You Understand Yourself Completely. So Why Don't You Feel Better?
The Cost of Standing Near: What Years of Vigilance Do to the Helper's Brain
Why Relapse Is Part of Recovery, Not the End of It
Helping or Enabling? Why the Kindest Thing Can Keep Someone Stuck
Last week I wrote about why you can't love someone into stopping — why love, however vast, cannot do the work that has to happen inside another person's brain. If you read it, you may have arrived at the question that always comes next, the one that keeps people awake just as surely as the first:
Then what am I supposed to do? Because doing nothing feels impossible.
Why You Can't Love Someone Into Stopping: The Neuroscience of Addiction and the People Who Stay
If you have been carrying the belief that this was all on you — that the right amount of love, correctly applied, should have fixed it — I hope this loosens something. You have been trying to solve with your heart a problem that lives in someone else's chemistry. The love was never the thing that failed. It was simply never the thing that could do this particular job alone.
Put Your Own Oxygen Mask on First
A recent collapse taught me the lesson I teach everyone else: you cannot pour from an empty cup. Here's the science of caregiver burnout — and the small, daily ways to refill your own.
Your Body Has Been Trying to Tell You!
Your head is the last to know. By the time your thinking brain is ready to admit something is wrong, your body has known for years — through your sleep, your dreams, your gut, and the way you catch your breath walking into your own house. Here is what your body has been trying to tell you, and how to start listening.
When Coaching Changes a Marriage
"It was fine until she talked to Jill." I have heard some version of that sentence more times than I can count over 35 years of practice. Here is the truth about what coaching and hypnosis actually do in a marriage — and why no one has ever talked anyone into leaving one.
The Tentative Pregnancy: How to Hold a Body That Is Changing Around an Outcome You Cannot Yet Know
There is a kind of pregnancy almost nobody talks about — one that may or may not continue, carried in silence while the body changes around an outcome that cannot yet be known. For the women in it, and the people who love them.
Calm Wins: How to Hold Your Ground in High-Stakes Conflict Without Losing Your Nervous System
Righteous indignation feels like power — but the most regulated person in the room almost always wins. The neuroscience of holding your ground without losing your nervous system.
The News Without the Nervous System Cost: How to Stay Informed Without Being Consumed
If the news has been doing something to you, you're right — it is. The neuroscience of news anxiety, and how to stay informed without being consumed by it.
Destination Disease: Why “I’ll Be Happy When…” Is the Trap That Keeps You Running
"I'll be happy when…" is one of the most common sentences I hear in my practice. The neuroscience of why the finish line keeps moving — and what actually helps.
What "Certified" Actually Means: How to Choose a Hypnotist for Your Family
The hypnosis field is unregulated — which makes choosing well genuinely important. A practical guide to credentials, questions to ask, and what really matters.
When a Family Stops Talking: The Neuroscience of Repair
Why logic fails to repair families — and what actually works. The neuroscience of rebuilding communication and trust when the silence has gone on too long.
Why Teenagers Don't Need Another Adult Telling Them What to Do: The Neuroscience of Working With the Adolescent Mind
Why teenagers resist traditional therapy — and what actually works. The neuroscience of the adolescent brain and the approaches designed for it.
When Talking Isn't Enough: The Neuroscience of Hypnosis for Trauma
hy talking about trauma often isn't enough — and what hypnosis reaches that words alone cannot. The neuroscience of trauma recovery.
The Room Doesn't Matter: The Neuroscience of Why Online Hypnosis Works
Can hypnosis really work through a screen? The neuroscience says yes — and understanding why changes how we think about what hypnosis actually is.
When You Have Everything and Feel Nothing: The Neuroscience of High-Functioning Depression
You function. You deliver. You show up. Nobody knows. The neuroscience of high-functioning depression — and why the standard approach often doesn't fit.
You Can't Think Your Way Out of Anxiety: The Neuroscience of the Nervous System
If "just calm down" has never once worked for you — this is why. Anxiety lives in the nervous system, not the thinking brain. Here's what the science says and what actually helps.
Why Your Teenager Is Not Being Difficult: The Neuroscience of the Adolescent Brain
Your teenager isn't broken — their brain is under construction. Neuroscience explains adolescent behavior and what actually helps.