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Holding Hope MFT

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Holding Hope MFT

Holding Hope Marriage and Family Therapy, PLLC provides mental health services primarily to individuals and couples going through relationship distress.

Holding Hope MFT is a premier therapy practice that supports individuals and couples in New York City. We are relationship experts with advanced training and expertise in couples therapy, marriage counseling, and s*x therapy. Our highly skilled individual therapists specialize in helping clients heal from anxiety, trauma, and attachment wounds, providing a uniquely tailored approach for each person's needs. Whether you're seeking an expert couples therapist or individual counselor in NYC, Holding Hope MFT is here to guide your journey towards more fulfilling relationships and improved well-being. Contact us today to schedule a consultation.

12/31/2021

What a great tip from Buddha to carry into 2022! The past few years have been challenging in ways none of us EVER could have predicted. Overnight our world turned upside down and many of us are still grieving the events of 2020. When I read this quote, I don’t think about starting from scratch or erasing the past traumas we have experienced. Instead I think about the opportunity and privilege we have every morning to wake up and “begin again.” Start over, chose a different narrative, ask yourself what is going right in your life rather than what is going wrong. And stay focused there for just a minute. Hold the good, practice mindfully letting it in, and allow yourself to be grateful for what you have. We are hard-wired to look for imperfections/problem areas in our life as part of our survival, but what we are much less experienced in is appreciating the good, sitting with what is rather than what’s not, and being truly present in TODAY. Sending you motivation and support that no matter how hard the past, you can always begin again.

#2022

12/06/2021

This time of year brings up so many emotions and we often associate it with the season of family/friends and giving to others. It’s JUST as important to remember that YOU matter and deserve love and belonging always. And it starts from within! Through all your holiday planning, don’t forget to slow down and ask yourself what will bring you joy this year? What do you want and need to make the most of this time of year? Maybe it’s setting certain boundaries and being clear with your loved ones ahead of time. Maybe it’s giving yourself permission to walk away if you’re feeling triggered or chose not to gather this year. Whatever the “it” is that you need I want to encourage you to slow down and ask yourself this question and see what comes up right before the brain fills in all the blanks (ie I can’t possibly do that, so-and-so would be mad at me, What if they think I am crazy?).

You hold the power to how others treat you. You model what you want and expect based on how you treat yourself and when someone responds with poor behavior or less than desirable reactions, you don’t have to tolerate it. You can set boundaries, walk away, and prioritize your own mental well being and it will model for the other person how you expect and deserve to be treated.

11/28/2021

This could not be more true and something that may be relevant this holiday weekend as we engage with family and friends. Brene has it right here when she talks about the need to love ourselves when we dare to set boundaries. Setting boundaries can be incredibly uncomfortable and scary, especially if we grew up in a family system that considers them to be a sign of disloyalty or interprets them as a lack of love. These enmeshed systems do not know how to hold the individual as separate from the system so when you (the individual) sets a boundary that may or may not be aligned with what the system wants and expects, the system rebels. We reject what's unfamiliar even if it's dysfunctional, meaning even if setting the boundary is in your best interest if the family system isn't familiar with boundaries it will bite back out of fear and discomfort.

Whenever this happens, it only reaffirms our fears and motivates us to people please. We do this because we fear things like rejection, shame, judgment, and worse case scenario abandonment. These are fair things to fear when we've been burned or hurt like this in the past however it may or may not happen this time, in this context. Either way we don't have control over other people's behavior which is why Brene's point is so important. We have to have the "courage to love ourselves even when we risk disappointing others." This doesn't mean the cost of rejection goes away when we set clear boundaries, it just means that we love ourselves enough to remind ourselves in the moments of discomfort and fear that we are allowed to prioritize our own wants and needs. Just to clarify, boundaries can be set with compassion and kindness and when set from a grounded state of self has the best potential outcome.

11/18/2021

Is this my intuition speaking or my anxiety? I can’t tell you how often I talk about and hear this very question come up in my work. I even ask it personally at times of myself when I’m in a hijacked or confused state. The problem is when we are asking this question, we aren’t really in our most grounded state.

