Neurobehavioral Counseling & Consulting

04/05/2026

Have you ever been told you're "too sensitive," "dramatic," or "living in your own world"? Do you lose chunks of time and have no idea where they went? Do you feel like you're watching your life from outside your body, like you're the actor and the audience at the same time?

That's not a personality flaw. That's dissociation. And it's not broken. It's brilliant.

Dissociation Made Simple is the book I didn't know I needed. Dr. Jamie Marich (who lives with a dissociative disorder themselves) and Jaime Pollack have done something remarkable: they've taken a deeply misunderstood, often stigmatized experience and made it accessible, compassionate, and even empowering.

Let me be honest. Most books about dissociation are clinical, cold, and written for therapists, not for the people actually living it. This one is different. It's written for you. The one who spaces out in meetings. The one who feels like a robot going through the motions. The one who has been told "just focus" and "snap out of it" a thousand times.

Marich and Pollack start from a radical premise: Dissociation is not a disorder. It's a survival strategy. Your brain learned to leave because staying was too painful. That's not weakness. That's genius. And now, with compassion and curiosity, you can learn to work with your dissociative mind instead of against it.

Lessons from Dissociation Made Simple:

1. Dissociation is not a disorder. It's a survival strategy your brain learned to protect you.
Here's the most important reframe in the entire book. Most people hear "dissociation" and think "broken," "crazy," or "dangerous." Marich and Pollack say: Stop. Dissociation is what happens when your brain decides that leaving is safer than staying. It's not a malfunction. It's an adaptation. A child who cannot escape abuse doesn't break. They leave, by numbing, by going elsewhere in their mind, by becoming someone else. That's not pathology. That's genius. The problem isn't dissociation itself. The problem is when the strategy keeps running long after the danger is gone. The lesson: Stop shaming yourself for dissociating. Thank your brain for protecting you. Then, gently, ask if it's ready to learn a new way.

2. There is no "right way" to dissociate. Your experience is valid.
Dissociation shows up differently in different people. Some people lose time (hours, days, even years). Some people feel like the world is fake or dreamlike (derealization). Some people feel like they're outside their own body (depersonalization). Some people have distinct "parts" or "alters" with different memories, preferences, and ages. Some people just feel vaguely... foggy. All of it is dissociation. None of it is wrong. Marich and Pollack emphasize that comparing your experience to others' is a trap. Your brain did what it needed to do to survive your life. That's enough. Stop asking "is this normal?" Start asking "is this helping me now?" The answer to the first question doesn't matter. The answer to the second one does.

3. Grounding is not about "snapping out of it." It's about gentle, curious return.
If you've ever been told to "just focus" or "be present," you know how useless (and shaming) that advice is. You can't force yourself out of dissociation by yelling at yourself. That just creates more dissociation. Marich and Pollack offer a different approach: grounding as a gentle, curious practice of returning to your body and your environment. Not all at once. Not perfectly. Just a little. Name five things you can see. Touch something cold. Breathe and notice where you feel it in your body. These small acts aren't about eliminating dissociation. They're about building a bridge back to yourself. Stop fighting your dissociation. Start negotiating with it. Small returns. Lots of patience. That's how change happens.

If you've ever felt like you're living in a fog, or like parts of you are missing, or like you're just pretending to be a person while the real you is somewhere else entirely? Read this book. You're not alone. You're not broken. And you're finally going to understand why.

BOOK: https://amzn.to/4c6MZyO

04/02/2026

I have a daughter. She is fierce and tender, curious and stubborn, the kind of girl who wants to know why the sky is blue and why she has to wear a seatbelt and why some people are mean for no reason. When she was small, I thought my job was to protect her from the world—to keep her safe in my arms, to filter what she saw and heard, to build a fortress around her innocence. But somewhere between the playground and middle school, I realized the fortress was a fantasy. The world was already inside. It was in the comments she overheard about her body. In the social dynamics she navigated with a bravery that broke my heart. In the quiet way she started to shrink herself, just a little, in spaces where she used to take up all the room.

I felt the fear rising in me—that familiar parental terror of not knowing how to prepare a daughter for a culture that often seems determined to undermine her. I wanted a guide, not a lecture. I wanted someone who understood the pressures girls face today but also believed in their resilience. That’s when I found Dr. Meg Meeker’s *Raising a Strong Daughter in a Toxic Culture*.

I’ll admit, I approached the book with a mix of hope and skepticism. I worried it would be a book of fear-mongering or rigid rules. Instead, I found a pediatrician and mother who speaks with authority and deep compassion. Meeker does not paint a picture of a world beyond saving. She acknowledges the challenges—social media, body image pressures, sexualization, the erosion of self-worth—but she refuses to let those challenges become the whole story. Her central message is one of empowerment: we can raise strong daughters, but it requires intentionality, courage, and a willingness to be the anchor our daughters need.

Reading this book felt like sitting down with a wise mentor who said, *You know your daughter better than anyone. You have more power than you think. And it’s not too late.* Meeker gave me not just strategies but a renewed sense of purpose. She reminded me that the most important thing I can give my daughter is not protection from every harm but a deep, unshakable foundation of self-worth that no culture can erode.

Here are five lessons from the book that have shaped how I parent—and how I show up for my daughter every day.

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# # # 1. The Mother-Daughter Relationship Is the Anchor

Meeker begins with a truth that sounds simple but is radical in its implications: the most powerful influence on a daughter’s life is her relationship with her mother. Not peers, not social media, not the culture at large—her mother. Meeker argues that we often abdicate our influence because we underestimate it. We worry that our daughters are listening to everyone but us. But the research, she says, shows the opposite: daughters crave connection with their mothers, even when they seem to be pushing away. This lesson gave me a profound sense of agency. I stopped competing with the culture and started investing more deeply in the relationship itself—not through control, but through presence, listening, and showing up consistently.

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# # # 2. You Must Define “Strong” on Your Own Terms

Our culture often equates strength in girls with toughness, self-sufficiency, or even aggression. Meeker offers a different definition: a strong daughter is one who knows who she is, knows what she values, and has the courage to live by those values even when it’s hard. Strength, she writes, is rooted in character, not in performance. This distinction helped me clarify what I actually want for my daughter. I don’t need her to be the loudest or the most accomplished. I need her to be anchored—to have an internal compass that guides her when the external noise gets loud. That is the strength I now cultivate, both in her and in myself.

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# # # 3. Your Daughter Needs You to Set Boundaries—Even When She Fights Them

One of the most countercultural messages in the book is that boundaries are an act of love. Meeker urges parents to set limits on technology, social media, and outside influences—not because we don’t trust our daughters, but because their brains and hearts are still developing. She acknowledges that boundaries will be met with resistance, especially in the teenage years. But she argues that our willingness to hold the line, calmly and lovingly, gives our daughters a container in which they can safely grow. This lesson gave me the courage to hold boundaries I had been wavering on. I now see my role not as a friend or a warden, but as a steady presence who says, *I love you too much to let you navigate this alone.*

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# # # 4. She Needs to Know She Is Loved for Who She Is, Not What She Does

Meeker devotes significant attention to the pressure girls face to perform—academically, socially, physically. She warns that when we unintentionally communicate that our love is contingent on achievement, we set our daughters up for anxiety and burnout. The antidote, she says, is to separate worth from performance. We must let our daughters know, again and again, that they are loved simply because they exist. This lesson has changed how I praise my daughter. I now emphasize effort, character, and who she is over what she accomplishes. I tell her, *I love you. Not because you’re smart or talented. Just because you’re you.* And I see her exhale when I say it.

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# # # 5. You Are the Primary Filter for the Culture

Meeker emphasizes that we cannot shield our daughters from every harmful message, but we can be the filter through which those messages are interpreted. When she hears something toxic about bodies, relationships, or self-worth, we can be the voice that says, *That’s not true. Let’s talk about what actually matters.* This requires us to stay engaged, to listen without judgment, and to offer a counter-narrative rooted in dignity and truth. This lesson has made me more intentional about conversations. I now see everyday moments—a billboard, a comment from a friend, a storyline in a show—as opportunities to talk with my daughter about what we believe and why.

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I keep Dr. Meeker’s book close, but more than that, I keep its principles close. Raising a strong daughter in a toxic culture is not a task for the faint of heart. There are days I feel outmatched, exhausted, uncertain. But this book has given me something invaluable: the conviction that my presence matters more than my perfection. That my willingness to stay in the hard conversations, to hold boundaries with love, to model strength without hardness—these are the things that will anchor my daughter when the world tries to pull her in a hundred directions.

If you are a parent of a daughter—whether she is three or thirteen or twenty-three—this book will meet you where you are. It will not promise an easy path. But it will give you courage, practical wisdom, and the quiet assurance that you are not alone. You have more power than you know. And your daughter, in all her fierce, tender becoming, is waiting for you to use it.

04/01/2026

For years, I thought something was wrong with me. I'd have these moments, someone would say something harmless, and I'd snap. Or I'd freeze in conversations for no reason. Or I'd cry at things that didn't make sense.

I figured I was just broken. Too sensitive. Too much.

Then I read What Happened to You? by Oprah Winfrey and Dr. Bruce Perry, and the title alone stopped me cold. Because I'd spent my whole life asking what's wrong with me? The book asks a completely different question. And that one shift changed everything.

Dr. Bruce Perry is a neuroscientist and child psychiatrist, one of the world's leading experts on childhood trauma. He's treated thousands of children and been called in after major traumatic events to help communities heal. Oprah, who shares her own childhood abuse story throughout the book, brings the lived experience. Together, they created something that's part science, part conversation, and entirely human.

The book is structured as a dialogue between them, which makes it feel less like a textbook and more like sitting in a room with two wise people who actually get it.

5 lessons that rewired how I see myself:

1. The question changes everything
The entire book hinges on one shift. Instead of asking "what's wrong with you?"—which assumes you're broken, ask "what happened to you?" . This doesn't excuse bad behavior. But it opens the door to understanding. I started asking this about myself, and suddenly so many things made sense. My reactions weren't random. They had history.

2. Neglect can be as damaging as abuse
I always thought trauma had to be something dramatic. A violent event. Something you could point to and say "that." But Dr. Perry makes clear: emotional neglect, the absence of consistent, nurturing connection, can be just as harmful as active abuse . I grew up with parents who were physically there but emotionally absent. That counts. That shaped me. And naming it helped me stop minimizing my own experience.

3. Your brain changed to protect you
Perry explains that early experiences actually shape the brain's architecture. If you grew up in an unpredictable environment, your brain became wired for hypervigilance. If you weren't soothed as a child, your stress response stayed on high alert . This isn't weakness. It's biology. Your brain did exactly what it was supposed to do, it adapted to keep you safe. The problem is when those adaptations stick around long after the danger is gone.

4. Relational hunger is real
Chapter 9 hit me hard. Dr. Perry talks about how disconnected we've become as a society, how "relational poverty" is making everything worse . He shares what he learned from the Māori community in New Zealand, where healing is understood as reconnection: to community, to nature, to each other. The Māori concept of whanaungatanga is about kinship and reciprocal relationships as the foundation of healing. Reading this, I realized how isolated I'd become. I thought I was protecting myself. I was just starving for connection.

5. Healing is possible, and it doesn't require reliving everything
One fear I had going into this book was that healing meant digging up every painful memory and re-experiencing it. But Dr. Perry offers a different path. He talks about the four pillars of healing found in traditional cultures: connection to community and nature, rhythmic movement (like dance or drumming), a meaningful belief system, and sometimes the use of healing plants. The point is: healing happens through regulation, not just talking. I've started paying attention to what actually calms my nervous system, walking, singing, being in water, and treating those things as medicine, not luxuries.

If you've ever wondered why you react the way you do. If you've ever felt broken and couldn't explain why. If you're tired of asking "what's wrong with me" and getting nowhere, read this book.

It won't fix you. But it will help you understand. And understanding is where healing starts.

BOOK https://amzn.to/4v29Vrr

03/31/2026

I’ve always been my own harshest critic, the kind of person who finishes something good and immediately thinks, “But it could’ve been better.” A couple of weeks ago, I finally listened to the audiobook How to Be Enough: Self-Acceptance for Self-Critics and Perfectionists by Dr. Ellen Hendriksen (she narrates it herself, which makes it feel extra personal and warm). It’s exactly what I needed right now.

If you struggle with perfectionism, people-pleasing, or that constant voice saying you’re never quite enough, this book is incredibly validating and practical. Ellen (a clinical psychologist) explains that perfectionism isn’t really about wanting to be perfect, it’s about never feeling good enough, no matter what you achieve. She blends science, relatable stories, humor, and gentle exercises without any toxic positivity or “just love yourself” fluff.

