Dr. Cassidy Freitas, LMFT

The doors to Modern Therapist Academy are opening today for two weeks, and won’t be opening again until Spring 2020! Hear from @therapology @yourjourneythrough @courtneyshenpsyd @alaina_talks_therapy and @michelle.vitale, 5 Modern Therapist Academy students in this video https://cassidyfreitas.mykajabi.com

Chasing Fall through New England this week and part of next have a beauty-full week as we journey into October!

We lost a baby on September 25th six years ago. When we went through this loss I had to step away from working with families who had similar losses for awhile, I had to do my own healing. I now have the honor of holding space for these families every week in my office. There’s so much extra pain that can come from friends and family not knowing how to support the ones going through it. About 15-25% of recognized pregnancies end in miscarriage, so I guarantee you know SOMEONE who has experienced this kind of loss before. I hope this is helpful, and if you want to hear more I have a few episodes on @holdingspacepodcast about this topic (one with my friend @studiodiy about her experience).

A GENTLE PSA: SLOW YOUR SCROLL. You’re feeling guilt or shame about how you responded to your kids this morning. You’re feeling sad about the distance felt between you and your partner. You’re feeling afraid that you don’t belong. You grab your phone, and without even thinking open this app. The scrolling is quick. Maybe you engage with someone’s post, maybe you see a heart pop up in the corner (someone likes your post) and you get a quick surge of a good feeling. You want mo...re. Maybe Guilt, Sadness, and Fear hope to find connection, inspiration, or a sense of belonging. I mean it’s possible, it’s happened before! But not this time. You look at the clock and realize the scrolling has sucked up all the time between what you were doing before and what comes next. This pattern shows up in my office all the time through the stories of my clients, and I’m not immune to it...the people who run this app rely on the fact that we are afraid of being left behind and not belonging. Sometimes a detox is called for, but at the least let’s slow our scroll. Let’s reconnect with our values. Let’s engage with intention. Let’s free up space instead of filling every in-between moment. It’s a vicious cycle and I’ve witnessed the spiral of shame it can produce. I hope these prompts will help...but I’d suggest enlisting someone in your life to talk to about your relationship with social media. Social media isn’t going anywhere, so let’s figure out how to live in this digital world for the next generation.

What to know one of the biggest protective factors when it comes to postpartum mood and anxiety challenges? Having support. But support is not all created equal and not everyone can take on the same role. You know what’s equally important in my opinion? Boundaries, and knowing where and with whom to set them. My friend @drsterlingobgyn and I put our professional and mama brains together and created this resource for you. Link in profile to download, and if you know someone who is expecting...share with them!

I’ve been working on a side project with a brand that I believe in () and in the process of developing this partnership I’ve been thinking about JOY. We spend so much time and energy trying to avoid pain, that sometimes we bypass Joy in the process. Have you ever noticed this? Maybe there’s something you’re stressed about or feeling sad about, and you try to white-knuckle through the experience. Maybe you try to numb your pain by scrolling through social media. Maybe you fin...d yourself in a shame spiral, believing every shame thought that comes your way. These responses to pain can have the side effect of disconnecting us from being able to notice or connect with the small Joys and the big Joys. I think there’s another way we can approach these emotional experiences. Maybe painful emotions can shed a light on what matters most to us? Maybe Joy feels distant, but our pain can tell us that something is called to change so that we can discover or re-discover Joy once again. As Holocaust survivor Dr. Viktor Frankl wrote, Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. What’s one small (or big) thing today that brought you Joy?

Talking in my IG stories today about paternal mental health! You can find all the resources and stories I’ve shared on this topic under the highlights titled Fathering.

Link in profile to download! Birth is an intense experience. For some, birth can be empowering and connecting. For others it can be scary, overwhelming, or even traumatic. Whether empowering or traumatizing, it can be important to give yourself space to process and integrate your experience. Dr. Christine Sterling (@drsterlingobgyn) and I got together to create a guide for taking some initial steps to process your birth along with some resources. This guide was created for both the partner who gave birth and the birth support partner. I hope this guide is experienced as a gentle invitation into processing your child’s birth and offers a bridge to getting the help and support you deserve. Link in profile to download the free guide

PODCASTING FOR THERAPISTS. In my IG stories today I’m sharing how starting a podcast has been one of the biggest factors in building a full modern private practice filled with my ideal clients AND unique opportunities. I’m creating a mini-course for those of you interested in starting your own, let me know what questions you might have if you’re a therapist or any clinician interested in starting a podcast

How are you feeling today? Emotional intelligence is the ability to identify and regulate your emotional experiences and connect empathetically with others. Emotional agility is the ability to hold space for your emotional experiences with curiosity, courage and compassion, and then responding with intention. The beautiful thing about these skills is that they can be developed. Sometimes our histories and context lead to programming that attempts to keep us safe but sometimes stuck in painful patterns, but we can reclaim agency through support and practice. It’s like building a new muscle, a new muscle that puts you back in the driver’s seat of your story.

Doors close tomorrow to join me in the Modern Private Practice e-course! Fellow therapist @dr.jessicah (who is working through the course) sent me a message on Friday calling the course a soulful roadmap and I don’t know if any words about something I’ve created have ever made me feel so fulfilled and grateful. Link in bio for all the info and to enroll! Doors close tomorrow night and won’t open again until November

Last week I asked you to share the things you wish you had known before having a baby...the responses were so REAL and so I wanted to follow-up by asking: what were some things that supported a positive shift for you in postpartum? I’m already getting to witness some of your experiences in my IG stories...and I’ll share some of them later today! Feel free to comment and share your story here too if you’re ready to share