Perspectives

Dolly Parton was sweet and sexy, plainspoken and bedazzled, deeply feminine and strong as a steel trap. Perhaps we loved her because she never asked us to choose which version was real. All of them were.

As September arrives and the days begin to shorten, the world gradually turns inward. For some of us, crisp air, early darkness, glowing windows, and the return of sweater weather bring not sadness, but an invigorating sense of warmth, refuge, and home.

Introversion, Sensitivity, Trauma, and the Need to Recharge Some people need more time alone than others. Not because they dislike people. Not because they are antisocial. And not because they are, as I occasionally remind myself, lazy ass slackers. For some of us, being around people simply requires a great deal of energy. I know what it feels like to need time to recharge my battery after talking all day or socializing with people who are not in my innermost circle. I need

Your brain is constantly predicting what will happen next, drawing on old experiences to make sense of the present. But anxiety, trauma, and depression can color those predictions, making thoughts feel like facts when they may be little more than an old file pulled forward.

Paint, Yarn, Words, and a Little Perspective I have come to realize that I am happiest when I am making something. Sometimes it is a painting. Sometimes it is crochet. Sometimes it is writing. Apparently, one creative outlet was not enough. It is nice to be able to pick up another when I have exhausted my interest in one for the day but have not yet satisfied the urge to make something. Painting, especially, makes me a little giddy. I love playing with color—hues, values, lig

From girlhood onward, women learn that their bodies will be noticed, judged, compared, desired, criticized, and sometimes controlled. This essay explores the cultural expectations women absorb about beauty, sexuality, aging, safety, and bodily autonomy—and asks a larger question: who should hold authority over a woman’s body?

Begin With the Body When the Mind Won’t Sit Still For many people, meditation sounds perfectly reasonable until they are asked to sit still and do it. Within thirty seconds, the mind has reorganized your closet, considered next week’s meal plan, and begun investigating whether the refrigerator is making a new noise. Some of us do not find stillness by beginning with stillness. Sounds a bit like a Japanese koan, doesn’t it? Yoga offers another doorway. When movement follows th

The Roles We Inherit and the Freedom to Rewrite Them Families are very good at assigning roles. Sometimes nobody remembers holding the auditions. In my family, I accumulated a collection of descriptions over the years. I was the absent-minded professor. I was the professional student. I was the quirky dilettante. I was shy, maybe a little different, and generally more comfortable watching from the edges than marching into the middle of things. None of those descriptions was e

When the unthinkable becomes ordinary Lately, I have been wondering how much cruelty a person can witness before it begins to feel normal. Not acceptable, exactly. Most of us would still say that cruelty is wrong. So are dishonesty, corruption, violence, greed, and the casual humiliation of other human beings. We know this. We learned it when we were children, or at least we were supposed to. Don’t lie. Don’t cheat. Don’t take what doesn’t belong to you. Don’t make fun of peo

Old Man's Cave, Middle Earth, and the pleasures of losing your way The first time I visited Hocking Hills was about fifteen years ago with some friends. Somehow, we ended up on one of the more challenging trails. At least, I assume it was a trail. We climbed over enormous boulders and jumped down the other side to continue following what appeared to be a trail. We walked for hours, farther and farther into the forest, until we found a stone staircase that took us even lower i

The hidden anxiety of people who appear to have everything under control Image is AI-generated Some people wear anxiety like Lady Gaga wore a meat dress. You cannot miss it, and you cannot look away. Sometimes their anxiety seems to spray outward like a sneeze. Before long, everyone in the room is anxious, too. Others organize their anxiety into alphabetized, color-coded folders with an accompanying resource list. They arrive twenty minutes early to set up the AV system and l

Sometimes a child becomes the problem that keeps parents from looking too closely at each other. This article explores triangulation, parentification, scapegoating, and the ways children can come to carry conflict that belongs to the adults around them.

They remain extremely secure, even from me. This morning, Wix asked me to complete a CAPTCHA to prove that I was human. This seemed reasonable. I have been human for quite some time and felt reasonably qualified. Unfortunately, the CAPTCHA did not agree. I clicked on the squares containing traffic lights. Then bicycles. Then crosswalks. Occasionally, a small section of an object appeared in the corner of a square, requiring me to decide whether three inches of bicycle tire le

A reflection on what the Bhagavad Gita offers when life feels chaotic, the chariot wheels have fallen off, and control is no longer among the available options.

Shiva and Shakti I live with two Siamese cats who have established a highly functional system of household management. Shakti is in charge. Shiva is large. These are not the same thing. Shakti was the runt of the litter and still looks like a forever kitten: tiny, delicate, quick, and entirely convinced that size is a vulgar substitute for intelligence. Shiva is much taller, substantially broader, and about five pounds heavier. He is a handsome, long-limbed, blue-eyed gentle

Serial killers, childhood adversity, and the mystery of resilience I have a guilty pleasure. I watch serial-killer shows. A lot of them. I am especially drawn to the ones involving FBI profilers—the investigators who study crime scenes, victim patterns, language, behavior, and seemingly insignificant details until a picture of the unknown offender begins to emerge. Give me a Behavioral Analysis Unit gathered around a conference table, studying photographs and announcing that

Why having different part of ourselves does not mean we are broken. Imagine walking through a house you have lived in for years and discovering that it contains more rooms than you remembered. Some are bright and orderly. One is prepared for company, with the pillows arranged and everything in its proper place. Another holds unfinished projects, old photographs, and boxes you have been meaning to sort through for approximately half your natural life. There may be a room where

The road bends, and the Sangre de Cristo Mountains come into view, rising above the high desert. The air smells faintly of piñon and juniper. Ravens drift across the enormous blue sky. And then there is the light—that unmistakable New Mexico light that somehow makes every color richer and every shadow more alive. Every time I return to northern New Mexico, I have the same thought: I'm home. It has never made logical sense to me. I didn't grow up there. I've never lived there.

by Janet Nash, MSW, LISW-S, Certified Yoga Therapist, CCTP Generational trauma is not always dramatic from the outside. Sometimes it does not look like police at the door, an explosive family rupture, or one clearly identifiable event everyone can point to and say, “That was when everything changed.” It may look like a family that functions, works hard, keeps going, pays the bills, celebrates holidays, and appears “fine” to everyone around them. But behind the façade of ordin

Anxiety often comes with a very busy mind. It may sound like planning. Or problem-solving. Or preparing. Or reviewing every possible thing that could go wrong and then reviewing the review, just in case the first review missed something important. Anxious thoughts can be incredibly convincing. They tend to arrive with urgency, as if the mind has just discovered an emergency meeting and everyone is required to attend immediately. Preferably at 2:00 a.m. The trouble is that anx