Julia Reeder LLC

11/12/2025

10/29/2025

People have been bringing trinkets and photos (not featured) for the altar in my office and I’m blown away at the amount of love that comes in the form of grief. What a privilege to hold that with someone.

10/09/2025

I have worked with addictions of all kinds throughout my career, be it alcoholism, codependence, or some other numbing/problematic behavioral pattern. And a common statement I hear is: “I don’t know why I do this.“

The intellectual case we are implicitly making with this statement is: if only I knew why I did this, then I would change. Since I don’t, I guess I can’t 🤷‍♀️

Essentially, it’s a cop out. In fact, many people I see who say this (including myself on occasion ) DO in fact know WHY they do the problematic behavior in question.

Knowing why we numb out or seek comfort in damaging things can indeed be helpful. But actually changing the behavior is more of an emotional and behavioral process. When you catch yourself saying “I don’t know why I do this,” consider the notion that you are collapsing a bit. It’s a resignation — a shield against doing hard things.

Understand why you’re partaking in an addiction can help you summon compassion for yourself, which is an important part of behavioral change. It is worthwhile to investigate your motives. When you’ve done this, don’t then create for yourself the speedbump of convincing yourself that you don’t make sense. You do, you just need to now grieve or cry or break up or go to a meeting or whatever it is that you don’t want to do but know you need.

08/18/2025

True story: a client told me today she can’t bring herself to look at her bank account. I told her maybe she needs to print out her bank statements and literally motorboat them 🤣 thanks for your wisdom and support. Everyone who needs to get right with money should hire you! 🧘🏽‍♀️ 💵 🪄

08/12/2025

Inspiration today came in the form of a client who shared how overwhelmed she was by her daughter‘s emotions on the first day of school. She was reminded of herself as a kid (she had a very difficult childhood). When asked how she copes with this overwhelm, she said “I just let her feel how she feels and just hold her.” This moved me as I know from personal experience how tempting it is to try to just cheer your kid up so you don’t have to feel their pain vicariously anymore. Given how disregulating it is to see her child have big feelings, it is all the more brave for her to make space for those feelings. She is my hero.

06/20/2025

All human beings have the capacity for addiction. In fact, some would argue that every human being indeed suffers from some kind of addiction. The extent to which your needs were not met as a child is equal to the extent to which you have the propensity to be addicted to something. In other words, if you were unable to attach securely to your caregiver, you’re more likely to attach instead to a substance or activity. Saying somebody has an “addictive personality” is reductive. Like all labels, it can undermine or ignore the cause of the phenomenon, which is attachment.

03/11/2025

When someone complains you’re too sensitive or emotional, what is likely happening is that THEY are the ones having a hard time tolerating YOUR emotion.

01/30/2025

“Know your rights” (red cards) inform people of their constitutional rights when interacting with law enforcement, especially immigration officers. If you have a private business, you shouldn’t be penalized for disseminating these, and I think it’s a moral obligation to do so. (If you receive government funding you also shouldn’t be penalized but that’s not a safe bet these days). Will post a link to print your own in my stories.

01/28/2025

Don’t read this as me saying “blame other people for your problems.” it’s important to hold yourself accountable for your mistakes. But if you feel angry at yourself most of the time, my sense is, somewhere in your history, you were angry at someone else. It was not emotionally safe to be angry at this person, so you turned it on yourself. Feeling better will require some research on who this person was, and what you felt/feel toward them.

12/11/2024

This is obvious, but not easy to remember for everyone. Dichotomous self-evaluations such as “I’m either exceptional or I’m pond scum” kick up at stressful times of year and I just want to bring good tidings: most of life is in the in between. Today I accept I am a novice at certain things I wish I was mastering by now. And it’s a gift to learn.