Jennifer Mann, LCSW

08/04/2025

I’m back home today. I’m at the bagel store on Union Tpke meeting my bestie Ita Fogel for an annual Ita and Jen Day. (Ita and Jen Day is when Ita is in from Israel and we get to see each other and marvel in person at the nature of our connection. Nothing new is discussed because we are in regular touch since 1994.)

Ita just left and I stayed behind for a few minutes because my stomach is bothering me. And so, a perfect opportunity to write presented itself.

Driving to and through my old neighborhood, Jamaica Estates, I can’t tell whether I am 44 or 15. Central is a few blocks away and I can hear and feel myself and my friends walking in our long skirts to TCBY on a break and feeling the ultimate freedom. TCBY isn’t here anymore but I can still taste the cookie dough I would get on my vanilla yogurt.

How did I get here? Whose life is this? How am I 44? How am I in this chapter of my life? My life sometimes feel recognizable to me. Kids growing up and a life I had never planned on living… and yet, here I am. People talk about change. I guess I never understood how some changes are traumatic in the sense that you lose your very sense of self. You may have to spend time breathing very very slowly to quite literally get through a moment.

As I was walking to the bagel store and contemplating, Ita drove by and screamed something fun out the window at me. How many times have we been here? Probably too many to count, over this lifetime. I remember taking our Starbucks or Pizza Professor to Cunningham Park right before my wedding and throughout college; the very same
Park the St. John’s running team would find my father on his morning jog ten years later and use their defibrillator the day of his cardiac arrest. It had felt like lifetimes between 19 and 29. I couldn’t even relate to 19 at 29. Today at 44 it all feels like a blur and I can feel myself at every age; ageless.

Today, my daughter is nearly 23 and in Paris at the moment. And my son Charlie is a 20 year old man who has brought one of the most wonderful human beings into my life; someone who I adore and admire. I love feeling my heart stretch to begin to love someone else as one of my own. Serena is a beautiful young woman who is full of life and sharp as a tack and will be a senior in high school. And Jake, my baby is going to be in 8th grade and I don’t even have words for him. For all of them. My heart is full of love (and anxiety most days.)

Ita has been with me through it all. All.of.it. It’s wild. It’s absolutely wild. It’s moments like this when I remember who I am. Who I always was.

Jen

08/04/2025

Goodbye Razzle Dazzle
By Jennifer Mann LCSW

There’s a kind of person who dazzles you.
They know how.
They lead with charm, with flash, with what they think will win you over
Money, clothes, the perfect date, the curated image, the confident talk.

And for a while, it’s intoxicating.
You feel wanted. Admired.
Like maybe this time, this is it.

But if you look closer
you’ll see it’s not you they’re falling for.
It’s the way you reflect back their own performance.
They aren’t trying to know you.
They’re trying to win you.

And then there’s the other kind.
The quieter kind.
The one who doesn’t need to impress you to feel worthy.

They’re not perfect. Not polished.
But they’re present.

They show up curious, not clever.
They ask real questions and wait for the real answers.
They’re generous; not just with time or things,
but with their attention.
Their heart.
Their willingness to sit in the real with you.

That kind of person doesn’t perform.
They relate.
They nourish.
They show you you’re safe to be messy, honest, tender, whole.

They don’t sweep you off your feet.
They meet you where you are
and walk with you from there.

And once you’ve felt that kind of love
from a partner, a friend, a soul connection of any kind
you stop craving the glitter.

You start craving the goodness.

Because it’s not about what someone has.
It’s about what they’re willing to give
freely, openly, generously.

Not to impress you.
But to love you.

07/28/2025

07/28/2025

I Experienced Transcendence Yesterday (For Real!)
By Jennifer Mann LCSW

I choose to write this old school; without the help of AI because I am so sickened by it already (OK, I love it and use it too because it makes everything so easy! For instance, “he” is now helping me with an organization plan for my bedroom! I hate how I feel when someone sends me a response and I know AI wrote it. I want people back! I want human connection. I want messy!)

I was at the beach yesterday. I was crawling out my skin. I quickly put my sneakers on and forced myself out of the house to walk the boardwalk and eventhough it was gloomy out, the boardwalk was fairly packed.

I sat down on a bench to look out at the ocean and I heard tidbits of conversations. One woman was disgusted by her date. Another was agonizing over a work email. And another was talking about a vacation. And quite suddenly, I experienced almost a removal from reality. I’ve experienced something like this three times in my life; but those were panic based. This time, I had no panic. I thought to myself “I am not here anymore.” These conversations are not beneath me. We all have these conversations. They are human. I have them too. Suddenly I felt as though I could not relate to this. All my chronic worry and rumination that minute to minute float through my head was gone and I thought “I don’t belong here.” Everything went completely quiet. I couldn’t even hear the ocean any longer… and then I felt very warm and thought “I can’t say out loud that I don’t relate to this world anymore because maybe Gd would take me then.” And I thought… “Maybe this is transcendence.”