People talk a lot about intuition, self energy, confidence, internal validation but what does that actually feel like in our bodies and how can we recognize it when it’s present? Well I can’t answer this for you personally, but I can do my best to explain and invite you to tune in to your own internal system to find out.

Self energy or intuition is NOT the chaotic voices in your head or the mind chatter. It’s NOT the self-doubting part or insecurity that you aren’t enough. It is NOT the part that fears the future and doubts your ability to make the “right” answer and it is NOT the critic in your arena.

It often shows up as a quiet, almost peaceful energy. Close your eyes, take some deep breathes, and see what you notice in the pause or silence. It takes time for this energy to be present and takes conscious mindfulness to make it happen. This doesn’t mean you might not also have parts that feel afraid or anxious, it just means that there’s an overall knowing. A knowing that we trust ourselves enough to believe that whatever happens, we will be okay. It’s the quiet sense of knowing that at the end of the day, you can rely and count on yourself. Not all parts have to believe this or even feel it for your intuition to exist. In fact intuition exist even when we can’t locate it. So slow down, tune in, and let your body talk to you!

11/16/2021

I love this because it’s so true and speaks to the essence of unconditional love. Love should be unconditional, meaning love should not get withdrawn or withheld because we don’t respond, do, say, or act the way the other person wants us to. It should not exist one minute and get removed the next. When we feel scared or fearful about this the majority of the time, it may be worth considering whether the relationship is an insecure attachment. I want to invite you to think and reflect on the below:
- how often does this happen?
- when it does how does it make you feel?
- When your partner behaves by doing ________, you feel _______ because I am afraid that ________.
- when I fear emotional safety in my relationship, I respond by _______.
- what would I want to change to make me feel more secure?

We all want security and safety in relationships, any kind of relationship but especially our romantic ones. We want to know at the end of the day that we are loved, wanted, seen, and accepted. Of course there are other needs, but these are the ones that ultimately create the most security or lack thereof. As much as Im calling attention for you to think about the safety your partner brings to the dynamic, it’s just as important to ask yourself the same questions. What do YOU do to give unconditional love or do you withhold it/punish when you feel hurt? Where did you learn to respond to co flick this way? What was modeled for you in your own family growing up? Of course we often are never trying to hurt each other but defensive reactions can occur when we feel hurt. It is a primal human reaction to self-defend when under threat or perceived threat. We can all be guilty of this, what’s important is having the mindfulness to do our best and pay attention to our parts so we can show up safely as often as we can. And when it comes to our partner, we cannot control their behavior but we can ask and advocate for what we need with kindness and compassion.

11/13/2021

This could not be more true, all behavior makes complete sense in context. So often our behavior gets judged and shamed without ever looking at the hurt underneath the surface. And often the more hurt there is underneath, the more outrageous and disregulated we become. I’m not saying that poor behavior should be excused or overlooked; in fact quite the opposite. We should hold each other and ourselves accountable to work on how disregulated we can become, but it’d be doing the relationship a disservice to not also get curious around what’s causing the behavior to begin with so you can fix the root cause and move on.

The problem is this type of deep dive exploration is tough and very vulnerable which is why it needs to happen in a safe space and with someone you deeply trust. Try and view dysfunctional behavior through the lens of compassion and you will likely always find the hurt underneath. Don’t ignore or abandon yourself in this way, you deserve better!

11/09/2021

Someone I deeply respect once said to me, "you don't know what you don't know." I think it's a really valid point and one that often gets overlooked when we are working on ourselves. So often I hear people talk about the pressure/stigma they feel to be able to anticipate and prevent anything and everything negative that happens to them. The words often spoken are "I should have known, what's wrong with me that _______, if only I was more ________, etc." And while we all want to improve and constantly be the best we can be, these overachieving parts don't often leave room or grant forgiveness for the process required to grow and change. They are outcome driven and perfectionist in nature. Black and white. You win, you lose. Those are the only two options.

