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In an increasingly lonely world, hobbies are one of our last remaining relational spaces. Hobbies are a vast playground of social opportunities, able to bring you into contact with both like-minded people with whom you have much in common and people with whom you would otherwise never interact.

Welcome back! This is Part II of my three-parter on hobbies. (In case you missed Part I . And, you can read Part III .) What follows are three ways that grownups benefit from hobbies. I’ve drawn on interviews with over a dozen friends and family members, so you can hear from a wider range of voices than just mine.   1.  Hobbies as self-care   Self-care is a broad category, encompassing fitness and physical health, social connection, and emotional wellbeing. Over half the peop

The subject of hobbies has been coming up often in sessions lately—the benefits of hobbies, the empty feeling of not having a hobby, the challenges of maintaining a hobby. This has forced me to slow down and think about my relationship with my own hobbies. What is a hobby? Why does it matter? What does it mean to have a hobby as an adult, a professional, a parent? What do my hobbies add to my life? What have they allowed me to learn or experience?

Our lives are full of winter seasons—not just the winter that comes around every year, but also wintry seasons of the soul. In a winter of the soul, life is cold and dormant, and something new is germinating in the dark recesses of your spirit.

My primary job as a therapist is to teach awareness and compassion. Awareness and compassion are the paving stones of all great religious paths; these are fundamentally spiritual capacities.

This is a long one, but it’s important (especially in the midst of a government shutdown over healthcare).   Let me start by saying, I believe healthcare—including mental health care—is a human right. I believe everyone should have access to skilled, compassionate mental health support regardless of their income, gender identity, religion, political beliefs, disability status, sexual orientation, race, nationality, age, employment status, or any other variable you can come up

Here are twelve somewhat unrelated lessons or ideas I've been musing on during the past month, when I've been out of work due to a chronic illness flare. 1 - There is a difference between resting for productivity and resting for healing. Resting for productivity—the kind of rest that garners a terse, grudging approval from our late-stage capitalist culture—is stolen in tiny bits and pieces; the goal is to restore the body-machine to a functional capacity so the work can conti

The past five months have felt like five years. I think most everyone who finds this post will have an idea of what I’m talking about....

I have always secretly wanted to live in a commune. If you read closely, you can see this desire woven into most of the novels I’ve...

Informed Consent   Let me start by saying, this world is a mess. We are in dire straits—and in the face of such extreme threat, only...

If you’re coming back after the previous blog post on dating and secure attachment, welcome. That was the easy stuff. This post, where...

Welcome back to my series of blog posts on dating! Catch the first post here. This time, we’re delving into attachment theory. As an...

Sometimes, as a therapist, I see themes pop up in my work. They might only last a day or two, where several sessions coalesce around the...

You know what’s the highlight of my month? Moving money into my high-yield savings account. I’m not even joking. It’s my absolute...

I just wrote a book in 23 days. It was intense. I couldn’t get it out of my head, not even when I was sleeping. I wrote over breakfast. I...

In my previous blog post, I used my experience as a writer of fiction to engage with the question of whether God gives us free will, or...

I began this year with a blog post about rest. Throughout the month of January, I rested aggressively and with intention. One of the...

We are entering an election year. I confess, I stepped into 2024 with a feeling of dread. For years now, I’ve had clients citing stress...

I have been resting. I have been resting hard, resting audaciously, resting with gusto. I have been giving myself permission to do less....

Christmas conjures up a lot of associations for me. A mountain of presents piled under a tree. Family trips to the movie theater after...