A group member recently talked about weathering "storms of the heart", and I loved that image. In line with its metaphor, our DBT group tracks the emotional weather of the week and helps members batten down the hatches for impending rain.

I think back on how fundamentally my personhood feels changed since I was first forced to grieve, now over a decade ago. A couple weeks into navigating grief, I remember coming across a quote by Jamie Anderson: “Grief, I’ve learned, it really just love. It’s all the love you want to give, but cannot. The more you loved someone, the more you grieve. Grief is just love with no place to go.” When I first read it, it hit me like a rock, even though it is so seemingly simple at its core. I think of the many lessons this misplaced love has taught me— and continues to teach me— as time inevitably passes.

Within the therapeutic realm, the concept of folie à deux emerges as a delicate thread, binding patient and therapist in a shared journey through the labyrinth of the mind. Here, amidst the delicate interplay of shared delusions, intimate truths are revealed, and the boundaries between reality and illusion blur. In Murakami’s narrative tapestries, characters navigate complex relationships and surreal scenarios, mirroring the intricate dance of the therapeutic process.

In the quiet hum of the morning, as sunlight filters through curtains and gently touches every nook, I ponder the curious kinship between our homes and bodies. Both, it seems, are sanctuaries where the essence of our being unfolds.

In Rogers’ (1980) own words, “[the potatoes] would never become plants, never mature, never fulfill their real potential. But under the most adverse circumstances, they were striving to become. Life would not give up, even if it could not flourish.” Rogers extended this potato analogy to people's growth and self-actualization.

Despite the great limitations of her circumstances, my grandmother found a way to create beauty in her world. She transformed rags into something regal: quilts. When clothing had been passed down too many times it would be dissected into smaller pieces and sewn together into intricate geometric patterns, creating dynamic tapestries. The faded white walls and rickety wood furniture of the farmhouse were lifted up by her creative designs, antagonizing the functional utility of all other household items.

My grandmother’s quilts are history books – layers of material, chapters of her life, of her family’s life, of my family’s life, of generations.

What does it mean to “sail through life?”