Hatty J. Lee, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist #83772

I have been a bit MIA on this space trying to prepare for the launch of the mental health guide @indwell_co. But just wanted to hop in and share this interview I had on @the.lovelybecoming 's podcast. We talk about intergenerational trauma, attachment, and grief. Hope this episode speaks to one of you

Just sayin' there's other alternatives to approach the new year

I see you and remember you. This season can be filled with mixed emotions especially this one. May you hold space for them all. Grieve if you want to. Celebrate if you want to. You can hold space for both your joy and grief.

A reminder for those of you who need to hear this today

Sign up today to be the first to pre-order when we launch our campaign in the new year!

BIG ANNOUNCEMENT: I am so excited to finally share that I have been co-writing a guidebook www.indwell.co to support people to navigate their mental health the last 7 months. I grew up in an immigrant family without ever having learned how to even name my emotions and take care of my mental health. The education system and my community rarely talked about mental health too. I had no idea how to navigate my inner life, resolve conflicts in relationships, and how to to eve...n dream And I know I wasn't the only one who had this experience after meeting with over a thousand people during the last decade! I had the honor of creating this with a visual artist and life coach to help destigmatize mental health and make mental health support approachable and visually engaging! If you have benefited from my work and have been following me on here, it would mean the world if you could support us: 1) Follow @indwell_co 2) Sign up at www.indwell.co to be the first to pre-order when we launch our crowdfunding campaign in the new year 2) Share with your friends, family, and community through your stories, posts, and other social media platforms I cannot wait to share this with you all and see it in your homes!

Doing my first IG live with my friend and colleague @asiansformentalhealth this Friday. We were laughing (with sadness on the inside) about how Santa was never real for us growing up in Asian immigrant families and how the only tree we once had was a 6 inch one. But to be completely honest - mine was an artificial 15 inch tree one year from the dollar store Join us this Friday as we have a casual end of year talk as therapists and human beings about the grief and losses of the year, and prepare to look forward into 2021 with hope Leave a comment on any questions or topics you'd like for us to touch during our chat

I find that a lot of us are conditioned to over-identify with our survival mechanisms - being disconnected from our emotions, overintellectualizing situations, angry outbursts, our inclination to being easily addicted to people, substances, and experiences, our tendency to blame others for our problems, our insecurities and low self-esteem, our performative behaviors, our high anxiety, our people pleasing tendencies, and our tendency to want to escape or avoid conflict. They ...are not who we are. . . I want to be clear that these parts of us are conditioned behaviors that we learned to engage in due to conditions that required it. While, it doesn't excuse these behaviors in situations where it may not be the most adaptive, it definitely is helpful to understand the original conditions that required them to exist so that we can learn to respond differently. . . If we continue to over-identify with these survival coping mechanisms as part of who we are, we sabotage ourselves from being able to take self-responsibility, be empowered to have agency in nurturing ourselves, engage in a balance of giving and receiving within relationships, and stay connected during conflict and when things get tough. . . Whoever needs to hear this today...You can change these conditioned behaviors. See more

Some of you have grown up believing that you need to offer something other than yourself to someone in order to be loved. Maybe you had to perform to be worthy of your parent's love. Maybe you had to be somebody else in order to be noticed. Maybe you felt you had to be overly generous and meet every need to be liked by your friends. Maybe you felt like you had to deny yourself completely in order to be accepted by your community. . . . I am not sure who needs to hear this today, but I want you to know that you deserve to be loved for who you are and not just what you can offer. There may be some relationships in your life that may need to be reworked, have better boundaries, or be for a season of your life so that you can honor your whole person - loveable, worthy, and enough just the way you are.

I see you. Father's day can be filled with mixed emotions. May you hold space for all of them. Grieve if you need to. Celebrate if you want to. Tune out if you have to. Take care of yourselves and reach out to a friend who may need to be remembered today.

