Traci Ruble, MFT

01/10/2026

Sharing giddy joy.

Also just booked camper van for Iceland road in May with my SIL.

Making memories.

01/09/2026

care

Proud I got out the door. Proud not stuck in reactive righteous power over.
Proud to move instead remain frozen.

I always find my way to agency and connection when I move in nature.

May you listen to your system and tend yourself.
💖

01/08/2026

I’m sharing this because I hope for effective action. And I think that starts with knowing what we stand for, not from reactivity or moral superiority, but from clarity.

When I work with high-conflict couples, the pain of conflict often disrupts complacency. It forces them to get honest about what they value and how they want to live together.

I wonder if this moment, painful as it is, is asking something similar of us as communities.

I made this slide deck out of care. And yes, I used my intellect while making it, which can absolutely be one of my own control strategies. I tease myself about that a bit in the slides. But this came from a regulated place that wants to support nervous systems, including my own.

If any part of this helps you stay a little more resourced while taking in hard news, I’m glad. We need wide nervous systems if we’re going to care well, think clearly, and act effectively together.

01/03/2026

My cheeks hurt from smiling.

01/02/2026

Just some words from a 20 year old book, all tattered and underlined, on my bookshelf. I was thumbing thru it over the holidays. I love the feel of paper on a book you have owned for a long time. Most of my hard books are back in storage in the USA. This one travelled by boat to make it to me. Glad she made the journey.

The Heart Aroused, by David Whyte.

01/01/2026

I’m sitting at my desk right now doing treatment plans for the couples and individuals I’ll see tomorrow.
Thinking about dynamics, patterns, ruptures, repairs.

In a minute, I’ll head upstairs to play Catan with my husband and our teenage sons and probably lose in some mildly humiliating way.

And as I’m moving between these worlds, what’s really landing for me is this idea of 𝗿𝗲𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗹𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘆.

Not as a skill to master or a way to be “good at relationships,”
but as a capacity you return to again and again.

Especially after you’ve reacted. Or misunderstood. Or gotten defensive. Or checked out.

For me, 𝗿𝗲𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗹𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘆 is compassion and curiosity in connection,
instead of fixing, judging, reacting, cutting off, or controlling.

That’s the orientation I’m stepping back into as I return to work. It is my whole why.
Less performance. More presence.
Less proving. More relating.
Less perfection. More capacity for curiosity and compassion.

And yes, probably still losing at Catan.

Happy New Year! I hope you are gentle with yourself as you move from a liminal space. I am.

12/31/2025

12/18/2025

Ever notice how being told “don’t take it personally” does absolutely nothing for your nervous system?

I wrote a piece about trauma language, fragility, cross-cultural shock, and why thinking your way out of triggers doesn’t actually work.

This isn’t about being fragile.
It’s about building capacity without shaming the body.

📙 Read my latest long form essay and a great paint by numbers on how to show up for yourself and others when someone is triggered. https://www.traciruble.com/blog/has-trauma-language-outpaced-healing-fragility-capacity-and-the-nervous-system

12/11/2025

How do you play with yourself? 😏

(Yes, I said it. Mischief Lab was never going to arrive quietly or without mildly inappropriate innuendo.)

For the last two years, I’ve felt a tug (more like a trickstery inspiration we**ie) pulling me toward creating a space where we stop trying to optimize or fix or be productive… and let soulful creativity do its magic instead.

I’m someone who stands between worlds: shadow and light, joy and grief, left and right, sacred and absurd.

Humor and play are how I’ve always helped people belong -->to their bodies, to the land, to each other.

And for real? In a time when everything feels like a performance review, play is prevention medicine. It restores the brain’s flexibility, softens polarization, and lets our intuition breathe.

So… I’m building Mischief Lab --- with you all.

Not “workshops.” Labs. Experiments. Portals.

Pay what you want-->$0–$40, online + in person in Heidelberg.

And I want you in the creative chaos with me.

✨ What kinds of labs would you love to see?

✨ Want to co-create one with me? Tell me in the comments.

And… the very first lab is open to all:

Dec 28 – Collaging From Essence.

Not resolutions. Not “new year, new you.”

https://www.traciruble.com/mischief-lab

Bring your creativity and intuition showing you what they want for you in the year ahead. And I like to make folks feel included and safe even if play isn't totally natural to you.

Let’s play with our lives a little. Maybe a lot. Share your ideas in the comments. Share the post. Sign up to get lab updates. Co create a lab with me.

12/10/2025

12/06/2025

Psychotherapy is a field in transition right now.

Scott Galloway’s “Cult of Psychotherapy” article stirred something in me, not because he’s wrong, but because I’ve been asking these questions for years. I am allergic to anything that starts smelling like a cult, including my own profession.

And yet… I’m still here. And I still believe in this work.
I don’t want to be a therapist who helps people “feel good” or “think positive” or “never burn out again.”

That is not therapy.
That is marketing.

What I do want is to help people make the changes they actually want in their lives, even if those changes aren’t the ones they initially imagined. Most people walk into therapy assuming healing means not feeling badly anymore. But real healing is the opposite. It asks you to feel what you feel, think what you think, and see how your life shaped your patterns, your nervous system, your relationships, and your defenses.

Not so you can fix yourself.
So you can free yourself.

I don’t tell people what to do. I help them come into regulated, coherent contact with all the parts of themselves so they can relate honestly, choose consciously, and live a life that isn’t run by fear, performance, or inherited social roles. We make meaning. We orient toward values. We reclaim authorship.

And yet therapy has a shadow.
It can drift into priesthood.
It can reinforce dependency.
It can get swallowed by trending language on social media.

And soon, AI will be shaping the public imagination of therapy almost as much as Instagram already does.

I’m here for innovation, imagination, and growth.
But I also hope we can have grown-up conversations about what therapy is, what it is not, what it should evolve into, and what we must protect as sacred.

Because therapy, at its best, is not a cult.
It’s two humans making room for the truth.

11/29/2025

What a gorgeous book of case studies by such a brilliant psychoanalyst.

Not a psychological paint by numbers. Reads like a novel.
Touches your heart.
Makes you reflect.

I am working on a piece on going no contact or family estrangement and considering estrangement as a collective unconscious communication was illuminating to apply.

Piece will be up later today.

I am really enjoying wrestling with ideas and writing after an 8 year hiatus from writing. I really enjoy it.

My dream would be to share an office with another therapist for only writing and talking about our writing. Wouldn't that be fun?

Until then...