Madi Davis, LCSW

09/22/2025

Before you label yourself as lazy, try asking:

🌼 What do I *actually* need right now - physically, emotionally, mentally?
🌼 Where am I stretching myself too thin or saying yes when I mean no?
🌼 What would true, nourishing rest look like - not a quick fix, but real replenishment?
🌼 How might I care for myself differently if I wasn’t carrying fear of being judged, misunderstood, or seen as lazy or “not enough”?

❤️

09/20/2025

When we’re overwhelmed, stressed, or spiralling, the part of the brain responsible for problem-solving and perspective-taking (the prefrontal cortex) temporarily goes offline.

Which means no matter how hard we try, thinking our way out of the moment rarely works.

What does help is tending to the body first: slowing your breath, moving, grounding, or simply allowing yourself to pause. Regulation before reflection.

Clarity comes after the storm has passed. Decisions feel easier once your nervous system has settled.

So if you find yourself in a spiral, remember: you don’t need to map out the rest of your life in that moment. Your only job is to soothe your system. The rest can wait. ❤️

08/02/2025

Every relationship is a negotiation between what we’re willing to give while asking for what we need. It’s a dance. A dynamic balance that is built on mutual honesty, communication and safety. This is the opposite of one sided control.

And we actually do have a lot of power in our relationships, we just don’t use it - for a variety of reasons. What I mean by “power” is our power to CHOOSE. Choose to tell them what you need. Choose to respond to how they respond to that.

You’re not at their “mercy”, and they don’t have to mind-read you constantly either. You’re two adults choosing to be together. One of you constantly pressuring the other to change, to act a certain way puts a tremendous amount of strain on the relationship, pulling you two apart.

Work on being as honest and conscious as you can. Check in frequently. Spend quality time together. Not only doing stuff together, but talking about your emotions and needs. It takes effort and setting time aside, and it’s so worth it!

To explore more of my work and to support it, join our safe and private Advanced Self-Reparenting Community on Patreon. Link in bio.

08/02/2025

You can inspire others, but you can’t change them. What person in your life have you been trying to change, trying to inspire to change, holding out hope for, etc? Who is it? Is it a partner, a parent, a sibling, or a friend? Just tune in here and name who it’s been for you. Most of the time we want another to change because we do believe it will benefit them, but let’s tune into ourselves here for the purpose of this post and exploration.

“If they change, what I get is…” Be with that. What gets offered to you if that other person integrates change? What relief do you feel? What validation or affirmation might you receive? What about the dynamic do you believe shifts, and why is that so important to you?

Reflect in this space. Yes, we want people to change because it often benefits them, but we also want people to change because it tends to benefit us as well. Maybe it’s relief for us, maybe it’s a witnessing of us that we’ve craved for so long, or maybe it’s having our pain finally understood. Deep breath here. Notice what it is for you, and notice how if you’re being asked to release trying to get another to change, you might also be releasing and letting go of the hope that you’ll get the relief in the way you thought, get witnessed in the way you’ve craved, and be understood in the way you hope for.
Ahh…grief.

If I release needing to control you I must begin (or continue) to grieve. There is loss that shows up when we release. Might you make a bit of room to feel into that loss?

07/17/2025

Kind words are wonderful. Looking in the mirror and repeating something positive about yourself is fine, it’s just not enough.

If you want to believe something different about yourself, you have to address the thing that keeps you from believing it and trusting it. Want to believe you’re worthy and enough? Just telling yourself that isn’t going to cut it. What put the unworthiness there in the first place? Want to believe you can trust others? Forcing yourself to trust isn’t going to do it. What ruptured trust for you, and can you begin to start showing and noticing in your body what trust feels like?

Resolving pain from the past takes both origin wound work and nervous system work. There’s value to understanding what put the doubt, pain, insecurity there in the first place , bearing witness to it and allowing grief to arise. It’s powerfully healing. But then it’s about showing yourself that it’s safe to believe something different, something new. We need disconfirming experiences (new data points) that show us that the old operating system isn’t it anymore. Over and over again.

If you want to dive into deeper work together, please join my FREE newsletter (friends, make sure you check your spam, promotions, junk folders as so many are landing there. This week’s deeper teaching is on how to properly apologize. Sign up via the link below and I’ll send you a link to your DMs to register for it.
https://mailchi.mp/mindfulnessmft/new-newsletter-signup-page

07/09/2025

It’s not about how hard we try to change someone. It’s about what they choose for themselves as adults. When we love someone, we naturally want what’s best for them. But we need to recognize that “the best” is based on our own perspective, which may not align with what they want, need, or are capable of.

