Indigo Bloom Counseling, LLC

02/22/2025

02/22/2025

https://www.medicarerights.org/medicare-watch/2025/02/20/potential-target-for-medicaid-cuts-would-end-coverage-for-20-million-people

As we discussed last week, the Republican-controlled Congress is considering massive cuts to Medicaid. All cuts to Medicaid are harmful and would have ripple effects that hurt the Medicare program and its beneficiaries. One type of cut being discussed would target the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) M...

11/30/2024

07/24/2024

RIP Dr. Ruth

I'm deeply saddened to hear of the passing of my esteemed colleague, Dr. Ruth Westheimer. I vividly recall the first time I encountered the spunky s*x therapist with the exotic accent. I thought, "How wise! She is the myth-busting grandmother, the insightful foreigner who pierces the dark corners of another culture, and the refugee who has faced enough adversity to become fearless." To me, she was the woman who understood pain and loss, and who became the outspoken voice on the erotic.

Her influence extended beyond the realm of s*x; she embodied aliveness, vibrancy, pleasure, and joy. That bold message resonated deeply with me. During my initial years in the United States, I was self-conscious about my accent and my identity as someone not "Made in America." How could I effectively communicate my views on U.S. social norms? Dr. Ruth showed me there was more than the conventional path.

She was a media sensation who used her platform to champion post-traumatic growth. She spoke to millions, challenging the social status quo around the nuclear family, LGBTQIA+, abortion, and AIDS. Listening to her, and identifying as a fellow European, as a child of parents directly affected by the Holocaust, and as a therapist, I gained the confidence to explore the intricacies of erotic desire myself. I never had grandparents, but I often thought that if I could choose the grandmother of my dreams, it would be Dr. Ruth.

01/14/2024

Two very important facts everyone should know.

11/19/2023

“Do not be dismayed by the brokenness of the world.
All things break. And all things can be mended.
Not with time, as they say, but with intention.
So go. Love intentionally, extravagantly, unconditionally.
The broken world waits in darkness for the light that is you.”
L.R. Knost

Tijana Lukovic

08/08/2023

Anthropologist Margaret Mead was asked by a student what she considered to be the first sign of civilization in a culture. Mead said that the first sign of civilization in an ancient culture was a femur (thighbone) that had been broken and then healed. Mead explained that in the animal kingdom, if you break your leg, you die. You cannot run from danger, get to the river for a drink or hunt for food. You are meat for prowling beasts. No animal survives a broken leg long enough for the bone to heal. Broken femur that has healed is evidence that someone has taken time to stay with the one who fell, has bound up the wound, has carried the person to safety and has tended the person through recovery. Helping someone else through difficulty is where civilization starts. We are at our best when we serve others.
Be civilized. ~Ira Byock

(Book: The Best Care Possible: A Physician’s Quest to Transform Care Through the End of Life https://amzn.to/44PZHgn

One of Mead's most popular books: Continuities in Cultural Evolution: https://amzn.to/3qbfpne)

08/02/2023

I think a lot about how we as a culture have turned “forever” into the only acceptable definition of success.

Like… if you open a coffee shop and run it for a while and it makes you happy but then stuff gets too expensive and stressful and you want to do something else so you close it, it’s a “failed” business. If you write a book or two, then decide that you don’t actually want to keep doing that, you’re a “failed” writer. If you marry someone, and that marriage is good for a while, and then stops working and you get divorced, it’s a “failed” marriage.

The only acceptable “win condition” is “you keep doing that thing forever”. A friendship that lasts for a few years but then its time is done and you move on is considered less valuable or not a “real” friendship. A hobby that you do for a while and then are done with is a “phase” - or, alternatively, a “pity” that you don’t do that thing any more. A fandom is “dying” because people have had a lot of fun with it but are now moving on to other things.

I just think that something can be good, and also end, and that thing was still good. And it’s okay to be sad that it ended, too. But the idea that anything that ends is automatically less than this hypothetical eternal state of success… I don’t think that’s doing us any good at all.
—brightwanderer.tumblr.com

artwork by Kaethe Butcher Illustrations

12/30/2022

On 1854, Harriet Tubman returned to her Eastern Shore Maryland home to emancipate her brothers Ben, Henry, and Robert from slavery. Tubman had heard rumors that there were plans to sell the men the day after Christmas; so she sent word to her brothers through Jacob Jackson, a free African American man.

During the slavery era, Christmas became a popular time for freedom seekers to plan escapes because enslaved people often received travel passes to visit family who lived on other properties during the holiday. Once they received travel passes, they were not expected to show up again until well after the holiday. Tubman wrote in code: “tell my brothers to be always watching unto prayer and when the good old ship of Zion comes along, to be ready to step on board."

The brothers had travel passes to visit their parents Ben Sr. and Rit Ross for Christmas. 3 others, including Ben’s fiancée, would join the group on their journey North to freedom. They traveled more than 100 miles, finally arriving at William Still’s Anti-Slavery office in Philadelphia on Dec. 29, 1854. Learn more about Harriet Tubman’s life and legacy, and view her shawl and other related objects in our Searchable Museum: https://s.si.edu/3mls0iH

📸 Photographer William H. Cheney, South Orange, NJ, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons