Stories We Tell Ourselves
"He said he had been listening to a symphony, and it was absolutely glorious music, and at the very end... there was a dreadful screeching sound... He added, really quite emotionally, 'It ruined the whole experience.' But it hadn't. What it had ruined was the memory of the experience... He had had twenty minutes of glorious music. They counted for nothing..." -- Daniel Kahneman, TED2010
Read MoreSelf-Harm: It Makes Sense
"For a burn or a cut might be shown, might be nursed, might scar or heal... would anyway be there, on the surface of her body, rather than corroding it from within." Sarah Waters, The Night Watch
“My head was full of wild ambitious urges to hurt myself... I wanted my interior pain out in my body... I wanted this vague pain to be specific. That’s how I explain it.” Charles Baxter, The Feast of Love
To Risk or Not to Risk
"What did I know of life? I who had lived so carefully? Who had neither won nor lost, but just let life happen to him? …Who avoided being hurt and called it a capacity for survival?" Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending
I’m sitting at the computer, wondering how to get into this topic. The room is quiet. I glance at my phone, half hoping for a distracting text...
Feedback
"Feedback is an opinion, grounded in observations and experiences, which allows us to know what impression we make on others. The information is revealing and potentially uncomfortable... But the upside of painful knowledge is so much greater than the downside of blissful ignorance." Sheryl Sandberg, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead
Read MoreTime Alone
"She was happy to be alive and breathing, when her whole being seemed to be one with the sunlight, the color, the odors, the luxuriant warmth... She liked then to wander alone into strange and unfamiliar places. She discovered many a sunny, sleepy corner, fashioned to dream in. And she found it good to dream and be alone." Kate Chopin, The Awakening
Read MoreSelf-Acceptance: A Different New Year’s Resolution
"If you would see yourself reflected in the mirror of awareness the way you see your face reflected in the looking glass… exactly as it is without the slightest distortion or addition, and if you observed this reflection without any judgment or condemnation, you would experience all sorts of marvelous changes… It is this nonjudgmental awareness alone that heals and changes and makes one grow." Anthony de Mello, The Way to Love; The Last Meditations of Anthony de Mello
About Lynn
I am a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor with a Master of Science in Pastoral Counseling from Loyola University in Maryland. I have been in private practice for over twenty years and have experience working with adults and adolescents, addressing a variety of issues: anxiety, depression, relationship problems, past or current trauma, eating disorders, self-mutilation, bereavement, parenting concerns, boundaries, and self-care.