Codependency is often rooted in internalized shame originating in childhood and is a coping mechanism to survive trauma. Many of us who are working through our codependency grew up in unsupportive, abusive, chaotic, and/or unsafe environments where our emotional and physical needs were neglected and left us ashamed for having needs and wants. . . As an attempt to survive, we often found ourselves taking on the role of trying to meet the needs of our parents and communities f...rom a place of our own unmet needs, reversing the roles and often perpetuating the cycle of neglect/parentification with other adults and our own children. . These traumatic environments are often a consequence of unresolved intergenerational trauma leaving caregivers unable to care for themselves and consequently their children, oppressive political systems that keep communities vulnerable, White supremacy, systemic racism, life-altering events, and toxic cultural expectations that do not support families to thrive. . Our codependency is being triggered for some of us by the need for advocacy right now. I want to acknowledge the importance of this work of social justice, AND I also want to emphasize that we cannot engage in this work of advocacy for the long haul if we do not address and heal our trauma (s). . . Reflect: Is your sense of fulfillment dependent on extreme self-sacrifice to meet the needs of this movement? Which unmet needs are being triggered for you? . . Is it difficult setting boundaries with your time and energy even at the expense of your mental health? Do you excuse abusive/shaming behaviors to pressure people into justice work? Have you experienced shame yourself growing up? Are you experiencing difficulty with saying no to take care of yourself due to fear of judgment? Was saying no difficult while growing up? Do you often feel worried about what others think about you? Did you grow up needing to people please to be seen or accepted? Do you feel feel powerless in asserting what you need right now? Is this a familiar experience? Are you staying quiet to avoid potential arguments or conflict with people? Was conflict not tolerated while growing up? @ Los Angeles, California

As we are working through our own fragility, there are some of us who may experience an automatic inclination to center ourselves with shame. It will often sound something like this: Something is inherently wrong with me I can't do anything to make this right I am selfish... Everything is my fault I am broken, bad, or unworthy Shame is often rooted in early childhood trauma when the negative impact of our behaviors are personalized as a reflection of who we are as people. Shame often provokes performative reactions to attempt to either make ourselves feel better about ourselves or to disconnect from self/others by avoiding taking responsibility for violating others. If we want to engage this work of justice with the Black community for the long haul, we need to process these emotions and place it back in the context of our childhood environment where we were initially hurt and violated, so that we don't project this on Black people right now. They do not need our performative activism and be the recipient of our projections of our shame. If anything, feeling guilt is a good step in the right direction which might sound like this: What I said or did was racist My silence was harmful I was complicit in perpetuating violence I have not spoken up against racism I have internalized racism When we are able to hold our guilt without reacting immediately, we allow sacred space to focus on the experiences of others, and connect with how we have actively and silently contributed to systemic racism. We become open to learning about the injustices of Black people without having to deny ourselves and our own experiences. We are able to acknowledge our fragility and how that has been a barrier in our ability to have compassion and engage in authentic advocacy. We can take responsibility and make reparations to make things right in ways thay are congruent with our process. The Black community needs to hear us acknowledge our privilege, take responsibility for our fragility, commit to our inner work, and engage in reparations to bring justice for our collective community.

Check out this conversation I had with Roy Kim, LMFT as he just recently launched his new podcast for new therapists walking the journey of private practice. He will be covering short convos on different aspects of private practice. I am so glad he is doing this because I know that I definitely needed this when I was starting out...and we've both probably have had the same conversations with alot of therapists trying to start private practice over the years ..now it's available to everyone!

As some of us are doing our anti-racism work as it relates to the injustice and trauma of Black people for over 400 years, please understand that it is acceptable for them to be impatient, feel rage/frustration, and not be gentle with our process when we are wrong, misinformed, ignorant, and offensive along the way. We need to be gentle with ourselves when we are called out but it is a form of injustice to demand gentleness from others who have been fighting for their voices... to be heard, seen, and valued their entire life. . . In our own process of anti-racism work, we will have to confront our own fragility being triggered on this journey. There will be guilt for being unaware of how our privilege shows up at the expense of others, and how we may be naturally inclined to be centered around our own experiences with racism without also making space to understand the experiences of Black people. There will be shame for not being #woke enough and ignorant. There will be fear of being wrong and supporting #blacklivesmatter because of fear of backlash from others. Our fragility can easily make it only about ourselves and lead us to withdraw and avoid these uncomfortable interactions. . . As a therapist who works with people who have experienced trauma, I don't expect anyone to "behave" in ways deemed "appropriate" by the majority especially when the injustice continues to be perpetrated by that same majority. Rage. Intolerance. Being protective, cautious, fearful, suspicious of others' intentions, defensive, offensive, and demanding justice. These are all defensive mechanisms I hope people to experience as resilient humans trying to survive the collective trauma/threat of being unsafe. Speaking one's truth and standing for justice is part of the healing process. The voices of the Black community needs and deserves to be heard. . . It is crucial to check and work through our fragility as non-Black people right now and know part of our allyship is learning how to be safe to people who have not felt safe their entire lives. . . [Please do not tell Black people how to grieve, cope, survive when they do not feel safe in their own bodies.]

