Mindful Marriage and Family Therapy

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Mindful Marriage and Family Therapy Mindful Marriage and Family Therapy is a Manhattan based private practice for individuals and couples.
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The gift of relational safety. Please tag someone in your life who offers this to you. It’s not just partnership. This i...
19/08/2025

The gift of relational safety. Please tag someone in your life who offers this to you. It’s not just partnership. This is friends, your sibling, a parent, your adult child, or your therapist (no need to tag them ;))

It is quite literally life changing to have someone in your life who is able to receive your feedback without punishing you. It is life changing to have someone in your life who will self reflect when you share a hurt or disappointment. It’s life changing to have someone who can hear something hard and still choose you. Especially, if you didn’t have this growing up. Especially if you learned that sharing hard things or offering truth would cause reactivity, punishment, silent treatment, and beyond. Big love and respect to all the humans who are safe landing places. You’re repairing and re-wiring safety and trust for so many.

Make a little space for this. Talking about attraction within a relationship can feel confronting, even awkward at times...
15/08/2025

Make a little space for this. Talking about attraction within a relationship can feel confronting, even awkward at times. We’re mindful of its impact on one another, and (hopefully!) don’t want to be hurtful.
I’d like to offer you an alternative perspective that you might be interested in exploring (I’m not suggesting this is the answer always, just an alternative path to go down). What if the challenges you’re facing with attraction are actually issues you’re having respecting your partner?

It’s hard to be connected to attraction when we don’t respect someone, or we’re struggling to respect a part of them. Take a moment to reflect on that. Is there any part of my partner that I’m struggling to respect right now? How is that impacting my relationship with attraction to them/desire for them? See what comes up for you.

Because maybe trying to resolve issues around attraction is really an invitation to begin discussing the ruptures in respect and the attention those areas might need.

Instead of what is. Because if you allowed what is, it would mean that you’d have to make sense to feel. Trying to under...
14/08/2025

Instead of what is. Because if you allowed what is, it would mean that you’d have to make sense to feel. Trying to understand can be our way of trying to avoid feeling. Trying to make sense of something can be our way of trying to get away from a devastating truth. Our systems are brilliant - the function of trying to understand is brilliant. Might you ask it what it’s trying to protect you from. And might you be willing to hear the answer.

Your very important Tuesday reminder. 🧡Tag the people who care for your internal world in this way.
12/08/2025

Your very important Tuesday reminder. 🧡
Tag the people who care for your internal world in this way.

This has been one of my most shared quotes of all time. I gave it a little refresher and update for us today. Of course,...
10/08/2025

This has been one of my most shared quotes of all time. I gave it a little refresher and update for us today. Of course, there is incredible value in being mindful of your exposure. There absolutely IS healing in the nuance of choosing (actively) to not engage in something that you know is going to be hurtful, harmful, and activating. I see that as the difference. Avoiding is passive, while the other is not. Healing will require you to stand face to face with the familiar and navigate it differently. It will ask you to communicate differently, set a boundary differently, let someone in differently. It will challenge you to repair differently, to regulate your nervous system, to step towards vulnerability, and to celebrate the small wins that are actually the big ones.

Sometimes I wish I could take snippets from conversations I have and make posts about them. It’s those moments you wish ...
08/08/2025

Sometimes I wish I could take snippets from conversations I have and make posts about them. It’s those moments you wish someone was recording so you could just share the 🔥🔥🔥.

Thank goodness did just that with our convos. Recorded them and then transcribed it for her book, Loveable.

I was reading through it today and stumbled upon this exchange we had and found it powerful and wanted to share it with you. The next slides have the images of the pages so you can read what I shared with her during a tender time in her life. I hope it might offer you something too.

This is a hard-fought battle when the time comes. Why do we try to control the way that people see us? We want them to l...
08/08/2025

This is a hard-fought battle when the time comes. Why do we try to control the way that people see us? We want them to like us, to hold us in high regard. We want them to respect us, and think nice things about us. We struggle to reconcile that another might see us as difficult, as hurtful, harmful, imperfect, or even a villain.⁠
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People hold endless stories about us. And so many of us work tirelessly at controlling that narrative. Present this way and….Show up that way and…⁠
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But what happens when you realize you can’t control the story? What happens when someone feels differently about you than the way you’ve positioned yourself to be?⁠
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The illusion of peace is that if you can convince a person to see you the way you want them to see you, you will have relief. But maybe relief comes when you make space for others to have their story without trying to control it.⁠
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When others hold a story about you that is inconsistent with the story you hold about yourself it’s not your job to convince them otherwise. You can reflect on this story to see if there’s any important information and feedback in there for you, but sometimes people just need to hold a different story because it serves them. Do you struggle with this? Bonus points…if you do, in what ways was controlling the narrative something you saw in your family of origin?⁠
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This one’s a sneaky one. I was having a conversation with someone recently where she was exclaiming that her parents wer...
07/08/2025

This one’s a sneaky one. I was having a conversation with someone recently where she was exclaiming that her parents were around all the time. “They were there. They didn’t travel for work. They weren’t out late at night. They were….present.” But there’s a difference between physical presence and emotional presence. One without the other isn’t enough. And when one or both are missing, a part of you, at the minimum, is being neglected. There’s no contact with it — your emotional experience. There is no contact made with your internal world. There is no contact made with how you’re feeling, what you’re experiencing, what you’re thinking, and wishing for, and caring about, and celebrating, and needing support around. Take that in for a moment. Big breath.⁠
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Contact with Self is vital. You may have learned how to connect with yourself in the absence of getting it from others, but if you didn’t, it’s never too late.⁠
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Part of restoring this is about learning how to make contact with yourSelf. Learning how to connect, and listen, and be present. It’s about getting to know how you feel, and what your preferences are. It’s about being attended and making space for you to care about what shows up, even when others didn’t or couldn’t. To learn how to care about what you’re experiencing isn’t always easy — for some it’s confusing, new, or even a strange, peculiar feeling and inquiry.⁠
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If you’re taking baby steps with this, might you notice whether you like a particular fabric on your skin. If so, why? If not, why not? Might you take a moment to ask yourself if you’re actually enjoying the coffee you’re drinking - if so, why? If not, why not? Might you check in with yourself after a meeting or a hang out, and connect with what felt nourishing, connected, valuable, safe, kind…or not. If so, why? If not, why not?⁠
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Begin in places where there is little resistance and see what you start to learn and notice about yourself.⁠

