Katie Gustafson

Katie Gustafson Not your best self. Your favorite self. | Helping you step out of stories that no longer serve you.

There’s a kind of strength that was built in response to something.The Eight who walked in and immediately clocked who c...
05/26/2026

There’s a kind of strength that was built in response to something.

The Eight who walked in and immediately clocked who could be trusted, who pushed back just to see if you’d hold your ground, who said the hard thing in the meeting and replayed it alone on the drive home, they’re not trying to dominate the room. They’re trying to make sure the room is safe enough to be in.

The intensity is real, so is the loyalty underneath it.

Eights move through the world like they have to earn safety by securing it themselves. And somewhere along the way, most of them decided that needing people was a vulnerability they couldn’t afford.

What changes that isn’t someone who tries to soften them or sand down the edges. It’s someone strong enough to stay, who doesn’t flinch at the anger and knows to wait for what’s underneath it.

The people who earn an Eight’s trust don’t just get loyalty. They get everything.

This one’s for the Eights who protected everyone in the room and never mentioned it. And for the people who love them and are learning that the walls were never about them. 🤍

Deeply grateful that we get to goof off today, grill out with friends, play Marco Polo, cozy up to Burt Reynolds, and wa...
05/25/2026

Deeply grateful that we get to goof off today, grill out with friends, play Marco Polo, cozy up to Burt Reynolds, and watch a truly righteous sunset on this Memorial Day Weekend.

A little silly. A little discombobulated (because holy mother school’s out) A whole lot aware that these ordinary, beautiful moments are never really ordinary at all. 🇺🇸✨

Deeply grateful that we get to goof off today, grill out with friends, play Marco Polo, cozy up to Burt Reynolds, and wa...
05/25/2026

Deeply grateful that we get to goof off today, grill out with friends, play Marco Polo, cozy up to Burt Reynolds, and watch a truly righteous sunset on this Memorial Day Weekend.

A little silly. A little discombobulated because holy sh$t school’s out 🙃 A whole lot aware that these ordinary, beautiful moments are never really ordinary at all. 🇺🇸✨

I’d like to formally apologize to everyone who has ever had to wait while I changed outfits “one more time.”Because if I...
05/22/2026

I’d like to formally apologize to everyone who has ever had to wait while I changed outfits “one more time.”

Because if I’m honest?
Fashion has never been superficial for me. It’s language. It’s mood. It’s memory. It’s play. It’s art. It’s one of the clearest ways I know how to express the parts of me that don’t always fit neatly into words.

Meeting?
I have a blazer for that.

Therapy day?
Soft layers and grounded shoes.

Speaking event?
Give me structure, gold jewelry, and a look that says “attachment theory, but make it chic.”

Date night?
Tiny top. Emotional availability pending.

Girls night?
Somewhere between “Italian widow” and “disco aunt.”

Park outing?
Effortless in theory. Overthought in practice.

The older I get, the more I realize getting dressed is less about being seen and more about feeling like myself. The Enneagram Four in me absolutely thrives here. Texture, symbolism, beauty, reinvention, self-expression? She never stood a chance.

Honestly, if I wasn’t a therapist talking about the Enneagram for a living, I would’ve find a way to dress up professionally full-time.

And frankly… I may still. 💃🏻

I don’t know about you, but I have learned that I am profoundly bad at goodbyes, and yet here we are, right in the thick...
05/22/2026

I don’t know about you, but I have learned that I am profoundly bad at goodbyes, and yet here we are, right in the thick of them.

End of the school year, summer schedules kicking in. Kids stepping into new grades, new phases, new versions of themselves. Routines dissolving. Seasons shifting.

Change is happening whether we’re ready for it or not.

And with change comes grief. Even the good kind.

This week’s letter is about what it looks like to actually honor an ending instead of rushing past it to get to the next thing. Link in bio.

05/20/2026

You’ve done the work. You know your patterns, where they come from, why you do what you do.
And you’re still stuck.
That’s not a healing problem. That’s an integration problem.
Insight is just the lights coming on. You still have to do something with the lights on.
The goal was never to be the most self-aware person in the room.
It was to be free.

Most people see the enthusiasm, the ideas, the energy, and the way they make ordinary things feel like an event worth sh...
05/18/2026

Most people see the enthusiasm, the ideas, the energy, and the way they make ordinary things feel like an event worth showing up for.

What’s harder to see is the calculus running underneath all of it.

The Seven isn’t avoiding depth; they’re avoiding entrapment. There’s a difference, and it’s an important one. Pain isn’t the problem, but pain with no exit, no reframe, no narrative that leads somewhere. That’s what they’re outrunning. They’ve gotten so good at outrunning it that even the people closest to them sometimes forget it’s there.

Four open tabs. A trip planned before the last one ended. The hard feeling, reframed before it was even finished being felt. This isn’t avoidance for the sake of it. It’s a system that was built for a reason, and it worked.

The gift of a Seven is that they will make your life bigger. They will find the angle that makes the hard thing survivable and the ordinary thing worth celebrating.

What they’re quietly hoping for is someone who makes them feel like they don’t have to be on. Someone who stays in the room when the light goes dim for a minute and doesn’t make it a thing.

That kind of steadiness is what earns their whole heart.

This one’s for the Sevens who made everyone else’s week better and didn’t mention what kind of week they were having. And for the people who love them. 🤍

Have you ever been so busy, lost in the hustle, rising, managing, doing that frantic “where’s my phone” pat?Because, sam...
05/14/2026

Have you ever been so busy, lost in the hustle, rising, managing, doing that frantic “where’s my phone” pat?

Because, same.

Busy is part of life. We always have something to do, somewhere to be, someone to tend to (like a needy, new puppy 🐶).

But what if we slowed down? What if we took in the beauty around us, took a deep breath, and savored the moment in front of us?

That’s what I wrote about in my most recent Substack—an experience where I almost missed the most beautiful exchange between friends and the neuroscience behind how we benefit from slowing down.

Read the full reflection at the link in my bio 🤎

Address

416 East Iris Drive
Nashville, TN
37204

Telephone

+16158875946

Website

https://katiegustafson.co/typing-cards, https://katiegustafsonco.substack.com/

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