family

There’s a certain shimmer to the holiday season — twinkling lights, warm foods, communal rituals, the soft ache of memory. In a perfect world, holidays would be a gentle return to belonging. They would be an invitation back into our bodies, our cultures, our stories,…

When our loved ones are struggling and in pain, it can be very difficult to know what to do to help them. Seeing friends and family in an abusive relationship can be particularly challenging. We just “want to shake them” and have them see what…

As young people, we learn to interact with others based on how our family members interact with each other. Once these communication patterns become established in our young minds, it’s hard to change them as adults. This means that any relational patterns that include angry…

Many of us grew up in households that were dysfunctional, where boundaries between parents and adults were blurred in unhealthy ways. Emotional incest is not of a sexual nature, but it does describe unhealthy emotional interactions between adults and children that are psychologically inappropriate. What…