Blog
What is the Difference Between Relationship Anxiety and ROCD?
When I first started writing and talking about relationship anxiety over seventeen years ago, the term ROCD (relationship obsessive compulsive disorder) was barely a blip on the psychological radar screen, and it certainty hadn't hit the mainstream cultural lexicon....
This is What is Hidden Inside Intrusive Thoughts – and How to Break Free
An intrusive thought arrives... What if I harm someone? What if I've harmed someone in the past and I don't remember? What if I'm with the wrong partner? What if I'm gay/straight? What if I left the stove on? What if I have a terminal illness (or covid)? What if I...
Our Family is in a Big Transition. This is How I’m Navigating It.
We've arrived at the end of a cycle in our family's life. An essential and positive end, but an end nonetheless. And if there's anything I've learned about endings in my nearly forty-nine years on this planet, it's that they need to be grieved otherwise they manifest...
This is What I Know About Self-Doubt
Last week, in the introduction of my weekly newsletter, I wrote about the voice of resistance and self-doubt that often arises when we consider sharing ourselves with the world in any way. In response, I received this comment on my blog: Dear Sheryl, My comment is...
This is What I Know About Healing
"It is a terrible punishment to be banished from the web of reciprocity." - Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass When I read this quote in what has become one of the most influential books of my life it took my breath away. I stopped reading, put the book on my...
Why this is the Time to Heal Your Anxiety
Not a day passes when I don't look around at the world we've been living in for the past six months and pause to take in the unreality of it all, the magnitude, the grief. Sometimes I'll think back to that first week after our county announced stay-at-home orders when...
This is the #1 Reason Why People are Terrified to Heal
As much as you want to change and heal, as much as you long to feel more fullness, aliveness, calm, and well-being, as much as you deeply desire a way to navigate life with more ease and less attachment to control, there is another part of you that resists the actions...
This is What Lives Underneath Your Shame and Pain
I often sit in awe as I listen to my clients. For even as they're telling me about the painful abuses that they've suffered, there is a light in their eyes and a brilliance in their smiles that transcends their pain. I sit in awe of the human spirit that not only...
This Is a Roadmap to Break Free From Anxiety at Last
"There are many therapists and coaches out there who are a lot of fluff and flash without a lot of substance – but Sheryl is the real deal! I’m a tough customer (a type A, lawyer, perfectionist), and this class really exceeded my expectations!" - Tracey, Los Angeles ...
How to Navigate Covid-19 – Let Me Count the Ways
Just like there isn't a right way to "do life", so there isn't one right way to navigate covid-19. At the core of my work with anxiety is the recognition that because highly sensitive people have been told their entire lives that they're "too much" - too sensitive,...
This is One Overlooked Root Cause of Anxiety
There is a saying that goes, “An idle mind is the devil’s playground.” If we understand the “devil” as the aspect of our minds that is rooted in fear and prone to anxiety, this saying makes sense, especially for highly sensitive people who are also deeply thinking and...
The Grief and Joy of Letting Go
Our firstborn son turns sixteen tomorrow. I started writing this blog when he was five, and some of you have followed my parenting journey since then. I know it's as cliché as it gets, but honestly... I don't know where the time has gone. Wasn't he just a little boy...
This Is the Expectation that Ruins Relationships
We live in a culture predicated on one basic assumption: I deserve to have everything I want when I want it. It's a "me, myself, and I" mindset with widespread ramifications, including the decimation of our planet. We take and take and take without giving back. We...
This Is The True Definition Of Being In Love
"Are you in love?" is one of the questions that triggers the maelstrom of relationship anxiety that leads people to my virtual doorstep. Alongside, "Are you with "the One"?, "Are you settling?" and "Do you have enough chemistry?", these questions speak to a...
This Is The Gold That Awaits Inside The Fear Of Love
That shimmering feeling of ease that you're longing to feel with your partner... That sense of goodness and, dare I say, rightness, you hoped would accompany committed, healthy partnership... Openings in your body and sweetness in your mind... It's all waiting for you...