Here are 5 powerful lessons that hit me hard:

1. Perfectionism is about never feeling good enough
It’s not healthy high standards, it’s tying your entire worth to performance. Once you see this clearly, it becomes easier to separate “I want to do well” from “I must be flawless to be worthy.”

2. The real issue is over-evaluation of yourself
Perfectionists constantly judge and measure their worth based on every little thing. The book teaches you how to loosen that grip without lowering your standards or becoming lazy.

3. Change your relationship with your inner critic
Instead of fighting or believing every critical thought, you learn to respond to it with kindness and even a bit of humor. Cognitive defusion techniques she shares are surprisingly effective.

4. Shift from rigid rules to personal values
Stop living by harsh internal “shoulds” and start making decisions based on what actually matters to you. This one shift reduces procrastination and self-pressure dramatically.

5. Self-acceptance and real connection go hand in hand
When you stop performing for approval and start showing up as your real, imperfect self, you create deeper, more authentic relationships. Perfectionism can actually block genuine connection.

Listening to Ellen narrate her own words made the audiobook feel like a compassionate therapy session with a very wise friend. It’s full of doable exercises and mindset shifts that help you move from self-criticism to self-kindness while still striving for excellence in a healthier way.

This is one of the best books I’ve come across on perfectionism and self-acceptance. If you’re tired of being hard on yourself, constantly comparing, or feeling stuck despite your achievements, I highly recommend it (the audiobook version is excellent).

BOOK: https://amzn.to/4sFTVKj

03/28/2026

I read this book because I have a son, and I'm already watching him learn to swallow his feelings.

He's young. But I see it happening, the way he hesitates before crying, the way he's already gotten the message that big feelings are for girls, that "real boys" don't fall apart. And I realized I had no idea how to stop it.

Raising Cain has been around since 1999, and I almost wrote it off as dated. But Dan Kindlon and Michael Thompson, both child psychologists, wrote about something that hasn't changed. Maybe it's gotten worse. Boys are still being raised on a diet of emotional starvation disguised as toughness. And the book lays out, with research and stories and a lot of compassion, what that does to them.

Here's what I learned:

1. We're raising boys to be emotionally illiterate and then punishing them for it.
This is the central argument of the book. From an early age, boys are taught to suppress fear, sadness, vulnerability, anything that isn't anger or stoicism. They're told to "man up" when they cry. They're shamed for being sensitive. Then, when they grow into men who can't name or manage their emotions, we blame them for being angry, distant, or incapable of intimacy. Kindlon and Thompson point out the trap we've built: we starve boys of emotional skills and then punish them for being malnourished.

2. The "boy code" starts earlier than you think.
I assumed the pressure to conform to masculine stereotypes hit in middle school or high school. The book shows it starts in preschool. Boys as young as three begin to internalize messages about what's acceptable for them to feel and express. By the time they're in elementary school, most boys have already learned to hide their sadness and fear. The window for intervention is much smaller than I realized, and much earlier.

3. Boys have the same emotional capacity as girls. We just train it out of them.
One of the most striking sections of the book reviews the research on emotional development. At birth, boys are actually more emotionally expressive than girls. They cry more, they're more reactive. But by the time they're school-aged, the gap has reversed. It's not biology. It's conditioning. Boys learn that what they feel isn't welcome, so they stop showing it. Not because they don't feel it. Because we've taught them not to.

4. Anger is the only emotion we let boys keep.
Boys aren't emotionless. They just funnel everything into the one emotion that's allowed: anger. Frustration becomes rage. Sadness becomes sullenness. Fear becomes aggression. Kindlon and Thompson argue that what looks like "angry boy behavior" is often a boy's only available language for a whole range of feelings he's never been taught to name or express. When we punish the anger without addressing what's underneath, we're just reinforcing the lesson that his emotions are unacceptable.

5. The "tough love" approach doesn't work.
The book pushes back hard on the idea that boys need to be hardened, that affection makes them weak. Kindlon and Thompson argue that boys need emotional connection more than girls in some ways, because they're getting so much less of it. The boys who thrive are the ones who have at least one adult, parent, teacher, coach, who sees them fully, accepts their emotions, and doesn't require them to perform toughness. The idea that boys need to be treated like little soldiers is not just wrong. It's damaging.