Maybe I am changing… once again. Maybe the world around me will be the same, but I will be new once again. The way I see things. The importance and the weight I give to certain things… maybe those things will be gone and I will feel freer and lighter and less tied to a particular outcome and more in my body and the moment.

It was perhaps the single most powerful moment in my life. I have never experienced anything like this. Of course, I immediately asked Chat GPT what had happened and he confirmed it was a spiritual transcendence. But maybe he just tells me what he “thinks” I want to hear. (He also uses up so much water btw. Ask my kids about this. It’s horrible.)

I think this happened to me for a few reasons, though I can’t be sure.

I went to two beach meditations hoping for some relief from my heaviness. During the first one I experienced one to two minutes of mental peace and I felt inside my body. To be honest, I never knew what that meant because I hadn’t actually felt it. Now I have. During the second one I began crying as I noticed my painful thoughts. Crying from heaviness of carrying them. It was a beautiful cry. I felt instead of thought. I was also aware there were other people around me and so I was trying to cry silently because I felt like I would be bothering the people near me. That in and of itself is something I am aware of. I loved that cry. It was an actual release and a deeply healing experience.

I want to get deeper and deeper into this somatic world of healing and release. I have shared that I am studying ketamine assisted therapy right now as well as looking into microdosing psylocibin along with therapeutic integration. The research is kind of undeniable that for some people who have treatment resistant depression, OCD, PTSD, attachment wounds and other human things… microdosing may provide relief that years and years of therapy cannot. (For some people. There is no one size fits all. Its very important to do your research.)

Something you may not know about me is that it is my dream is to live on a farm upstate. I want to be in that fresh country air, ride my horse around town and see smiley faces in the supermarket. (For now, I’m living near the beach with lots of smiley faces and my Mazda CX-9.) I see myself having nature based retreats in my home that are completely nourishing to the mind, body and soul.

In my twenties I taught Hebrew school and at some point became a certified makeup artist with Il Makiage. Sometimes I wonder how my life would be had i remained a makeup artist. I was pretty good and made a lot of money doing it. I do have an artistic flair and when Im not actively creating i feel shut off and can get very down. Im a 4w3 wing on the enneagram. Someone recently told me I should study psychodrama because of my love of impersonations, acting and being an overall goofball/entertainer. I’ve had many “characters” over the years that I believe I was using to connect with people and feel euphorically silly and make others happy and laugh. I love when people are happy and feel good. I also understand that my role as a therapist is not to make
People happy and feel good. It is to sit alongside them as they do the deep, hard, painful and sacred work of coming home to themselves… however they choose to get there. I do want to share a little
Of my hope with you today; for those who feel so stuck and hopeless; that there may just be hope out there yet. Never say never.
Sincerely,
Jen

07/25/2025

Is trauma bonding real? Or is it just another pop psychology term we toss around too easily?

I’ve sat with this question. I’ve also sat with clients who couldn’t leave — or left and went back — and hated themselves for it.

Here’s what I’ve come to understand:

Trauma bonding is a term that gets used a lot, sometimes in ways that oversimplify a very complex experience. But the heart of it is this:

When someone hurts you, and then comforts you…
When they tear you down, and then pull you close…
When love is mixed with fear, confusion, hope, and shame —
your brain, your body, your nervous system — they don’t always know how to leave.

It’s not that people can’t walk away. It’s that everything inside them has been trained to stay.

That’s not weakness. That’s survival. That’s attachment. That’s a story your system learned long ago.

There’s also critique of the term — that it lacks clinical precision, that it can take away someone’s agency, that it’s sometimes used to explain any painful relationship. All of that is valid. But it doesn’t erase what so many people feel when they try to leave someone who’s hurt them and still feel inexplicably drawn back.

Here’s what I believe:

People don’t stay because they enjoy being mistreated.
They stay because part of them believes this is the love they deserve.
Or the only love they’ll get.
Or the love they need to win.

And if you’ve been there — or love someone who has — the work isn’t to shame or “snap out of it.” The work is to understand the logic of staying… and then gently help that person reclaim their right to leave.

Not from a place of panic.
Not from a place of rage.
But from a place of truth.

You deserve a nervous system that isn’t constantly recovering from the person you’re with.

🩵
Jennifer Mann LCSW

07/24/2025

When we stop trying to control everything — how we’re seen, what people think, the outcome of every move we make — that’s when real life begins. Not the curated version. Not the tightrope walk. But the messy, beautiful, honest life that actually feels like ours.You don’t have to script your emotions, hide your weird, or keep explaining your truth to people who never really heard you to begin with.There’s something wild and sacred about letting go.You become you again.✨ ✨ ✨ ✨ ✨ ✨ ✨ ✨ 🦋🌊🩵

07/23/2025

I just started my training in Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP) and I’m genuinely so excited about it.

For years, I’ve sat with people who are doing everything right in therapy—showing up, doing the work—and still feel stuck. Like there’s a locked door in their mind they just can’t open. No matter how insightful they are, how much they want to move forward, something keeps looping underneath.

