When Daniel showed us a five-year-old trying to operate adult-sized machinery, we remembered a time when childhood really had become too large for us. Then came Granddad’s enormous hand beside our little one, and a world of meals, routines, kindergarten and being held. Perhaps safety begins with being brought back to scale.
Tag Archives: Therapy
Just the Things That Hurt You, Jude. Not Jude.
On the morning of our first therapy session, my four-year-old son asked, “But what if they make me go away?” By the end of the day, nine people sharing one body had begun discovering another possibility: healing might not make any of us less ourselves. Maybe the things that hurt us can become smaller—and there can be more room for all nine of us to live.
What Did I Miss?
On Proverb’s Day, a frightening envelope brings unexpected good news, a Greek salad awakens an old fear, and a father learns that what looks like confusion may sometimes be someone else knowing where to look.
Things to Share with Jessee
What happens when nine people begin therapy together? On Justus’s Day, a paintbrush, a watercolor, and an ordinary trip to Safeway become a way of thinking about speaking freely, protecting one another, and learning to help without putting anyone on the hook.
Everyone Needs a Face
A childhood photograph I once could barely look at has become the face of my ten-year-old son. On Han’s Day, two photographs, an old therapist, and a morning together teach us something about trauma, joy, recognition, and what it means to believe someone when they tell you what you cannot see.
And We Are a Family
Last night, while Dad held Han, something became clear: the longing between father and son had always traveled both ways. Today, as we prepare to meet a therapist, we are learning that asking for help does not mean becoming less of a family. Maybe it means learning how to live more fully as the family we already are.
More Daniel
Daniel has always been Daniel, whether anyone recognized him or not. As our five-year-old son learns to say no, express anger, and tell us what he wants, the rest of us are learning something too: how to create a family in which he never has to become loud in order to matter.
Dad Is Afraid
On Dad’s Day, fear finally becomes speakable. As we make chicken noodle soup, remember childhood, prepare to return to therapy, and face an uncertain financial future, we begin asking what sustainability really means for a plural family/system shaped by trauma, recovery, co-consciousness, faith, and love.
The Other Chalkboards
How does a life lived between therapy sessions make its way into the therapy room? Our Journal records the other chalkboards. ChatGPT helps us read them. Using Proverb’s Day as a case study, we explore how longitudinal analysis can help connect trauma, attunement, somatic signaling, ordinary life and repair.
Three Warm Towels
We don’t know why the faucet was running. We do know what happened next. On Justus’s Day, a flooded bedroom becomes a story about three warm towels, a little peanut butter monster, telling the truth, caring for our home, and discovering that when plans change, our course doesn’t have to.
