03/22/2026
A theme I’ve been noticing in my work lately, especially with women:
Many come to therapy wanting help with their anxiety.
They want it to settle.
To feel more in control.
To have better tools to manage it.
And often, we can support that.
But as we begin to look more closely, something else starts to take shape.
Many of these women are living within environments that don’t feel safe.
Relationships that feel unpredictable, dismissive, or one-sided.
Workplaces that ask for constant output with little care or reciprocity.
Daily immersion in news cycles that carry stories of violence, instability, and loss of safety in the world.
Of course their nervous systems are activated.
Their bodies are doing exactly what they are designed to do,
to sense, to respond, to try to protect.
It can be surprisingly supportive, sometimes even deeply empowering, for women to hear:
You are not defective.
Your system is not the problem.
Sometimes, it’s the environments that are asking too much, giving too little, or quietly eroding a sense of safety.
As Gabor Maté reflects in The Myth of Normal, many of the conditions we live within are considered “normal” in our culture…
…but that doesn’t make them healthy.
Or safe.
Or sustainable.
Depathologizing these responses, seeing them as adaptive rather than disordered, can be a powerful first step.
Not just toward feeling differently,
but toward beginning to question, shift, or step out of the systems that no longer serve us.
There’s no pressure to change everything at once.
But there can be something meaningful in simply starting here:
Maybe it’s not just me.
Maybe my system has been telling me something important all along.
Self-Care Sunday reflection:
What might shift this week if, instead of trying to quiet your anxiety, you listened to what it’s asking for?
