a verbal story to some of the places we feel challenged in. Whether that is relationships, work, finding personal passion or reaching goals, the story we get stuck in often builds upon itself. Be

Grounding means to connect to the earth and release built up energy that collects in the physical and mental bodies. Many of us have busy schedules where we are rushing from one thing to the next and spend very little time getting present in the moment. We are on our electronics, social media, television media... all of this has a tendency to leave us feeling ungrounded, out of sorts. Certain people in our lives, who are also ungrounded, can impact our own ability to feel

On June 17th, 2021, tennis superstar, Rafael Nadal tweeted that he will not play Wimbledon or in the Olympics as he is "listening to his body" in order to "prolong my career and continue to do what makes me happy". As a therapist, the supportive message this sends to those willing to hear is a departure of the typical message that tends to support working yourself into the ground. He's telling us that work is great, but sometimes we need to slow down and take inventory about

Top tennis athlete, Naomi Osaka, drew headlines when she refused to sit down at a press conference to answer questions by reporters. As a result she was fined $15,000 by the French Open Tournament Referee. Speculation began immediately as to why she was refusing to follow this protocol of the tournament. As mental health professional, it appeared likely to me that she was struggling with some mental health challenges that were too overwhelming to manage in front of lights,

The "sport" of backpacking is not for everyone, but in the time of COVID, where vacations and trips are limited depending on one's comfort level traveling farther than their hometown, it is a great way to connect to what, on most days/weeks/months, we might take for granted. The quiet solitude of being in the wilderness with a pack on your back, life consolidated to what you can carry and the day's focus purely on going from one tent site to the next, is an experience of min

Todays experiences with finding ones "passion" has noticeably been replaced with have to's, must do's and need to's. In the day and age of checking off boxes, passion has become a lost art. Before the surge of technology, and people posting about their latest dining experience, or filling up our quiet time with screens, we had to go seek adventure. Often in the seeking, seeds of passion were planted. Babysitting, passion to parent, be a caregiver, or teach; legos, passio

Many would agree that the rapid deployment of Smart Phones in the early 2000's was both a blessing and a curse. We have all the information we could ever desire right at our fingertips. That's actually thee blessing AND the curse. As information and communication has become accessible at our fingertips, as a culture we have found ourselves more and more distracted from the relationships right in front of us. Numerous parents have come to my office complaining about their

How do we protect ourselves and our children’s psyche from the collective pain and suffering that has become all too familiar.