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How Do We Stop Projecting & Start Owning Our Mistakes?
In my last blog, How Can You Tell If You Or Your Partner Are Projecting?, we discussed the telltale signs of the defense mechanism of “projection,” when someone projects their own feelings onto others or shifts blame from themselves onto someone else. We also discussed why people tend to project.
How Can You Tell If You Or Your Partner Are Projecting?
As human beings, we are often more complex than we realize. Our minds and hearts are intricately woven together, forming the tapestry of our experiences, beliefs, and emotions. In relationships, these threads can sometimes become tangled, leading us to see our partners not as they truly are but thro
10 Signs That Someone You Love Has Severe Attachment Wounding
If you’re trying to love someone with a significant trauma history, you’ve probably noticed that it’s not always easy on you- the relatively safe attachment figure. It’s nobody’s fault. Trauma begets trauma, and all trauma deserves our compassion. But it is helpful to understand why people with sign
5 Tips For Breaking The Overfunctioning/Underfunctioning Cycle In Relationships
In my last blog- Do You Overfunction Or Underfunction In Relationships - I outlined a common relationship dynamic that can cause distress in relationships in the long run. Overfunctioners often take on responsibilities that are not theirs to take on, or they try to control things that seem out of co
Why I Won’t Keep My Mouth Shut About Politics Right Now
Having watched the entire Democratic National Convention, I woke up the day after Kamala Harris’s inspiringly patriotic nomination acceptance speech finding it hard to understand how we have anything close to a neck-in-neck race for this presidency. It’s hard to imagine that people in this country a
Do You Overfunction or Underfunction In Relationships?
While few people name the pattern, we’ve all seen couples where one person overfunctions, and the other person underfunctions. What do we mean by “functioning?” Dr. Will Meek defined it as “our ability to manage life (make decisions, manage time and stress, etc); to be responsible for the things we
Is Your Medical Problem Really A Marital Problem?
*My partner Jeffrey Rediger, MD, MDiv was supposed to be delivering a TEDx talk about the topic of our next book together last week, but the tech outage that disrupted flights for days made it impossible for him to get there. So...because it was an idea worth spreading- and now it's not happening, I
Is Conflict Avoidance Making You Violate Your Integrity?
I’m preparing curriculum right now for a weekend Zoom workshop I’m teaching in September with my partner Jeff Rediger, called Healing Attachment Wounds In Relationship. The workshop is intended to support those who are more securely attached and trying to love someone with severe attachment trauma.
The Importance Of Getting Your Stories Out Of Your Body & Onto The Page
Stories, especially stories about our most traumatic experiences, tend to take on a life of their own. They often run away with themselves, rendering us helpless. But taking charge of how we tell the story, finding our voice after having been silenced, and being as honest as possible about what happ
Join The Resistance: Kamala Harris For President!
Before I went to Europe for some work and play stuff, Donald Trump and Joe Biden were competing for the 2024 presidency, and nobody I knew was excited to vote for two old white guys, even though one is one of the most effective Presidents we've had in decades and the other is a convicted felon. The
10 Tips For Times Of Transition
As I wrote in Navigating The Space Between Stories, many of us are experiencing more change, more quickly, with more uncertainty, than we’re used to. To meet this need for support during times of change, Dr. Jeffrey Rediger and I are hosting a live, in person healing retreat for health care provider
Navigating The Space Between Stories
Ever since things started opening back up again after the pandemic, I'm very aware of how much change we're all facing. We are definitely in the "space between stories," when one story is definitely in its death throes, and the next story has not yet made itself crystal clear. This space between, th
If You’re The One With Nervous System Privilege Caring For Someone With Disorganized Attachment…
In Understanding Attachment Styles: A Key to Trauma-Informed Dating & Relating, we talked about how understanding your attachment style (and learning to spot the attachment signals of someone else’s attachment style) can make dating easier. We also talked about secure attachment, and why it’s th
Understanding Attachment Styles: Anxious/ Ambivalent Attachment & Trauma-Informed Dating
“I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept.” -Angela Davis *This post is dedicated to my sister, Keli Rankin Today, as part of celebrating Juneteenth, I wanted to take a moment to reflect back to four years ago, in the Summer of 2020, during
Revisiting Summer 2020 & Black Lives Matter- For Juneteenth
Today, as part of celebrating Juneteenth, I wanted to take a moment to reflect back to four years ago, in the Summer of 2020, during the height of the pandemic, when George Floyd’s murder was videoed and viewed by millions of people, including many white people.
