There are weeks when being a therapist feels sacred.
There are other weeks when it feels heartbreakingly human.
This week reminded me that trauma does not simply leave emotional wounds. It changes how people reason. It interrupts logic, clouds judgment, distorts memory, and convinces brilliant people to make decisions that seem irrational to everyone except the parts of them still trying to survive.
I found myself sitting with story after story, listening beyond the words being spoken. Behind every “Why would they do that?” was a nervous system doing exactly what it had learned to do years before.
That realization never gets easier.
It is one of the bittersweet realities of this work. I spend my days believing in healing while also witnessing how deeply humanity can wound itself. Sometimes I leave sessions carrying the quiet grief that so many people are still searching for safety they should have known as children.
Humanity often suffers the souls of the lost.
And therapists…we witness it. We hold hope until our clients can borrow enough of it for themselves.
This morning, my daughter unknowingly held hope for me. She insisted we go to the pool before anyone else was awake.
“No excuses, Momma.”
So I grabbed a bathing suit I’d nearly forgotten I owned, pulled my hair into a messy bun, tossed the paperback edition of Distorted Is the View into my bag, filled a bottle with water, and followed her. Distorted is the View: When a Story Invites You to Stay
The pool belonged only to us.
She fussed at me the entire time.
“Live a little, Momma.”
“Look at the clouds.”
“Float.”
“Be free.”
I laughed more than I expected. Mostly, I watched her.
She swam the way she always has—without hesitation, without apology. She floated beneath an open sky as if she had made a lifelong agreement with water. I realized she has loved the water through every stage of her life. Little girl. Teenager. Young woman. Some things remain beautifully unchanged.
For once, I didn’t slip into reflection.
I wasn’t searching for meaning.
I wasn’t trying to turn the moment into a lesson.
I simply watched my daughter laugh.
And somehow, that was enough.
Maybe healing isn’t always found in the breakthrough. Maybe sometimes it arrives in an empty pool before sunrise.
In a daughter reminding her mother that joy doesn’t have to be earned.
In clouds that ask nothing of us except to notice them. In floating instead of carrying.
Early morning didn’t erase the weight of this week. It didn’t answer the hard questions trauma leaves behind. But it reminded me that those of us who spend our lives tending to wounded souls must also remember our own.
Some Sundays are for prayer. Some are for rest.
And some are simply for floating.
Today was a good day. Have courage.
Graced for more,
Michelle 🌿
©️Intimately Worded, Michelle
Intimately Worded with Michelle 
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