When we are reminded that we are not good enough, we don't deserve to be seen, we are not valued, rights do not apply to us, and we do not belong in the places that we call home, anger is an appropriate response to injustice. Anger is a defense mechanism to protect us from violence, support us to survive unjust treatment, and advocate for justice for our rights to be seen and upheld within our relationships and communities. . . We sometimes think of anger being 'bad' and 's...ocially inappropriate'. We often judge ourselves and other people for the intensity of the reaction to a situation, but neglect to ask how our or the other person's sense of identity and safety has been violated. We don't ask which human need is not being met. We don't consider that the intensity of the reactions may be reflecting the intensity of the violation. . . The pain that we are witnessing and experiencing collectively in our nation is the impact of violence that has been perpetrated and internalized within the Black community for many generations. This is not just physical violence with the death of George Floyd. Ahmaud Arbery. Breonna Taylor. And many more whose names we will never know. It is the violence and rage of generations of systemic racism perpetrated through discriminatory laws and practices, microaggressions, oppressive systems that contribute to inequality without justice. . . The violence is what has been internalized for so many years due to the trauma of racism which has manifested itself through mental illness, estranged family relationships, homelessness, poverty, disease, the intergenerational transmission of trauma, etc. It's what happens when 'civil' advocacy is not met with justice. . . Some of us feeling anger and grief over what is happening right now. I want to encourage us to hold space for it in doses. Take breaks. And then return to it again. Give voice to what's coming up and share it with your community. Is there internalized anger and violence within us? How have we contributed to the violence as a quiet ally? What needs and desires are showing up? Tend to yourselves and show up for justice however that may look for you in this season. See more

Therapy isn't about just "talking about our feelings" or "blaming our parents" for our problems. . . It a safe space to do the healing work of grieving the loss of what we did not receive from the very people responsible for us. . . It is holding space for all the different parts of ourselves. ... The empathy and gratitude for our parents' stories and their struggle. . . The resentment about the decisions they made which impacted us in painful ways. . . It is acknowledging the less than perfect experiences we had. . . It is laying down our need to feel protective of those responsible for us because "they had it so hard". It is letting go of the guilt which do not belong to us. It is feeling appropriate anger for the injustice we experienced. . It is learning to experience compassion for ourselves. . . It is experiencing genuine compassion for our parents who have also been victims of injustice without having to deny our experiences or feel pity/disrespect for them. . . It is discovering that we are empowered to meet some of our needs through our community, ourselves, and other ways. . . It is putting the responsibility back where it belongs so that we stop internalizing our anger. . . So that we stop believing that we are at fault. We are the mistake. We are the problem. We are not good enough. We are a failure. . . It is the work of learning to nurture all the different parts of ourselves in ways we never learned how to. . . So that we stop reacting in damaging ways to cope with our pain and perpetrate injustice. . So that we stop personalizing the injustice that others perpetuate as something being wrong with us -- and see that there have been and continue to exist injustices that are perpetuated by systemic racism, gender equality, sexual violence, war, colonialism, poverty, genocide, etc. . . It is the work of being empowered to advocate for justice in our context so that we perpetuate less injustice for the next generation. . . I want to clarify that therapy is the work of justice. It is the work of putting the responsibility back where it belongs and taking self-responsibility for what is ours. May we have the courage to do this work See more

I've been acutely aware that as we are all experiencing the trauma of this collective global experience, many of us are having difficulty putting to words what we are experiencing. There are also some of you who already have a history of trauma in your story or partnered with a loved one who have experienced trauma, and having a particularly hard time coping with how COVID-19 is bring up old ghosts and impacting your day to day lives. . . While most of us, if not all, are ex...periencing the anxiety and fears, the difficulties of isolation, the grief of what isn't anymore, and the unknown, I want to make space for those of you whose traumas are being retriggered by what is happening in our world as well as those of you who may be needing support to find the words to process this collective trauma. . . Being unable to articulate what is happening to us during a traumatic experience is a common feature associated with trauma. Our thought process becomes overwhelmed, disorganized and scattered that we find ourselves being unable to put to words what is happening within us and to us. . . As a therapist that works with trauma often in my practice, putting to words the experience we have had is one of the most critical pieces of the healing work. . . The impact of trauma can be pervasive and long lasting if it is not processed and if we do not greet ourselves and our story with care.. Most of the time, people seek out support only after they have experienced the damaging impact of the traumatic incident without relief for months and years. We have a unique opportunity right now as we are currently experiencing the trauma of this pandemic to process our experiences AS it is happening. In doing so, I believe that the emotional, relational, and psychological impact of this traumatic experience can be reduced. The work can also support us to know how to integrate it as part of our story one day. . . Join me as I launch a series on trauma. I hope to support you to give voice to what needs a voice and make sense of what feels confusing. . . I would love to hear from you on what you'd like learn more about in this series in the comments below! See more