People try to control others in an attempt (not necessarily conscious) to avoid facing their own fear and shame. I’ve be...
06/08/2025

People try to control others in an attempt (not necessarily conscious) to avoid facing their own fear and shame. I’ve been sitting with control quite a bit lately so thought we might discuss here.⁠

Do you know someone controlling? Maybe it’s you. Maybe it was you. Maybe it’s a parent, a partner, a colleague, or a friend?⁠
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Notice who it is you’re thinking of as you read.⁠
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Instead of facing their fears or their shame, they find it more tolerable to exert power and control over another. This act creates the illusion that they are worthy and deserving of [insert outcome of control here] — maybe it’s being right, maybe it’s keeping you in their life, maybe it’s proving their point, maybe it’s having you submit to them in some way.⁠
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If someone needs to exert power over another it undoubtedly means that they feel powerless in themselves. All it does is create an illusion.⁠
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That illusion helps them avoid a belief that lies within: I am undeserving, I am unworthy, I am not good enough, I am powerless.⁠
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Control does not exist without shame and fear. It breeds off of it.⁠
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If this is you, might you turn safely towards your fears and shame? Might you begin to get to know them better so that they don’t rule your life? Ignoring, denying fears or avoiding them does not make anything go away...it intensifies it, even if you can’t see it.⁠
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If this is someone you know, how do you participate in this dance? Ooof this is a big one, friends. There isn’t room here to get into this part, but I’m curious what questions you have about being in a relationship with those who exhibit a need for control/power over you/others.⁠
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A friend of mine posted one of my quotes, a list, about reminders if you’re starting to date again. One of the reminders...
05/08/2025

A friend of mine posted one of my quotes, a list, about reminders if you’re starting to date again. One of the reminders was that you do not need to be fully “healed”. I looked at the comments section and there were a few outraged by this particular one. “Of course you need to be healed to be in relationship” followed by some 🤦🏻‍♀️ face palm emojis.

I thought we might break it down here.
Of course it’s not an invitation to be reckless. If you’re raw and haven’t done any healing work, you may want to spend some time tuning in. But that’s not what I’m talking about here.

We are never finished. Full stop. If you think you need to be fully healed (what does that even mean?!?) then you’re going to be waiting a very long time. Sure you may want to know yourself well, know how to do some emotional regulation, and have some understanding of your past pain and how it’s showing up, but the idea that you can’t have any mess feels problematic.

Here’s the less subtle piece. Relationships are what wound us. Everything is relational. The wounds, pain, and trauma we carry is relational. And because of that, it does require relationships to help with our healing. Of course there is plenty we can do on our own, but awareness is not enough. Integration requires practice. That means being in relationship and having to navigate what comes up in that dynamic.

So, friends, of course I am not suggesting to get into a relationship with the hope of blowing some stuff up. I am suggesting that we stop with the narrative that we must be at some fairly tale destination before we give it a go. You can do beautiful healing work in your own, but relational dynamics will be a part of the healing no matter how much you beg to differ.

I gave birth to my daughter a year ago at 8:11 pm. She was born on my birthday, which is now hers. Unplanned and unexpec...
05/08/2025

I gave birth to my daughter a year ago at 8:11 pm. She was born on my birthday, which is now hers. Unplanned and unexpected. I didn’t have any sense she was going to enter on this day, but when my water broke on August 3rd I had to smile and surrender.
To say giving birth on the day you yourself were birthed is profound is an understatement. It changed me deeply. In the most beautiful ways possible, the most confronting ways possible, and the most healing ways possible.
It is the most special gift in the world to share this day with her. To my sweet, wild, present, little Stoney girl…I love you. It was an honor to birth you, and an honor to be rebirthed by you.

I’ve been rounding up to 40 for the last couple of years. Maybe that’s a strange thing to do, but when people would ask ...
04/08/2025

I’ve been rounding up to 40 for the last couple of years. Maybe that’s a strange thing to do, but when people would ask how old I was at 38…39… I’d say “almost 40”. Growing older has been reframed within me as depth, healing, and wisdom. It’s about memories, shared experiences, deepening of relationships, and shedding.
40 feels different than what my 20 year old self imagined it to be. Funny how that happens. And I’m sure anyone decades down the road might giggle at me “growing older” in my very young 40 year old body. Ahh to be 40 again.
They’re just numbers. What you make that number mean is up to you. I love it (this arbitrary number) because I love my life. I love the people in my life. I love the work that I do. I love the challenges I take on and the things I am able to let go and release. I love who I am. Truly. And that feels like a great accomplishment at this pit stop of acknowledgment along the way.
Thank you for being here and for celebrating alongside of me. You’re an incredible community. I mean that. This weekend as I was surrounded by my dearest and nearest, I was reminded that the people around you reflect back something important about yourself. But I think that’s true about spaces like this too. I feel like I’m doing something right here because you are so respectful, thoughtful, generous, and reflective. I’ve done something right to have a community like you and that’s not lost on me. So here’s to many more decades together, team. #40
A few photos from this weekend 💕🎉

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