6. Schools are failing boys emotionally.
The book spends significant time on the classroom, and it was eye-opening. Kindlon and Thompson argue that the structure of most schools, sitting still, following rules, performing compliance, plays to girls' developmental strengths and actively works against boys'. But beyond that, schools rarely model or teach emotional literacy. Boys get in trouble for acting out, but no one asks why they're acting out. They get punished for the behavior without anyone addressing the feeling driving it.

7. Boys need to see emotional men.
One of the simplest but most powerful takeaways: boys learn emotional expression by watching the men in their lives. If the men around them are stoic, withdrawn, or only express anger, that's what they'll absorb. If the men around them can say "I'm sad," "I'm scared," "I love you," they'll absorb that too. The book made me think about the men in my son's life and what they're modeling. It also made me think about what I'm modeling, as his mother, about how I respond to his emotions.

I finished this book with a knot in my stomach and a clearer sense of what I want for my son. I want him to know his own feelings. I want him to be able to say he's scared or sad without feeling like less of a boy. I want him to be fully human, not the flattened version of human that we hand to boys and call masculinity. The book didn't give me a step-by-step plan for how to do that. But it gave me a roadmap for what I'm up against, and why it matters.

03/27/2026

Some people don’t walk into your life loudly… they slip in quietly, and before you realize it, something about you has changed. You start overthinking your words, doubting your reactions, feeling drained after conversations you can’t even fully explain. It’s not always obvious. Sometimes it’s subtle, like you’re slowly losing your footing without knowing exactly when it started.

I remember a period where I kept questioning myself after certain interactions. I’d leave conversations replaying everything, wondering if I was too sensitive, if I misunderstood something, if I was overreacting. But deep down, something didn’t feel right. It wasn’t just in my head… it was the way certain people made me feel without saying anything directly harmful. That’s around the time I came across The Highly Sensitive Person’s Guide to Dealing with Toxic People: How to Reclaim Your Power from Narcissists and Other Manipulators. The title didn’t feel exaggerated, it felt… accurate. Like it was putting words to something I hadn’t been able to clearly define.

As I got into it, the book didn’t make sensitivity feel like a weakness. It reframed it as awareness… something valuable, but also something that needs protection in the presence of the wrong people.

These are the 7 lessons that stayed with me:

1. Sensitivity is not the problem, lack of boundaries is. I used to think feeling deeply was the issue, that I needed to “toughen up” or stop reacting so much. But the book made me realize that the real issue wasn’t my sensitivity, it was allowing people to cross lines without addressing it. Sensitivity becomes overwhelming when it’s constantly exposed without protection.

2. Not all difficult people are the same, but their impact can feel similar. The book helped me see that toxic behavior comes in different forms, manipulation, control, subtle criticism, emotional inconsistency. Even if it doesn’t look extreme on the surface, the emotional effect can still be draining and confusing.

3. Your feelings are signals, not overreactions. I used to dismiss my own discomfort, telling myself I was thinking too much. But the book emphasized that those feelings are often early warnings. Instead of ignoring them, paying attention to them helps you understand what’s actually happening.

4. Boundaries are how you protect your energy. I realized how often I allowed things to continue just to avoid conflict. The book reframed boundaries as something necessary, not optional. They’re not about pushing people away, they’re about deciding what you will and won’t accept.

5. You don’t need to explain your limits to everyone. This one was freeing. I used to feel like I had to justify every boundary, every decision. But the book made it clear that not everyone needs an explanation. Sometimes, simply deciding is enough.

6. Distance is sometimes the healthiest choice. I always thought the goal was to fix relationships or make things work. But the book showed that in some situations, creating distance, emotionally or physically, is what protects you the most.

7. Reclaiming your power starts with trusting yourself again. This tied everything together. I realized how much I had started doubting my own perception. The book emphasized that healing begins when you trust your feelings, your instincts, and your decisions again.

Since finishing it, I’ve started paying more attention to how I feel around certain people. I don’t dismiss discomfort as quickly. I take it seriously. And I’ve started setting small boundaries, even when it feels uncomfortable.

It hasn’t made every interaction easy.

But it’s made me feel more grounded.

