Jose L Aleman, MFT, Oakland, CA (2025)

12/09/2025

Plans didn’t happen today. Hated it and accepted it. Didn’t make me less frustrated but it didn’t make me more either. And eventually I was able to roll and adapt once I was able to fully accept.

That’s the thing about acceptance. It’s not always calm and zen. It’s just choosing not to fight reality when it already arrived.

Acceptance isn’t giving up. It’s staying connected to your body, managing your thoughts and saying “this is what’s here today, and I can handle it.”

This week I’m exploring acceptance in real life, not the hallmark (I ❤️ hallmark) inspirational kind. If that’s something you’re working on too, follow along.

12/06/2025

We don’t always need to take bold, dramatic action to shift things.Sometimes, the work is smaller.

This weekend, see what little shifts you can practice.
Say what you want.
Pick a seat.
Name a preference.

It counts!
One inch at a time.

12/05/2025

A lot of us grew up in homes were being small was not a flaw.
It was wisdom due to necessity.
Head down.
Work hard.
Do not cause trouble.
Survive.

There is strengthen that.
And also, at some point, many of us realized we were still walking around with our heads down, long after the danger was gone.

This is the truth part. Sometimes, nobody is stopping us anymore.
We just keep stopping ourselves.

So the work isn’t to become a loud, attention seeking, “look at me now” person.
It’s to notice when we are disappearing out of habit.
And then maybe, just maybe, show up a tiny bit more.

One inch.
One seat.
One moment of presence.

And maybe even the order of garlic fries 🍟🤤

12/04/2025

There was a time when, “where should I sit?” felt like a serious question.
Or when someone asked, “what do you want to eat?” and suddenly I acted like choosing a side dish required advanced calculus.

Then one day, I challenged myself.
Walked into a room… and just sat.
No ceremony, no approval committee.
And then another time, I just said “hey garlic fries.”
Out loud, with my chest.

And guess what?
Everyone lived.
No chairs exploded.
Nobody said, “wow, the audacity!”
it was fine. Actually, it was kind of nice.

Sometimes the real flex is treating small decisions like…small decisions.
Pick your seat.
Say what you want.
And let it be ok whether you get it or not. The task is in the stating, choosing.

12/03/2025

Most of us learned to walk into a room and immediately shrink.
“Where should I sit?”
“Is this spot ok?”
“Do you need this chair?”
We became experts at taking the least amount of space possible.

And just to be clear, this is for the folks on that side of the spectrum.
The ones who were taught to be small, to wait, to adjust, to scan the room first.
If taking up space has never been hard for you, this one isn’t aimed at you.

Also, for many of us, taking up space got tangled up with both culture and hardship.

There’s real beauty being part of a collectivist culture: deferring to elders, being respectful, checking that others are okay before we make a move.
Those values are part of our strength.

At the same time, some of us lean so far into being deferential that we forget we’re allowed to take up space too.
I’m just encouraging folks to notice where they sit on that spectrum, and whether there’s room for a little more of you in the room.

Today’s version of taking of space?
Choosing a seat.
Nothing dramatic.
No throne.
Just… picking one.

It’s tiny. It’s physical. And it teaches your body, “I get to exist here too.”

One inch more. That’s all.

12/02/2025

Growing up, many of us mastered the art of being small. Not because we were timid, but because survival sometimes required it.

We stayed quiet, waited our turn, let others speak first.
And honestly? We got really good at it. Olympic-level shrinking. Gold medals all around 🥇🏅🎖️

But now?
We get to notice the habit, with love and humor.
Later this week, we’ll try something different.

Awareness is the first tiny rebellion.

11/30/2025

This weekend is for softness.
For letting the nervous system settle after a full week of feeling, noticing, surviving, shifting.

No need to analyze anything.
No need to earn rest.
Just let your body sink into whatever holds you.

This is integration.
Not thinking your way through it, but letting your system metabolize it.

If this week brought new awareness
or if it brought familiar patterns
you can let today be a quiet place to land.

Curl up with something warm.
A blanket, a dog, your own breath.
Let your shoulders unclench.
Let your jaw release.
Let presence be enough.

You made it through the week.
Let your body know that.

11/28/2025

Let today be the day you notice what actually shifted.

Yesterday might have brought up old roles and old reflexes.
Or maybe something was different.
Maybe you breathed before reacting.
Maybe you softened instead of bracing.
Maybe you still shut down, but you noticed it happening.

Today is for updating your internal files.
Not the version of you history remembers
but the version that showed up yesterday.

