Tom Duvall, Clinical Therapist

11/04/2025

I remember when Mike Pence came out with the quote, “I'm a Christian, a conservative, and a Republican, in that order,” and even though I wasn't his biggest fan, I liked it because it kind of showed where his priorities lie. I made an alteration to it that I think makes it more universal.

10/30/2025

If someone is telling you that you make them feel unsafe, and your immediate reaction is indignity that they would say something like that about you, that is understandable. If you speak from that place of indignity, the only thing you're going to accomplish is reinforce to them that you are unsafe. While you may actually be safe, and certainly don't intend to make them feel unsafe, it is important to take the time first to acknowledge what you are feeling. Understand and address that feeling of indignity first. The responsibility is on you and your own emotions first before the other person.

It sucks to hear someone feels unsafe with you, especially if that's someone you care about and especially if you never intended for that to happen. As much as you want to defend yourself, to right that wrong, you can't argue someone into feeling safe with you. Insisting on being right isn't about right or wrong, but avoids responsibility for the emotions that are coming up within you. You may come to find that the effects of your choices and actions may be different from what you're intending, and being told this gives you the opportunity to course correct. You may unintentionally be making someone feel unsafe, but then you can intentionally help them to feel safe with you again. It starts with you first. It has to.

10/28/2025

Here's the full video of the Reagan ad being used in the Canadian ad that apparently resulted in Trump retaliating with calling off trade talks and raising their tariffs higher. I wanted to see it given us current relevance and it's interesting to see Reagan in a flannel because I don't think I've ever seen him in anything but a suit, or president that has served in my lifetime for that matter. I think I've seen Obama and Trump in golf attire while golfing, but it's new to me to see a president speak formally in anything but a suit.

Also wild to hear Reagan talking about living through the Great Depression. It really drives home how long ago his time was at this point. The 80s weren't 20 years ago no matter how much I want them to be 😅

U.S. President Donald Trump said he is ending “all trade negotiations” with Canada over an Ontario TV ad with anti-tariff messaging that quoted former Republ...

10/25/2025

I read this and really like it until the end. The dynamic is common, with children trying to emphasize that, despite a parent's best efforts, they hurt them. Mostly, parents did the absolute best they could and any hurt caused wasn't intentional, but for reasons that were sometimes out of their control, and sometimes weren't aware of, they hurt their children. The adult children just want validation for what happened. It's not an indictment on the parents, but it is understandable to want that acknowledgement.

The part that bothers me, is the end where “loving” is put in quotes. The way I read that, it seems to imply, that the parent's love is lacking when they cannot take accountability. While sometimes this is the case, the majority of the time they are in fact very loving. This is partially what makes the acknowledgement that despite their best efforts, they hurt their children, so hard to do, because they were very loving and tried their best, and the last thing they wanted to do was cause hurt. So to hear that it happened has got to be a genuinely painful shock, one I imagine would send many parents reeling as to how it could be possible.

The fear that it could be true and the associated shame, “if I hurt my kids, it means I'm a bad parent,” further complicates accountability for the impact of a parent's choices and actions despite their best intentions. It's harder to see the nuance of two things can be true at once: I love my kids and did the best I could, and as a result of my parenting, in some ways, my kids were hurt - but that doesn't make them a bad parent.

So while it's true that parents can hurt their children despite their best efforts, and those children deserve accountability and validation for what happened, parents may greatly struggle with providing this for them. Sometimes this results in the adult child feeling the safest thing they can do is set some pretty strict boundaries with that parent. None of this necessarily means that a parent was not loving to their children, and in fact, all of it can be true with a parent who loved and loves their children very deeply.

10/22/2025

While the deadline to register to vote has passed, democracy depends on everyone eligible to register to vote and for those registered to exercise their vote. What's your plan to make sure you get out and vote this election? Lauren and I plan to be there first thing when the doors open the Saturday before election day, which also happens to be the day after Halloween.

10/21/2025

Meeting hate with compassion doesn't mean opening yourself up to be hurt by it. It means recognizing what's behind it and showing compassion for that instead.

10/20/2025

Xavier has watched the episode of “Catboy and the Butterfly Brigade” several times recently.

It's in a collection of PJ Mask stories that he has and is allowed to have read to him at bedtime, and he asks for that particular story every night or every other night. The story, both in the book and in the show, is that the PJ Masks are trying to rescue some butterflies that were stolen from the zoo by Luna Girl.

