Patricia Kaiser, LMFT

04/02/2026

03/15/2026

Oh boy, one I can relate to and have had to work on.

How many of us can recognize what led to our own emotional self-reliance?

What about times when a parent said “Stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about?” Boomers, I bet most of you raise your hand for that one.

Or a parent noticing when you’re brimming with anticipation or happiness and then say something that will shut that right down?

When nobody accepted your expressed emotions, when it wasn’t safe, it makes sense that you learned to be “fine,” stay logical, move forward, and comfort yourself by minimizing or hiding what hurts.

This adaptation looks calm and capable on the outside (“keep calm and carry on”), but underneath it often means disconnection or hiding from others what your own inner experience feels like. Why hide that? Because it’s not safe to do it.

This is why some avoidant partners can seem dismissive of feelings, uncomfortable with anger, unable to ask for support, or quick to fix, appease, rationalize, and move on when their partner is upset. Raise your hand if that’s you.

It’s usually because emotional pain hasn’t felt workable, safe, or familiar.
Even people who describe their childhoods as “good” can still have had emotional gaps. A childhood doesn’t have to be obviously bad for emotional self-reliance to develop. And emotional self-reliance is not always a bad thing, but feeling it’s not safe to share your own inner experience is.

Sometimes the message was simply:

keep going
don’t need too much
don’t feel too much
don’t make it harder.

Emotional self-reliance that has led to avoidant attachment once served an important purpose. The work in adulthood is to gently expand the capacity to feel, share, and stay connected, both to ourselves and to others.

03/14/2026

Vex King

03/13/2026

These are all really good!

03/13/2026

The way a need is expressed almost always determines whether it gets met.

Demanding communicates: you are failing and you need to change. Even when the need underneath is completely valid, that delivery triggers defensiveness before any real conversation can happen. The other person is too busy protecting themselves to actually hear what you need.

Expressing a need from vulnerability is harder. It requires admitting you want something instead of attacking someone for not providing it. That honesty is also what makes it possible for someone to actually respond.

Save this and share it with someone who needs to see the difference.

03/02/2026

02/28/2026

Sometimes we all have thoughts, memories, or worries that distract us from being in the present moment. Here’s a link to some quick and easy strategies to help us come back to the here and now.

Grounding techniques help manage the symptoms of trauma by refocusing attention from uncomfortable thoughts and memories to the present moment.

02/11/2026

12/17/2025

Here's a good challenge beautiful friends:
Send a message to a friend telling them something specific that you like about them and why you are grateful for their friendship.

It may feel cheesy and silly, but it will probably mean more to them than you know. ❤️