We can often find ourselves comparing our losses to the "larger" collective losses that we neglect to make space for the other losses that may feel petty in comparison. It is consistent with the scarcity mindset that says, "if someone is going through something more difficult that I am, there is no space for me to show up with my grief." But I want to remind you, there is space for your grief and everyone else's. . . It's absolutely horrifying that people are becoming ill an...d dying all over the world. People are having difficulty accessing basic necessities for survival. People are losing their jobs and businesses. Healthcare workers are risking lives with little support and being overwhelmed by the demands of the community. People are experiencing extreme isolation and the pain of estranged relationships...There is a collective grief we are all experiencing and will continue to experience. . We are not at the peak period of this pandemic, but we have lost so much already. The loss of all the things we looked forward to - weddings, graduations, birthday celebrations, baby showers, vacations we had planned for years, get togethers with loved ones, job security, dreams we've been nurturing for years, simple days to go out to our favorite coffee shop or restaurant, basic freedom...and this list goes on. . . This is the beginning of our losses and it will change us all if it hasn't already. I want to encourage us to hold space for the grief that exists within the collective grief in our community. Validate the anger and the heartache of what isn't without invalidating it because it's not "as bad as" xyz and saying "I should be grateful". Recognize the denial as an attempt to cope. Give yourself permission to feel the shock of it in doses. Be open to being vulnerable about your sadness so that you can invite others to support you to contain what you are experiencing. Grieve so that you can begin the journey of healing . In doing so, we also give others permission to do the same and allow for authentic connection. May connection with yourself and others not be cancelled this season Hang in there everyone. I am in the trenches with you. See more

It's a real thing that friendships can change after marriage. Check out my interview and contribution to this article on Brides.com

If you wait to show up until someone invites you to or creates space for you to, you may never get a chance to show up for yourself. . . Showing up for yourself is a pre-requisite for showing up for other people in your life. In that order

When someone reveals to us that something we did or said hurt him or her, we do not get to decide if his or her experience is real or invalid. . . We often become defensive when we are confronted with these experiences . . We say, "I didn't intend to do that. My intention was good." .... . We say, "I didn't do anything wrong. I have a right to say what I said or do what I did." . . We say, "That's not what I meant. You misunderstood me." . . We say, "You are making a big deal out of something small." . . We say, "You get triggered by everything I do because of your past. This is your problem. This isn't fair" . . While there may be truth to our experiences, these responses dismiss the other person's experience and lead to more disconnection in the relationship. . . When someone shows up with his or her hurt in the relationship, it is a bid for connection and closeness. Sometimes, we can get so caught up with whether what we did was inherently right/good/wrong/bad, that we don't own that we played a part knowingly/unknowingly in contributing to the disconnection/distrust within the relationship. . . If you have difficulty with apologizing, ask yourself what your experience has been with apologies. How did people in your life handle apologies when they hurt you or hurt each other? Did you experience receiving appropriate apologies from your caregivers growing up? What was expected of you as a kid when you made a mistake or when someone misunderstood your intentions? Were you forced to stay "I'm sorry" when you didn't really mean it? All of these experiences can impact your resistance to apologies. . . If you want to know how to connect more deeply when someone shows up with his or her hurt, maybe you might want to try these responses: . . "I'm sorry I hurt you. I didn't realize that was how I was coming off to you. How you feel and experience me is important. Can you help me understand why what I did/didn't do hurt you so that I can be more mindful next time? Your experience is understandable given what you shared. This was my intention + boundaries around this (clarify). I'm wondering how I could better manage this situation next time? Would xyz help?" See more

Some of us often feel pressured or obligated by others and/or ourselves to take on responsibilities that to not belong to us at the expense of being unable to be responsible for ourselves. We also end up disempowering someone else from taking responsibility for himself or herself in the process. . . . If you resonate with this, ask which responsibilities you need to return back to the owner so that you can take more responsibility for yourself. Ask what underlying emotion is driving your need take over-responsibility. Was taking on the responsibility of others part of your family of origin experience? Is your reaction helping you or is it deepening your sense of feeling out of control or experience of feeling unseen? Is your reaction truly loving or disempowering? Ask what's been getting in the way of self-responsibility.