Florence Thum - Psychotherapist

A reflective practice for this week:
Choose one ordinary object or place in your home - a table, cup, chair, doorway, window, bowl, or blanket.
Ask yourself: What memories live here? What does this object know about me? What has it held?
You might write for five minutes without trying to make it beautiful.

Signs of healing: It might be a little more energy. A conversation that did not exhaust you. A moment of beauty. A boundary you managed to hold. A morning that felt slightly less heavy.

Healing often arrives quietly. We may need to become gentle enough to notice the small signs.

A small practice for the week: notice the people, places, and conversations where your body softens. Where do your shoulders drop? Where do you breathe more easily? Where do you stop rehearsing what to say next?

Belonging is not only an idea. It is often felt in the body before it becomes clear in language. And sometimes, noticing where we feel welcomed helps us understand where we have been bracing.

Opening our hearts to ourselves isn't always easy, but it can change the way we move through the world. Self-compassion helps us meet life's joys and challenges with greater kindness, mindfulness, and a sense of our shared humanity.

Many of us learn to fit in long before we learn to belong. We become fluent in reading the room, managing other people’s comfort, shrinking certain parts of ourselves, or performing competence when we are struggling. They often began as intelligent ways to stay safe.

But over time, we may need spaces where we do not have to edit ourselves so severely in order to remain connected.

Therapy can become a place to notice these adaptations with compassion.