This page is for the ordinary hard moments between our sessions. If you feel unsafe, or like you might act on thoughts of harming yourself, please reach out now:
Call or text 988 — the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (24/7).
Text HOME to 741741 — the Crisis Text Line.
Call 911 or go to your nearest emergency room if you are in immediate danger.
To reach me directly: 919-891-0937 - call or text
Between Sessions
A few things to try when I'm not in the room.
No need to read it all. Just start where you are right now, and take one small step. You can come back any time.
What's pulling at you right now?
This page is a between-session support, not a substitute for our work together or for emergency care.
Unhooking from a thought
A thought is just a thought — even a loud one.
When a thought hooks us, we stop seeing it as a thought and start treating it as the plain truth. You don't have to argue with it or push it away. You just have to notice it for what it is, and ask whether it's any help to you right now.
Try reading it back to yourself this way:
Notice the tiny bit of space that opens up. Now the real question — not is it true? but: if I let this thought run the show right now, does it move me toward the kind of person I want to be? If not, you can let it ride along and still choose your next move.
Still stuck? Picture a good friend saying this exact thing about themselves. What would you say back to them? That's usually closer to the truth than the thought is.
Dropping anchor
Come back to right here.
When everything's swirling, you can't always calm the storm — but you can drop an anchor and steady the boat. Follow the circle. Breathe with it.
Making room
You can stop wrestling the feeling.
There's the pain itself — and then there's the exhausting fight against it. We can't always choose the first. We get a lot of say over the second. Making room doesn't mean you like the feeling. It means you stop spending all your strength trying to force it out.
A feeling you make room for can move through. A feeling you barricade against tends to stick around and knock louder.
Back to your why
When you're lost, check your compass.
Stuck usually means we've lost sight of what we're moving toward. Not a goal you can tick off — a direction. The kind of person you want to be in this, whatever happens.
What is the smallest thing you could do in the next hour that points that way? It doesn't have to fix anything. It just has to point.
The smallest step
You don't have to feel ready. You just have to start small.
Waiting to feel motivated is a trap — the motivation usually shows up after you move, not before. So we shrink the step until it's almost too easy to skip.
Forget the whole thing. For the next two minutes only, your job is just to begin:
Quick check: is starting this a step toward the life you want, or a move away from something uncomfortable? Toward-moves count, even tiny ones.
Stepping back
You are not the harsh story about you.
There's the part of you having a rough time — and there's the part of you that can notice all of it, calmly, the way you've noticed a thousand other passing moods. That noticing part has never been damaged. It's been there the whole time.