While these parts are often intended to protect, the reality is that when we are growing we are learning and quite literally evolving at every stage of the process. We live, we play, we risk, we fall down and then we get back up and the self-reflection that accompanies these shifts are where the true power comes in. We have to make the unconscious conscious. We have to dig, explore, get curious about our behavior, actions, patterns, and reactions. And then we have to get curious some more. Although I do this for others as a therapist everyday, it is difficult to do this for myself. That is why I too need and ask for help. We quite literally cannot play referee and player in the same game. If you are struggling with your own growth, reach out and contact us or another therapist who might be a good fit. Don't stay complacent in your stuckness when YOU have the power to change it or at least ask for help from those who can better guide you...otherwise "it (the stuckness) will direct your life and you will call it fate.”

11/03/2021

This is a big concept but one that often gets us closer to the love and connection we long for and deserve! We are trained and taught to minimize, dismiss, and quiet the voices inside of vulnerability especially when it comes to romantic relationships. We are fearful of being judged or perceived as "weak" and while this may be the message that we have been socialized to believe, it often is not further from the truth. When did love and closeness mean excluding our thoughts and feelings with our partner? Hiding parts of ourselves to be accepted? Compromising our own values to "fit in or fit with?" You can't have one without the other....if you want love and intimacy, you have to lean in and allow your vulnerable parts to be seen, witnessed, and shared.

I'm not suggesting you share everything you're thinking or feeling with your partner, nor am I implying that by taking this risk, connection and intimacy will magically appear. What I am saying is that in most secure attachments where both people are deeply committed to each other and are working hard to hold compassion for the other, we often experience feelings of safety and closeness when we open ourselves up.

The thing is, so often we want the guarantee on the front end.....we want to know that if we share these insecure parts of ourselves, our partner will accept us without judgement or shame. The reality is you won’t know until you try. That said you can take calculated risks. You can learn how to trust yourself enough to believe that you CAN gage when someone is emotionally available/accessible. This may feel foreign to you if historically you haven't struggled to trust your own intuition here? Maybe you blame yourself for past hurts that occurred? Maybe you are afraid the same thing will happen again if you open yourself back up this time? If this is true for you, that’s fair and valid, which is exactly why you go slow, proceed with caution, and trust in your own ability to self-regulate when you get stuck. Don’t hesitate to ask for help from others you trust friends, family, therapists, etc. but keep showing up. It's the only way to be and live relationally with others.

11/01/2021

Hello November! It's hard to believe that we're already over 1.5 years into this pandemic and still not through the other side. It can feel sad, frustrating, helpless, and sometimes even hopeless. It's normal for all the negative emotion to seep in regarding the current state of the world and it can quickly discolor the positive. However cheesy as it might seem, this month always reminds us of the word "gratitude" and I want to talk about this TODAY as we start November.

I want to invite you to pause for a brief moment and think about what you're grateful for in your life. It might be hard to do. It might bring up a variety of emotions or parts that want to resist me even asking the question. Often we are hard-wired to focus on the negative/areas of growth or improvement and it can sometimes feel like saying we are grateful means we are fully satisfied, done striving, and completed with our goals. I know my perfectionist parts definitely resist gratitude for this very reason. But gratitude is a practice and takes time and intentionally to create space for. It's the part of us that focuses on what IS not what ISN'T; what we have in the present moment; where we are in our life today. It's the part of us that holds compassion for the human behind the goals and our deep longing for connection. It's that part of us that feels fulfilled by who we are at our core, not by what we have or our status socially, financially, professionally, etc. It's the part of you that says in this area, with this person or animal, in this space and time, I am enough. I have enough. Try this on not just on Thanksgiving but every day this month and notice what happens in your system. Maybe nothing will change, maybe everything will change but the only way we can experience gratitude is to practice it.

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6 E. 39th Street , Suite 8S
New York, NY
10016

Opening Hours

Monday	9am - 9pm
Tuesday	9am - 9pm
Wednesday	9am - 9pm
Thursday	9am - 9pm
Friday	9am - 9pm

Website

https://holdinghopemft.com/

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