Were you the same self you have always been with family
or did something shift, even a little.
Did you choose a response instead of falling into one.
Did someone else surprise you.
Did your capacity move, grow, pause, or hold.

Discernment is a boundary.
Noticing what is true today is self trust.
You do not need huge transformation to claim progress.
Sometimes growth is two percent, and two percent still counts.

So if you woke up thinking
Huh, that felt a little different
or
Still a hot mess, but a more aware hot mess

that is information.
That is data.
That is evolution.
Update your files accordingly.

your files

11/27/2025

Thanksgiving can bring out the most authentic parts of us and it can also awaken our survival ones.
If being your whole self today is not possible, you can still offer gratitude to the part that is protecting you.

Because we do not only survive through fight or flight.
There are more flavors than that, more routes our bodies take to get us through what feels overwhelming.

Six core strategies many of us shift between:

Attach or cry to reach for connection and stay safe.
Fight to push back when something feels threatening.
Flight to create distance and make space.
Freeze to stay still and alert and brace until it ends.
Fawn to appease and reduce risk or tension.
Flop or collapse when the body shuts down to conserve energy.

And dissociation can be part of freeze or collapse
when staying present feels too sharp to hold.

These are not flaws.
They are intelligence.
They were shaped by lived experience, not by weakness.

So if one of these shows up today
at the table
in the silence
in the tension
in the ache
you are not doing it wrong.
You are surviving the way your body remembers.

And if you still need those strategies, play with them if you can.
Fight if you must.
Disappear when you need space.
Freeze when your system says wait.
Fawn if connection feels safer than truth.
Collapse if your body chooses conservation.

None of these responses make you broken.
They make you human.
You can meet them with recognition instead of rejection
with gratitude even when there is grief inside that gratitude.

Tomorrow, we step into boundaries for the weekend.
Follow along if you want support that holds softness, humor, and truth.

11/26/2025

Growing up, I lived half in my body and half somewhere else.
I drifted a lot.
I could disappear without ever leaving the room.
Daydreaming wasn’t just imagination, it was insulation.
A way to soften a world that felt too sharp, too loud, too much.

And that part of me came with me into adulthood.
Pre-coming out, I could sit at a family table and feel like I was behind glass.
Smiling.
Engaged just enough.
Holding my breath until I could return to q***r space, where I could finally exhale.

For a long time, I resented that version of me.
The one who checked out.
The one who wasn’t fully there.
But now I’m learning to thank him.

Because he kept me alive.
He gave me distance when I didn’t have safety.
He created just enough space to survive what my body wasn’t ready to feel fully.

So this week, I’m offering him gratitude. And yes, there is grief in that too.
Grief for how young I was when he learned to protect me.
Grief for how often he had to show up.

And if he visits me this holiday, I won’t push him away.
I’ll meet him with breath and presence instead of shame.
Because even survival strategies deserve tenderness.

Which part of you are you offering compassion to this week?

11/25/2025

This week, we’re giving thanks to the parts of us that helped us survive, and that might still be helping us survive.
The parts that get activated around family.
The ones that shut us down, dissociate, lash out, or push us toward comfort eating.
The parts we often judge, but that were born from something real.

Today is about making space for one of those parts.
Not pushing it away.
Not trying to fix it.
Just acknowledging that it protected you in ways others couldn’t.

This moment is a small practice of reconnecting.
A way of saying,
I see you.
I feel you.
I’m here with you.

And if you still need this part to get through family dynamics or holiday expectations, there’s no shame in that.
Honor the resilience it took to develop it.
Give yourself compassion for whatever choice keeps you grounded this week.

Come back tomorrow. I’ll share a story about one of my own parts and how it learned to survive.

11/24/2025

It’s Thanksgiving week, and I want to name it in a way that feels true. I’m grateful for the Indigenous people of the Americas whose histories and resilience shape so many of us. The impact of colonization didn’t end centuries ago. It lives in our bodies, our families, and the ways we learned to survive.

I think about the adaptive skills that communities of color developed through generations of pressure. Hypervigilance, protectiveness, staying small to stay safe. These weren’t flaws. They were strategies that kept people alive.

So this week, I’m honoring the parts of me that were built from that history. Even the ones I used to resent. The anxious one, the guarded one, the quiet one. They weren’t mistakes. They were responses.

Gratitude, for me, starts with seeing those parts clearly and treating them with respect. I’ll be sharing more about that all week. Follow along ✨

Jose L Aleman, MFT

12/09/2025

12/06/2025

12/05/2025

12/04/2025

12/03/2025

12/02/2025

11/30/2025

11/28/2025

11/27/2025

11/26/2025

11/25/2025

11/24/2025

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