Love can quickly become manipulation, control, or even (self) destruction when we lose sight of the other person’s freedom to choose - even if we believe their choices are wrong, unhealthy, or harmful.

Just as we can support those willing to change, we must also respect the choice not to. It’s their life, and our love doesn’t grant us power over their freedom to choose.

So, what can we do? We can talk - clearly, openly, repeatedly. We can offer help when asked - within reason and clear boundaries. We can continue to love, have compassion, and be there for them. We can also step away if it becomes too much. But trying to force change, ignoring their autonomy, and neglecting our own needs in the process?

That’s not love. It’s unprocessed childhood trauma showing up as a need to control. At that point, it’s no longer about them but about us: Why do we need them to change? Why do we want something for them that they don’t want? What are we trying to fix in ourselves by fixing them?

To explore more of my work and to support it, join our safe and private Advanced Self-Reparenting Community on Patreon. Link in bio.

06/25/2025

Okay…disclaimers first. Very often we are contributing to the problem at hand, so it’s important that we stay self reflective and open to feedback. I am not suggesting that this is true always and in every case, but I do want us to begin to recognize the dynamics where there’s an emphasis on you with no or very little emphasis on them. Okay? That’s what we’re examining here. The relationships that make you the problem.
Because making you the problem serves something.
If you’re the problem then they don’t have to look at themselves. If you’re the problem they don’t have to reflect. If you’re the problem they don’t have to change. If you’re the problem they don’t have to grow. If you’re the problem then people can feel sorry for them. If you’re the problem then they’re not. You see how that goes?
Sometimes people must make you the problem, the energy, the villain in the story to protect them or help them avoid facing a part of themselves that they’re not quite ready to face or part ways with. Oof indeed.
Being on the receiving end of that is no fun. It’s not easy to hang out in that space, so I want you to try a few things.
1. Identify what your contribution is and own it. Acknowledge it for yourself. Identify where your growth opportunities are.
2. See their part too. Get clear with it even if they can’t.
3. Consider what making you the problem protects or helps them avoid.
4. Decide how you want to engage with someone who needs to hold in this position at the expense of you.
5. Work on releasing needing to control the narrative. What does it look like to allow them to see you as the problem or convince others of this too (double oof).
6. Remind yourself that the story another believes or tells doesn’t make it true.
7. Remind yourself of what you know to be true.
Rinse. Wash. Repeat. Over and over and over again.

06/13/2025

Honestly, a good therapist will want to you to say these things.

It might feel awkward but some of the most powerful moments in therapy happen when you have the courage to say the things you think you *shouldn’t* say

Remember, therapy is for YOU. You don’t need to be polite or let your worry about your therapist’s feelings stop you from expressing yourself authentically.

A good therapist will want to hear about *all* of your feelings. ❤️

06/08/2025

06/08/2025

People-pleasing isn’t about being kind - it’s about trying to avoid the discomfort of being disliked, criticised or rejected.

It’s what we do when being liked feels safer than being real.

But over time, it costs us our authenticity, our boundaries, and our peace

The work is learning that your truth won’t ruin your relationships - it’ll deepen them ❤️

05/10/2025

05/10/2025

If you keep ending up with emotionally unavailable people, there’s a significant chance that you might be emotionally unavailable yourself.

Emotional intimacy springs from self-awareness. If you’re able to hold space for yourself, you can hold space for another person. If you can observe yourself, understand how you’re feeling, and recognize what you need, then you can do the same for another human being. Self-awareness creates a connection with yourself that you can use to connect with another person.

People who are emotionally unavailable don’t have space for understanding others’ emotions. They can’t recognize others’ needs properly. They don’t even understand their own emotions and needs. In relationships, they often focus on getting what they want without giving much back. They don’t like to talk about emotions and they’re poor communicators.

Recognize these signs. You can’t “make” them emotionally available. You can’t do their self-reflection for them. You can support them if they’re taking conscious, deliberate action to heal themselves (action, not words!). For your healing, you need to ask yourself why you choose them and listen to what comes up with compassion.

To learn a lot more about these topics, become a part of a safe and private self-reparenting community, and to support my work, sign up to our Patreon Self-reparenting Community at patreon.com/acceptandact. Link in bio