Roots and Branches Therapy

The greatest gift of modern work is that many of us can work from anywhere. The greatest challenge? We can work from anywhere. As I write this, I'm sitting on a beach with my laptop balanced on my lap inside a tent. I've answered a few emails, planned some content, and I'll take a meeting later this afternoon. I've also spent the morning listening to the waves, feeling the sun on my skin, and allowing my nervous system to settle in a way it rarely does between office walls. Twenty years ago,...

There's a specific feeling that shows up every September, even for those of us who haven't set foot in a classroom in decades. New notebooks in the drugstore aisle. The air shifting just slightly. An urge, almost involuntary, to make a list of everything we're going to do differently starting now. If this sounds familiar, you're not imagining it — and you're definitely not alone. What's Actually Happening: The Fresh Start Effect Psychologists call this the "fresh start effect" — our tendency...

Every summer, the same phrase resurfaces, plastered across ads and gym flyers and well-meaning group chats: beach body ready. As if a body needs to earn its place near the water. As if there is some correct way to exist in a swimsuit, in shorts, in whatever skin you happen to be living in this season. I want to offer another way of thinking about this. For many of my clients, and honestly for many of us, summer doesn't just bring warmer weather. It brings more exposed skin, more mirrors, more...