Understanding Attachment Styles: A Key to Trauma-Informed Dating, Part 1
Considering what a risky, potentially activating, possibly fun experience dating can be, I wanted to take some time to discuss how understanding attachment styles might make dating easier, more fruitful, less consuming of time spent on the wrong compatibilities, and less painful, because you’ll take
“White Crow Moments”: The Ecstasies & Risks Of Spiritual Experiences
“If you wish to upset the law that all crows are black, you mustn't seek to show that no crows are; it is enough if you prove one single crow to be white.” ―William James Many people walk through the world mired in the mud of material reality, unilluminated by the mysteries of the sacred. Whe
When You’re Terrified Of Intimacy
I have a soft spot in my heart for people who both crave and fear intimacy. And I especially feel tender towards couples or besties who have disparities in their tolerance for intimacy. It’s a simple fact that some people grow up with good enough parents in loving enough families and wind up wired f
Healing The Broken Heart
Heartbreak is one of the most painful kinds of traumas. When we risk letting our hearts open, we also risk getting our hearts broken. The vulnerability of the open heart, the tenderness of attachment and heart connection, makes us especially raw when someone else betrays our connection or abandons t
Getting Out Of The Power Game
We can't read the news these days without reflecting on power and how those who shamelessly abuse power are destroying the world we know. The way I see it when I enter meditative states and vision a future I'd want to leave to my daughter, humans have been playing power games for as long as we've ex
The Difference Between Healing & Curing
Although we have a ways to go, the zeitgeist is catching up to the idea that 85-90% of medical conditions are caused by or exacerbated by psychological trauma, and we all have been traumatized to some degree. Science now understands the physiology of how disease-inducing dysregulation caused by the
Getting To Know “Parts” Involved With Medical Conditions, Part 2
If you missed Part 1 of this series on the marriage of the Six Steps To Healing Yourself with Internal Family Systems (IFS), you can catch up in Getting To Know “Parts” Involved With Medical Conditions, Part 1. To go deeper, join me and Harvard-trained psychiatrist, author of 3 books about IFS, and
Getting To Know “Parts” Involved With Medical Conditions, Part 1
When I first wrote Mind Over Medicine in 2012, I wasn’t aware of Internal Family Systems (IFS). But for 6 years, I had been writing daily love letters from my “Inner Pilot Light” to my hurt parts, first to myself and then to my online community as The Daily Flame, (which later became a book.) I d
The 5 D’s of Coercive Control: Double Binds, Double Speak, Double Standards, Double Vision & DARVO
With all the autocratic rulers seeking world domination these days, and with more and more awareness of how power hungry narcissists do not have our best interests at heart, public conversations are flourishing about culty dynamics, narcissism, sociopathy- and how to avoid falling prey to abusive, e
“I’m Sorry I Have To Hurt You In Order To Heal You”
*Photo credit Monique Feil I’ve been lucky to mostly avoid hospitals, at least as a patient. Other than childbirth, I was always on the practitioner side of being in hospitals- which is not always a good thing. As portrayed in the movie The Doctor, any doctor who has ever been a patient will become
Healing The Doctor-Patient Relationship, Part 2
In Healing The Doctor-Patient Relationship, I wrote about the traumas that can happen for both patient and doctor, when the doctor-patient relationship is a patriarchal, hierarchical “power over” structure. But what’s the alternative? How else might we consider relating to patients or showing up as
Healing The Doctor-Patient Relationship Part 1
When I was training to become a physician, the rules of the broken, outdated, patriarchal medical system were made clear to me. They went something like this. As your doctor, I will sacrifice everything in my personal life in order to fix what is broken in you. I will stay awake when I’m exhauste
A Global Apology On Behalf Of Physicians Everywhere
When I was working on my New York Times bestseller Mind Over Medicine, a friend of mine wrote to me right after leaving her doctor’s office. With her permission, I published her letter in Mind Over Medicine. She wrote: Lissa, if this doctor robs me as I leave the building, I won’t be able to conf
