Speak Easy with Michelle Counseling

12/26/2025

Happy Holidays ❤️

12/24/2025

12/19/2025

Your first version of anything will suck.

So will your second. Probably your tenth too.

This isn't a bug. It's the price of entry.

Go look at anyone you admire. Find their early work. It's bad. Rough. Stiff. Amateur.

Now look at what they're doing now. Completely different person.

That gap isn't talent. It's reps.

Here's what nobody tells you: The goal of starting isn't to be good. The goal of starting is to start. That's it. That's the whole assignment.

Perfectionism disguised as "waiting until I'm ready" is just fear with better marketing.

The people winning right now? They published garbage for years while you were still planning.

You don't get good, then start.

You start, then get good.

Ship the bad version. It's the only way to unlock the better one.

12/14/2025

12/10/2025

12/10/2025

Psychic Defenses Initiated by Trauma

1. Shame

Shame forms in environments where love is conditional, mistakes are punished, or the child is blamed for the emotional instability of adults. It is not low self-esteem — it is self-protection. The unconscious logic is simple: “If I punish myself first, others can’t hurt me.” By attacking itself, the psyche tries to control the source of pain. Shame becomes a preemptive strike, reducing conflict and preventing humiliation in a threatening environment. It works as a child because self-attack feels safer than external attack. As an adult, the protection becomes the prison: the danger is gone, but shame keeps shrinking you anyway, blocking connection, opportunity, and vulnerability.

2. Continued in comments

12/09/2025

12/08/2025

Clients often don’t take grounding seriously at first but when we try it in session, sometimes they begin to realize it’s not “just therapy mumbo jumbo”🤣