Emberleigh Luce, LMFT, CCTP

07/10/2025

ℹ️🌿 UNPACKING PARENTIFICATION: WHEN THE CHILD BECOMES THE CAREGIVER |

As an adult, parentification symptoms often look like feelings of excessive guilt when setting boundaries with your parent, feeling "responsible" for them, doing things out of obligation, experiencing guilt-trips from them and having difficulties identifying and communicating your own needs.

While the actual prevalence is unknown, research suggests an estimated 1.3 – 1.4 million caregivers are under the age of 18 in the United States. It’s a phenomenon known as parentification, and it happens when a child becomes “the responsible one” in a family.

Parentification trauma can occur when children are forced to take on adult responsibilities, like doing most of the household chores, comforting an emotionally distressed parent, or caring for younger siblings. The role of caregiver often keeps them from playing, having friends, or succeeding in school. It’s more common than many people realize, yet it’s still largely overlooked in the conversations we have today about family dynamics.

Read the Full Article: https://www.talkspace.com/blog/parentification/

07/01/2025

I've recorded and shared my "legs up a wall" meditation (as some have referred to it) 😆

Whether you're looking to unwind from the day, take a nourishing moment for yourself, or wanting more grounding- this slow and mindful guided meditation with intentional movement might be able to provide just that.

This 20-30 minute guided meditation is intended to promote grounding, self gratitude, and a gentle pause, as you deepen your internal awareness and incorpora...

06/27/2025

I've been meaning to create and share my guided meditations/mindfulness practices for a while now and finally got around to doing so!

After being asked by a few people over the years, I'm happy to share my professional YouTube page which will contain therapy-related content.

**New microphone coming soon and potentially better camera....we will see......be patient with me 😆

Guided meditation for loss of a loved one:
https://youtu.be/Pogi3E9JjY0?si=DfhVjp18gqSQah_L

YouTube Channel:
https://youtube.com/?si=EGeNk-Jfn20_GNZr

Welcome to Your Calm Space 🌿 Hi, I’m Emberleigh, a licensed therapist passionate about helping you feel more grounded, peaceful, and connected. This channel is your gentle corner of the internet—where we explore mindfulness, meditation, emotional wellness, and self-compassion. Whether you're ...

06/13/2025

🌿 Understanding the Trauma Spectrum 🌿

PTSD ➡️ Complex Trauma ➡️ Developmental Trauma

Not all trauma looks the same. It doesn’t always come from a single event. Sometimes, it’s a slow build, a lifelong undercurrent. And sometimes, it’s so woven into your earliest experiences that you didn’t even know it was trauma.

👉 PTSD is often associated with a specific event — something identifiable that overwhelmed the nervous system.

👉 Complex Trauma usually means multiple or chronic events — especially in relationships that were meant to be safe.

👉 Developmental Trauma goes even deeper. It happens in the earliest years, often before we have words. It shapes the foundation of how we see ourselves, the world, and our sense of self and safety in relationships.

💡 Developmental trauma might show up as:

Hyper-independence or people-pleasing

Feeling “too much” or “not enough”

Chronic anxiety, shutdown, or difficulty trusting

A relentless drive to do — because stopping doesn’t feel safe

If this resonates, know this: it’s not “just who you are.”
It’s what happened and how your ✨️brilliant ✨️ nervous system adapted to keep you going.

🌱 Healing is possible.
With support, curiosity, and compassion, you can build new pathways — slowly, gently, in your own time.

06/11/2025

05/31/2025

Get that body moving!

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1FxUAD9Q7N/

05/24/2025

This one!

05/18/2025

A great read- especially for anyone who has ever thought "but they have so much potential" or "if they could just be the person I know they could be" or "I thought they would change" or all of the other similair sentiments.
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
We pick romantic partners as the closest thing that makes sense to the drama of our childhood.

A neural pathway gets set in the brain on a daily basis of how the Universe works. Not how your parents work. Not how you work. But how the whole Universe works.

If your mom was distant, the Universe is distant.

If your dad yelled out you, that's what it takes to get you back in line.

This sets up how you fall in love with somebody.

Not because you want to, not because you don't want to.

But because it is that way for all of us.

Until.

You learn.

Usually by getting hurt.

The harsher the childhood, the more sophisticated the healing process.

We barely have choice in understanding why we pick the negative.

It fits PERFECTLY into what we've experienced.

Humans try to learn mindset work and ask each other "do you believe you deserve to be treated like that?" - but this stays in the intellect.

There is a neural pathway that is programmed in childhood of EXACTLY what makes sense on a daily basis.

We pick a partner in the hopes of resolving that.

I will say that again.

You choose a person because of high hopes of resolving the childhood unfairness.

At first, you don't choose a partner that simply makes you feel better.

You choose a partner that perfectly abandons or criticizes you in the hopes that one day they will not do it again.

Your brain attempts to get them to understand if they just don't hurt you again this way, then you would feel resolution.

Notice that you don't choose a partner in the first place that gives you resolution.

You choose a partner that holds the promise of resolving the familiar.

Resolving what happened on a daily basis in childhood.

"Falling in love" could sometimes be changed to "Falling in desperate need to make my experience different inside my soul."

The more unpredictable the childhood, the more sophisticated your protections to stay put.

This is why I have worked with clients for 10 to 12 years to get out of a relationship.

They must eventually learn to sit with the discomfort, with the knowing of how to stop chasing the dream of getting mom and dad to be nicer.

They have to face the opposite direction.

They have to feel the discomfort, the agonizing newness of how to feel the yumminess and sexiness of somebody treating them with care.