The Unseen Work That Shapes Our Relationships
You know the feeling, remembering your partner’s dental appointment, your child’s shifting moods, your roommate’s dietary preferences, and the mental list of things no one else seems to track. And still wondering, “Why am I so tired?”
That’s invisible labour. And it’s exhausting.
What Are You Carrying That Wasn’t Yours?
This week’s Tend to it Tuesday opened up a conversation many people feel in their bones, even if they don’t always have the words for it:
How am I still shaped by the emotional roles I inherited, even decades later?
As a therapist, I often sit with clients in that quiet, painful realization:
“I was the kid who had to stay calm so everyone else could fall apart.”
“I didn’t get to be angry, so now I don’t know how to express it.”
“I still feel like I’m failing if I’m not helping someone else.”
And sometimes:
“I became the parent I swore I wouldn’t be.”
Staying Flexible While Staying Connected
There’s a subtle, but powerful shift that happens in therapy rooms when people realize:
“I don’t have to do all the work alone — but I do have to do my part differently.”
As a therapist, I often witness this in family or couples work. There’s a moment when someone softens — not because they’ve been convinced or coerced — but because their body stops bracing. A breath releases. The shoulders drop. The eyes come forward again.
From the Therapist’s Chair: Unpacking the Systems We Live In
As therapists, we’re trained to notice roles in our clients: the helper, the fixer, the avoider, the explainer.
But these roles don’t disappear when we become clinicians. In fact, many of us were drawn to this work because of the roles we learned to play early on.
How Relationships Shape Us and We Shape Them.
This week, we’re exploring family systems theory and attachment science to better understand the emotional patterns we carry into adulthood. Often, what feels like “just the way I am” is actually “how I learned to be” in relationship to others.