Because I’m starting to understand that protecting your energy isn’t selfish…

it’s necessary for staying connected to yourself.

BOOK: https://amzn.to/4bwhq2n

You can also get the audio book for FREE using the same link. Use the link to register for the audio book on Audible and start enjoying it.

03/27/2026

I recommended this to someone today who claims to be numb to everything but also shared they had started grieving for a recent loss. They blew up their life and family with claims of being numb while in fact they are not and they do feel. Grief is powerful and often helps us know that we still feel.

My brain thought my dad was still alive for eight months after he died.

I didn't tell anyone that. I knew what they'd say, that I was in denial, that I wasn't processing, that I needed to accept it and let go. But it wasn't denial. I knew he was gone. I went to the funeral. I cleaned out his closet. And still, every time I saw a green Ford like his, my heart would jump. Every time something funny happened, I'd reach for my phone to text him before remembering I couldn't. Every holiday, some part of me expected him to walk through the door.

I thought I was losing my mind. Then I read The Grieving Brain, and Mary-Frances O'Connor explained that I wasn't broken. I was neurological.

Here's what I learned:

1. The "searching" isn't denial. It's your brain doing its job.
O'Connor, a neuroscientist, explains that your brain creates maps of where people are in your life. When you love someone, their location is encoded in your neural pathways. When they die, those pathways don't just disappear. They keep firing. Your brain keeps predicting that they'll be there, at the dinner table, on the other end of the phone, in the passenger seat. The longing, the searching, the sense that they're still out there somewhere, it's not a failure to accept reality. It's your brain working exactly as it evolved to work.

2. Grief and love are the same thing, neurologically speaking.
This stopped me cold. O'Connor's research shows that the same brain regions activated when you're with someone you love are activated when you grieve them. Your brain doesn't distinguish between loving someone and missing someone. Grief isn't something separate from love. It's what love looks like when the person isn't there. When I understood that, I stopped trying to "get over" my grief and started understanding that I was just still loving my dad.

3. There's no timeline because your brain learns through repetition, not time.
Everyone told me the first year was the hardest. After that, it would get easier. But O'Connor explains that time doesn't heal anything. Learning does. Your brain has to repeatedly encounter the absence, the empty chair at Thanksgiving, the unanswered text, the birthdays without a call, to slowly update its maps. That process takes as many repetitions as it takes. Some people's brains update faster. Some take years. Neither is wrong. It's just different learning rates.

4. Complicated grief isn't weakness. It's a stuck circuit.
I'd always secretly judged people who were still deep in grief years later. O'Connor's research showed me I was wrong. In complicated grief, the brain gets stuck. The reward centers still light up when thinking about the person, and the brain can't integrate the loss into a new reality. It's not about willpower or character. It's about neural pathways that can't complete the update. Knowing this changed how I think about myself and how I think about others who are struggling.

5. You don't move on. You move forward.
This was the reframe that finally let me breathe. O'Connor says your brain doesn't delete the person. It creates new pathways that coexist with the old ones. The person remains. You just build a life around them. You don't stop loving them. You learn to love them and live at the same time. That felt more true to my experience than anything anyone had ever told me about "letting go."

6. The hard days aren't setbacks. They're updates.
The first birthday after my dad died, I was a mess. The first time I went back to his favorite restaurant, I had to leave before the food came. I thought I was regressing. O'Connor explains that these moments are actually your brain gathering data. Every time you experience a significant date or place without the person, your brain gets another piece of evidence that this is the new reality. It's painful, but it's not a setback. It's the work of learning a new world.

This is not a self-help book. O'Connor is a researcher, and she writes like one. There are chapters on the anterior cingulate cortex and prediction errors and the default mode network. But she never loses sight of the human experience underneath the science. She's also a clinician who's worked with grievers, and you can feel her compassion in every chapter. She doesn't tell you how to feel. She just explains what's happening, and somehow that explanation makes the unbearable a little more bearable.

I spent eight months thinking I was grieving wrong. That I was weak for still expecting my dad to text me. That I was broken because I couldn't let go. This book didn't stop the grief. But it stopped the second layer, the shame about the grief. I'm not broken. I'm just still loving someone who isn't here. And now I know why that feels the way it does.

BOOK: https://amzn.to/4byXXy1