Four Years Later: Reflections On The Covid Pandemic
It's hard to believe it's been four years since the world stopped. I'll never forget the terror I felt when I saw the spooky, surreal, apocalyptic images of Times Square completely empty. I remember vividly the tears that flowed when the strictest part of San Francisco's early lockdown first eased u
Why Making Art Supports Trauma Healing & Could Save Your Life
I want to talk to you all about something I rarely talk about these days- ART. I want to talk about it because I used to teach encaustic art classes while also practicing medicine. But I quit teaching art after I left the hospital and started a full-time writing and teaching career. The only art cla
Part 7: Six Steps To Healing Yourself – 44 Revelations About Healing They DID NOT Teach Me In Medical School
In this series, I’m reviewing the Cliff Notes of everything I should have learned in medical school, but didn’t- and everything I’ve learned since I finished my medical training about healing from my own research and self-study. If you haven’t yet read the first 10 revelations about healing that I d
Part 6: Spirituality, Social Justice, & Health – 44 Revelations About Healing They DID NOT Teach Me In Medical School
In this series, I’m reviewing the Cliff Notes of everything I should have learned in medical school, but didn’t- and everything I’ve learned since I finished my medical training about healing from my own research and self-study. If you haven’t yet read the first 10 revelations about healing that I d
Part 5: Health In Relationships – 44 Revelations About Healing They DID NOT Teach Me In Medical School
In this series, I’m reviewing the Cliff Notes of everything I should have learned in medical school, but didn’t- and everything I’ve learned since I finished my medical training about healing from my own research and self-study. If you haven’t yet read the first 10 revelations about healing that I d
Part 4: Ground Healing In Reality, Not Magical Thinking – 44 Revelations About Healing They DID NOT Teach Me In Medical School
In this series, I’m reviewing the Cliff Notes of everything I should have learned in medical school, but didn’t- and everything I’ve learned since I finished my medical training about healing from my own research and self-study. If you haven’t yet read the first 10 revelations about healing that I d
Why We Need To Breathe…And Then Push…When It Comes To Another Election With Trump In It
As I watch the primaries unfold, I suspect I'm not the only one having flashbacks. Not only am I flashing back to the utter horror of 2016, when the gloves came off and all the sexist, racist, homophobic, xenophobic Americans got full permission to stop pretending to care about equal human rights fo
Part 3: Healing The Mind-Body-Spirit Split – 44 Revelations About Healing They DID NOT Teach Me In Medical School
In this series, I’m reviewing the Cliff Notes of everything I should have learned in medical school, but didn’t- and everything I’ve learned since I finished my medical training about healing from my own research and self-study. If you haven’t yet read the first 10 revelations about healing that I d
Part 2: Whole Health – 44 Revelations About Healing They DID NOT Teach Me In Medical School
In this 7 part series, I’m reviewing the Cliff Notes of everything I should have learned in medical school, but didn’t- and everything I’ve learned since I finished my medical training about healing from my own research and self-study. If you haven’t read the first eight revelations about healing th
44 Revelations About Healing They DID NOT Teach Me In Medical School – Part 1: OVERVIEW
In this 7 part series, I’m reviewing the Cliff Notes of everything I should have learned in medical school, but didn’t- and everything I’ve learned since I finished my medical training about healing from my own research and self-study. We’ll be going into more detail about this material in a new onl
Writing From Your “Parts” For Healing Purposes
If you’ve ever written for therapeutic healing purposes or for self-expressive creativity, you might realize that different parts might show up when you write. Maybe you have perfectionist parts that impede your creativity by trying to get everything exactly right. Maybe you have parts that want to