May Q&A: When Patterns Feel Permanent

This month's recorded video session (and transcript) addresses the deeper frameworks for changing automatic responses around control, validation, and the exhausting weight of being everyone's rock.

Hey friend,

So…the questions you submitted for this month's Q&A showed me something I see regularly in my therapy practice: how patterns that once served you well can become the very thing holding you back.

Questions about managing the anxiety that comes from having a mother with borderline personality disorder. About the exhausting cycle of solving one problem only to have another surface. About the shame of being known as "the strong one" while feeling empty inside.

Your questions weren't asking for quick fixes. They were asking something deeper: How do I change patterns that feel automatic? How do I stop abandoning myself to appear capable?

In this month's Q&A, I address these questions directly—because sustainable change doesn't come from willpower or "trying harder." It comes from understanding how your nervous system developed these responses, and what actually shifts them.

Here's part of my response to the question about breaking free from seeking external validation and control:

"Your body isn't a math problem to solve. Health doesn't live in a spreadsheet—it lives in relationship. With your body, with your stress, with how you handle uncertainty.

What you encountered wasn't just blood sugar. It was a deeper pattern: When things feel unsteady, I reach for control. When control doesn't work, I panic. That's not bad behavior. That's survival.

Many of us learned early to mistrust our bodies—especially if we were praised for achievement, composure, having the right answer. Self-trust didn't get built. Control did..."

The complete Q&A goes deeper into specific frameworks for building self-trust, including practical steps for learning to ask for help when you've managed everything alone. I also address maintaining relationships with emotionally unpredictable parents, and what my own return to clinical work looked like after recognizing I needed to change my relationship with being everyone's support system.

These conversations are too nuanced for social media and too specific for generic advice.

The full 45-minute recording and complete transcript are below, including detailed responses about preparing to return to therapeutic work and working with the shame of being "the strong one.