Sandy Pedram, Esq., LMFT

12/10/2025

What you tolerate in relationships, when you stay when you one should go, is the best measure of your relationship with your self

11/07/2025

Relationships are work ... that is so worth it

10/29/2025

TAKE UP SPACE, I have to remind individuals within a Couple when their partner is asking them if he or she understood correctly. So many clients cower and are quick to say yes when they don't mean it, out of fear of taking up too much/so much space within the relationship that they will be left without a relationship. And I get it:

"No relationship can eliminate existential isolation, but aloneness can be shared in such a way that love compensates for its pain." - Yalom & Josselson (2019)

No one wants to be alone in their aloneness. But lack of authenticity, presence, and conflict-avoidance are more destructive to the relationship, at the end of the day, than self-empowerment.

10/23/2025

Love demands democracy: for the weak to stand up and the mighty to melt

~Terry Real extrapolating on Carol Gilligan

10/19/2025

FLEXIBILITY is the most important quality to seek out in a partner when you're dating. It is the hallmark of mental health.

10/18/2025

If you refuse to face your pain, you’ll make others organize their lives around it.

Unmet shame requires endless reassurance. Unmet anxiety turns into controlling behavior. Unmet grief prevents having vulnerable conversations.

The people around you start carrying not only their lives but also the heaviness of what you won’t feel and connection turns into the management of your fear. “Please don’t leave me,” is a fear of abandonment. “Why aren’t you more on top of things,” is a fear of instability. “Why can’t you just be positive and light,” that’s a fear of emotions. Unprocessed fears become expectations and demands.

True connection requires self-awareness and ownership. When you meet your pain directly, you stop subconsciously asking others to bend their life around it. You can state your needs clearly instead of expecting them to be met in demanding, distorted, and unconscious ways. And, of course, other people can certainly help you heal. That is one of the things that makes relationships poignant and sacred, but there is a big difference between naming what you need in a clean, lucid, and embodied way and subconsciously expecting others to behave in a way that keeps you compartmentalized.

So remember your healing is not just for you. It makes you less reactive, codependent, able to release grudges, able to stay present through conflict, and just more spacious to be around. It’s for everyone. I know its scary. The thought of going closer to the pain feels like everything will fall apart. Go slow but…[go]

- Corey Muscara

10/13/2025

ACCOUNTABILITY, A LACK OF IT, is the main cause of relationships coming apart, relationship death. Thank you Chris Perry for this:

**NEVER TRUST A MAN WHO gets upset over your reactions to his actions!**
You got mad because of what he did, and now he’s mad because you reacted. Then he tries to gaslight you by saying you’re “always arguing,” or that you “create negativity.” No — that’s not you being dramatic. That’s *manipulation.* That’s *narcissistic behavior.* You don’t get to hurt people and then play the victim when they call you out.

This is one of the oldest tricks in the narcissist’s playbook — provoke a reaction, then use that reaction to shift blame. They’ll ignore the root cause of your feelings and focus only on how you expressed them. Suddenly, it’s not about their betrayal, disrespect, or dishonesty anymore — it’s about your “tone,” your “attitude,” or how you “overreacted.” It’s emotional warfare disguised as a misunderstanding.

They create chaos, watch you respond in pain or anger, and then point the finger back at you, saying, “See? You’re the problem.” It’s a cycle designed to silence you. Because the moment you start questioning your own reactions, they win. You stop defending yourself, you stop speaking up, and you start walking on eggshells — trying to manage *their* emotions while abandoning your own.

But let’s be clear: having an emotional reaction to being hurt is not wrong. It’s human. The real problem lies with the person who caused the pain and then refuses to take accountability for it. A mature, emotionally intelligent man will listen, reflect, and try to understand your feelings — not punish you for having them.

When someone truly cares about you, they’ll want to make things right, not twist things around to make you feel guilty for caring. A manipulator, on the other hand, will always try to make you doubt yourself.

So no, you’re not “too sensitive.” You’re not “starting drama.” You’re responding to disrespect that shouldn’t have happened in the first place.

Never trust a man who’s more offended by your reaction than his behavior. Because when someone tries to silence your truth — it’s not love. It’s control.

10/10/2025

Its so great to hear someone legitimize self-compassion in this way, rather than scold a person for repetition compulsion

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DPEkuo5j5hK/?igsh=bmpqZnFwNzl6OTlv

09/20/2025

Choose your hard

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DN2bX7x5r0L/?igsh=a21nYXRhMTc5dXBn

09/09/2025

09/08/2025

To my dear clients who come in with shattered trust in the goodness of the world, a loss of innocence, after the experience of NARCISSISTIC ABUSE: do not "underestimate the moral structure of reality," as Jordan Peterson says.

"The universe will avenge your perpetrator for "tearing apart the invisible threads that bind human beings together... There's a built-in mechanism in the fabric of reality that rejects that kind of behavior eventually because truth has weight... justice unfolds, not instantly, not always visibly, but inevitably...Truth, time, and consequence. These are the tools through which divine justice moves through the world and they are far more effective than any human retaliation could ever be...STAND IN TRUTH...Truth is like gravity. It doesn't care whether you acknowledge it or not...eventually reality asserts itself...Consequence when born of truth and filtered through time hits where it matters most. It doesn't always strike publicly. It shows up in the narcissists inner world: anxiety, emptiness, fear, instability...consume them...[they] become incapable of experiencing real connection, peace, or meaning."

A narcissists target "may not see the process as it unfolds... may never witness the fall, but it's important to understand that JUSTICE ISN'T DEPENDENT UPON YOUR OBSERVATION. It's bigger than that. The very act of holding to the truth, refusing to repay evil with evil, refusing to become what hurt you, that's an alignment with divine order. That's how you stay connected to justice: not by pursuing revenge but by trusting the structure of reality to deal with those who violate it."

HAVE FAITH

09/02/2025

https://voyagela.com/interview/meet-sandy-pedram-of-sandy-p-pedram-esq-lmft/

Today we'd like to introduce you to Sandy Pedram. Hi Sandy, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story. I have always been philosophically intrigued by human relationships, behavior, and stories. These interests led me to study English Literature, Persian Liter