KAP feels like a key.

It’s a therapeutic process that involves a low-dose ketamine lozenge (yes, really!) taken in a safe, cozy space—with a therapist by your side—while you lie back, eyes closed, maybe under a weighted blanket, and take a gentle journey inward.

The ketamine creates a little space between you and your usual mental defenses. A little loosening of the noise. And in that space, insight, healing, and deep compassion can emerge.

I’m hoping to begin offering KAP sessions to those who are appropriate candidates after the Jewish holidays, and I’ll share more as I go through the training and certification.

But for now, just know: I’m so hopeful.
So excited.
And so moved by the possibility that this work can help people access parts of themselves they’ve been trying to reach for years.

If you’ve ever felt stuck—like talk therapy is helping, but not fully—this might be something to keep an eye on.

The sky is the limit; not our minds. I want to help you access those parts that have been hiding for years and years in the gentlest, safest way. I am a freedom loving aquarius ♒️ and I have always wanted to experience true mental freedom and join others are on their journeys towards theirs!

Let the unlocking begin 💫

Jennifer Mann LCSW

07/21/2025

From Ma’am

About a year or so ago, I officially became “Ma’am.” You know…. “Your car is ready ma’am.” “Happy to help you, Ma’am.” “The wait should be about ten minutes, Ma’am.” Tip to literally everyone. No woman of a certain age wants to be called “Ma’am.” We understand you are being respectful. But I’ll take a “miss” or a nothing any old day.

This weekend, I was trying to get a soda from a restaurant located inside a casino. And walking in, the security guard said “Miss, excuse me…. ID please.” I was slightly confused because the person I was with wasn’t asked for his. I said “I am 44 years old. I dont understand.” He took my ID and looked down, then peered up over his glasses and said “OK. Wow. You 44?” He then said “please give me your hand” and he stamped it. OVER 21. “So you can gamble without anyone giving you a hard time.”

I still don’t know if he was trying to make my day, flirting or genuinely thought I didn’t look 21. I also wasn’t wearing any makeup. Maybe my makeup ages me? In any case, this is one for the books. And then next imminent time I am “ma’amed” I am going to hold on to this.

PSA, youngens… call a “Ma’am” “Miss” and literally make her day. It’s hard getting old. But as my dad always says “It beats the alternative.”

Love,
Jen

07/11/2025

Do you ever have a moment where you feel like it’s the end? Or, you simply don’t know if you’ll ever be OK again? Or you’re just rooted in worry and stress and cannot see a way out? I had a moment yesterday. A big moment. Emotions flooded me and I was forced to his pause. I went into a state of freeze, I think.

I’m sitting down to prepare a receipt for a client and I was stopped in my tracks by my “view.” It was a lovely moment that reminded me that things are OK and will be OK. Not because of anything outside of or external to me. But because of me. I was reminded of my strength and abilities and all the beauty of life for a few fleeting moments. And im going to try to hold on to that and remember that bad feelings pass and they aren’t necessarily “proof” of anything. We cant ignore them but we can trust that they will pass.

It’s always helpful to find those reminders! Please drop me a line or a helpful way that you are reminded that you are OK! Here’s mine! A picture is worth a thousand words!
Jen

07/11/2025

Imagine for a moment that you were cherished as a child. That who you are/were was completely and entirely welcomed with unconditional positive regard and accepted. That your every quirk was celebrated with love and your parents met you with JOY 🤩.

How do you think that might have impacted you? And what might you be able to accept about yourself today?

I work two days a week in a school. I am sure there are brighter and savvier school social workers than me. But something that truly makes me happy and feel fulfilled is creating a space for children, in school, where every girl knows she is completely safe, valued and accepted and her every thought and feeling actually makes so much sense and matters. And I think beyond skills and tips for the classroom, being appreciated for who you are is the greatest tool to help kids learn at school.

07/10/2025

Sometimes what’s hard about parenting isn’t the chaos or the attitude or the messy rooms.

It’s when we feel disappointed.

Not in the spilled milk kind of way.
In the quiet, achey way.
Like — is this who they are?
Is this who I am as a parent?
Am I screwing this up?

And that disappointment… it can sneak out sideways.
In our tone. In our silence. In our quickness to correct.
Even when we don’t mean to, it lands on them.
They feel it.

And when a kid feels that we’re disappointed in who they are — not just in what they did — it hurts.
They don’t always say it, but it chips away at something inside.
Their sense of self, their safety with us, their freedom to just be.

But here’s the thing — feeling disappointed doesn’t make you a bad parent. It makes you a human one.

We just have to work through it before we put it on them.
Get curious about what’s underneath it.
Is it fear? Control? Old stuff from our own childhood?

Because our job isn’t to sculpt them into something perfect.
It’s to love them through their becoming — while we’re still becoming too.

As Mr. Rogers said, anything mentionable is manageable.
And as Bob Dylan said, we’re all just busy being born.
Even us.