Gecko and Owlette try to be gentle and friendly with the butterflies, but Catboy wants to be as efficient as possible, so he starts trapping them with a net and putting them in a box. He gathers them up a lot faster this way, and is proud of himself for doing such a good job helping them. However, they break out of the box and knock him down and go to Luna Girl instead. He comes to understand that despite him earnestly believing that he is helping them, while the goal is to gather them up and take them back to the zoo, it cannot come at the cost of respecting their autonomy. They don't want Catboy's help and will fight against accepting it if he's going to offer it without respecting that autonomy, and it's only when he stops forcing his brand of help on them that the PJ Masks are able to get them safely back to the zoo as the butterflies are willing to come with them.

I was thinking about this episode because we've been reading it and watching it a lot and for some reason, the idea of insisting on providing what you think is help upon others, without regard for what those others want, even if you believe said “help” is needed, seemed relevant.

10/18/2025

We have the right to free speech.

10/16/2025

Efforts to make the world a better place, I believe, are earnest by most who pursue that endeavor. What actually works is a different matter, but the efforts are sincere.

Without doing one's own inner work though, dealing with one's own inner pain and fear, they will be the driving force of such efforts and undermine them in a way that cannot be overcome by any amount of knowledge or pure intentions.

Work on you before you work on the rest of the world.

10/07/2025

I want to take this a step further. I think the importance of talking will ultimately be Charlie Kirk's legacy. Now granted, this isn't the full quote, but when you read the full quote, it's got so much value to it, but I think there's a nuance that's missing, without which such admirable goals as Charlie had fall short. It's not just about talking, but making sure we are talking to each other and not at each other.

The bad stuff starts to happen when people start talking at each other instead of to each other. Listening, understanding, and learning are all lost when people talk at each other, and only remain possible when talking to each other. When talking stops altogether, it's clear that there's a problem. There's a nuance to talking at each other that's harder to see. It can be mistaken for talking to each other, downplayed as heated or spirited. It's not though, and is just as ineffective as not talking at all, ultimately leading to the same bitter end result.

Having now watched quite a few clips of his debates now, I've seen several where he and the other person were talking at each other, not to each other. I wonder if either he or his debate partner understood what was happening in such moments, that they were trapped in a verbal vortex that just kept going around and around until something stopped it. To be fair, clips don't give the whole context, and I may have misinterpreted some or all. I've worked with enough people, particularly couples, to have a decent grasp on when people's internal defenses have gone up and the conversation from either end is more about protecting one's position due to deep seated fears rather than trying to understand the other side.

It’s an intense demand to hold the emotional awareness necessary to recognize such a state while being actively inside it. It has nothing to do with intelligence, as I've witnessed people of all stripes: bright, brilliant, highly educated, poorly educated, not so bright alike, all struggle with the understanding and awareness. I stress this because I don't want this to be interpreted as something like, “Charlie was too dumb to figure this out” because that wouldn't be the case at all - from what I understand he was quite brilliant. If I'm correct, and I may not be, that some of his more heated discussions became instances of talking at each other instead of to each other, it would have nothing to do with intelligence and more to do with emotional awareness, particularly inner fears and pain and the way the psyche structures itself to protect them, a phenomenon from which none of us are immune.

So yes, absolutely, we want to keep talking, but specifically, we want to keep talking to each other and be aware enough to ensure we are not talking at each other, lest we take a different route to end up at the same destination as if we had stopped talking at all.

10/04/2025

Sometimes it's not you or anything you're doing, right, wrong, or otherwise

10/02/2025

Debate you? Nah, I'm gonna try to understand you first. I'm gonna try to understand your point of view, why you have it, why you hold to it, why that's important to you, what your arguments are, and be able to share that back with someone at least as well as you can, if not better, before I even consider debating you.

If I'm not able to do that as the starting point, how can I be so certain that I am right and you are wrong, so much so that I have to argue with you about it? How is certainty possible without a complete understanding of the opposing viewpoint?

Debates are made to be performed for the audiences watching them, whether that's online, televised, or in some kind of live/stage form. They are more for the audiences for whom they are performed rather than earnest efforts to change the minds of the people participating in them. If I wanted to perform in front of an audience, there are several community theater troupes in my local area that I could audition with looking for male actors.

I'm not interested in debate, at least not until I understand. I imagine a lot of people will disagree with this, because for so long, the debate format has been the dominant form through which we try to gain understanding. I imagine most people who engage in debate earnestly believe that doing so is helping them to better understand and be better understood, so no shame. I don't think it's a particularly helpful format toward achieving those particular goals.

You might disagree with me on this. You might want to debate me on this, and if you do, that's cool, but be forewarned: I'm not going to debate you back. I'm going to try to understand you in a non-debated way.