The Healing Exhale

The Healing Exhale Insight-oriented, social justice informed, compassionate therapy – for INFJs, empaths, and other highly sensitive humans.

Your constant appeasing, conforming, placating, self-diminishing, fawning… isn’t the enemy. It’s a fierce protector, for...
01/14/2025

Your constant appeasing, conforming, placating, self-diminishing, fawning… isn’t the enemy.

It’s a fierce protector, forged in moments when keeping others happy felt like the only way to stay safe. Its intentions are rooted in care, even if its methods no longer serve you.

This part doesn’t need to be pushed away or silenced; it needs to be understood, seen, and held with compassion.

When you approach your people-pleasing tendencies with curiosity, you begin to see its truth: it’s trying to shield you from pain, rejection, or loss.

The work isn’t about fighting these parts of yourself; it’s about building relationships with them. When your darkest parts feel seen, they no longer need to scream for attention. When they trust that you can lead, they start to release their grip, opening space for ease, clarity, and connection.

Much of contemporary wellness culture frames health (mental health included) as a personal endeavor, emphasizing individ...
12/09/2024

Much of contemporary wellness culture frames health (mental health included) as a personal endeavor, emphasizing individual choices, self-optimization, and internal transformation. While autonomy and self-determination do shape many of our health outcomes, focusing solely on these aspects inevitably overlooks broader systemic and relational factors—social inequality, trauma, and cultural disconnection—that profoundly influence well-being.

In my work as a therapist, I often say healing is not a fixed state to be achieved, but a dynamic process that shifts with life’s circumstances, relationships, and external realities. It’s not only about self-care but also about relational care: how we show up for others and contribute to creating healthier, more equitable environments.

True healing includes a sense of belonging, and that requires embracing the interconnectedness of our lives. It’s not an isolated goal, but a shared journey that involves mutual care, cultural respect, and systemic transformations.

It is self-compassion that blooms, not perfection that binds. 🌱
12/09/2024

It is self-compassion that blooms, not perfection that binds. 🌱

Your body is a storyteller, it speaks in whispers. It holds the chapters you’ve tried to forget, the dreams you’ve tucke...
12/06/2024

Your body is a storyteller, it speaks in whispers. It holds the chapters you’ve tried to forget, the dreams you’ve tucked away, the tension of every “no” you swallowed when you wanted to say “yes.”

Embodiment begins with listening— not to fix, but to witness. Feel the ache, the flutter, the weight of your breath. They are the language of aliveness.

Let today be the day you listen gently to the story your body is trying to tell.

"When we’re talking about trauma, when we’re talking about historical trauma, intergenerational trauma, persistent insti...
08/19/2022

"When we’re talking about trauma, when we’re talking about historical trauma, intergenerational trauma, persistent institutional trauma — and personal traumas, whether that be childhood, adolescence, or adulthood — those things, when they are left constricted, you begin to be shaped around the constriction. And it is wordless. Time decontextualizes trauma."

We’ve been sold this idea of healing for the sake of our own constant, personal transformation; this New Age mantra of a...
04/21/2022

We’ve been sold this idea of healing for the sake of our own constant, personal transformation; this New Age mantra of always needing to be doing “inner work”, growing inwards, ascending. That’s great, I’m not opposed to the mainstreaming of therapy and the destigmatizing of mental health we’ve seen in recent years.

I just find that notion incomplete. The going inwards will definitely be one step, but the perpetual navel gazing stance is fertile ground for stagnation and self-importance. I’m not proposing we heal to go back to work and function in a world that feels very dysfunctional right now, but rather to do the work that is needed for what’s ahead.

The point of of any kind of inner healing work, through expanded states or otherwise, should include a coming back home with a sense of: “Yes, this. I’m in my skin with an open heart and clear head. And with a solid sense of what’s mine to do, what homework is still mine to accomplish on this world. And that includes taking care of myself, those around me, and our planet.”

Finally got this piece of paper today! After months of training, study sessions, a ton of reading, retreats, inner work,...
01/28/2022

Finally got this piece of paper today!

After months of training, study sessions, a ton of reading, retreats, inner work, personal reflections, experiential intensives, and practice; with its fair share of vulnerability & apprehension… I am a MAPS trained psychedelic therapist (which still feels surreal to claim).

It was truly an honor to learn from practitioners whose work and research I’ve followed for years and to go through the whole experience with other psychotherapists, doctors, nurses, and providers just as invested as I am in the promise psychedelics hold for the mental health field and beyond.

My hope is for this work to continue to be carried with the care, respect, and ethics it requires; for conversations about risks, abuse of power, access, and decentralized models to be taking place more often; and for openness and flexibility around the systemic shifts it can bring with it.

This frontier is also a homecoming, grateful to be a tiny part of it.

Sitting with the wisdom of elders, both mine and the collective’s. Grateful for teachers who have come before and to who...
01/26/2022

Sitting with the wisdom of elders, both mine and the collective’s.

Grateful for teachers who have come before and to whom the current psychedelic renaissance owes so much to.

Slowing down to unlearn and breathe, before tending to what is ahead.

May we have the patience to nurture and parent our inner child well into adulthood. ...
01/16/2022

May we have the patience to nurture and parent our inner child well into adulthood.

The body, as a concept in our society, is usually defined in an objectified, normative, and utilitarian way. We are used...
11/29/2021

The body, as a concept in our society, is usually defined in an objectified, normative, and utilitarian way. We are used to talk about our bodies as the summation of different parts, separate from the Self. It is often seen as something to manage, keep healthy, control, or feel ashamed about.
But our bodies and the wisdom they hold go far beyond these narrow and reductionist definitions. When it comes to trauma, for example, the body will not let go of an embodied pattern that has been protecting safety, belonging, or dignity unless a better embodied option is available. Otherwise that would mean abandoning survival. The body will release and process protective embodied patterns only if healing is accessible, or if new embodied choices that better take care of the original need become available.
Somatic practices that look for aliveness, agency, and empowerment see the body as inseparable from the Self: a place of resource, a way of being, a source of both protection and healing. This is why the body responds to resilience, to an organic pace; rather than a sudden insight or a breakthrough moment in a therapy session. As important as these insights are, our bodies need meaningful practices that translate that knowing into a somatic awareness, a feeling of belonging, a felt sense of safety.

Psychotherapy can be, at times, a very isolating experience breeding individualism with this idea of “healing” being out...
11/16/2021

Psychotherapy can be, at times, a very isolating experience breeding individualism with this idea of “healing” being out there, accessible to us all, if we only work hard enough for it. This message implies we are responsible for that healing, it is up to us to “do the work” and start feeling better.
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Yes, a lot of the healing that happens in the context of psychotherapy depends on the individual. And there’s also so much more. Whenever we zoom in and get granular about someone’s suffering, we meet complex layers that expand way beyond the individual.
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The communities we belong to, the identities we hold, the timelines in which our lives are unfolding, the political and social context we navigate, the effects oppressive systems have on our wellbeing… all shape and mold our experience, trauma and suffering included.
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