You’re not “easygoing.” You’re not "too nice".

You’re stuck in a trauma loop of people-pleasing and overthinking.

You learned to stay safe by staying small.
Now you can’t tell what you really want.

Here’s the truth—(most therapists won't tell you): 🧵 In my 25+ years as a psychologist, I've learned:

People-pleasing is the compulsive need to prioritize others' comfort over your own needs.

It's not kindness—it's a survival response developed in childhood when your authentic expression was unsafe.

A friend once said, “You’re selfish.”
I said, “Would you rather I be you-ish?”
He didn’t get the joke.

Then he added, “You’re self-centered.”
“Where would you have me be centered?”
That didn’t help either.

A thread on healthy selfishness 🧵 Underneath the jokes, I knew what was happening.

I’ve been on both sides of that moment.

When I’ve accused someone of being selfish, something in me was usually hungry—

For attention, care, or love I hadn’t given myself.

Healthy sex and love feel different in the body.
Not dramatic.
Not addictive.
Different.
🧵 Let’s talk about what health looks like in relationships.

Especially for those of us with sex and love shadows.

Which is all of us.

Healthy sex and love shows up:

-In our priorities
-In what we tolerate.
-In how we stop the constant chase.

It changes everything important.

You don’t just remember trauma.
You relive it—every day.

In your posture.
Your reactivity.
Your inability to relax.

Here’s what The Body Keeps the Score reveals—and how to finally heal it (by a PhD psychologist):🧵 Most people think trauma is only what happened to you.
More importantly, it's what happens inside you.

Our nervous system gets stuck on high alert.

It’s the body bracing for danger that’s no longer there.

"Trauma comes back as a reaction, not a memory." ~Bessel Van Der Kolk

60%+ of adults had Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs).

This doesn't even include more subtle forms of trauma like family enmeshment.

The more ACEs, the higher the risk for depression, addiction, autoimmune disease, and even cancer. These wounds don’t fade with age—they embed in the nervous system.

This is Viktor Frankl.

• He survived 4 Nazi concentration camps
• Wrote Man’s Search for Meaning (16M+ copies sold)
• Developed Logotherapy: the “therapy of meaning”

Here are his 7 timeless lessons on finding purpose when life feels meaningless: 🧵
Before we begin:

Some statistics about the current state of mental health globally:

• 280 million people have depression
• 301 million people have anxiety disorders
• 1 in 10 people report their life feels meaningless

Frankl’s wisdom provide a timely perspective for us today:

You’re not lazy. You’re not broken. You’re not f*cked up.

You’re carrying pain your body never got to release.

Trauma makes everything harder: love, work, rest, even hope.

Here’s what’s really going on—and how to finally start healing (from a PhD psychologist): 🧵
As a PhD psychologist, I’ve spent decades guiding people through survival, shame, and the long journey back to self.

Real healing doesn’t start with insight.

It starts with safety.

And safety is rebuilt—through breath, presence, and meaning.

Why do we run from love?
Why does success feel unsafe?
Why do we feel unworthy—even after all the self-help?

You’re not broken.
Your nervous system was wired by trauma.

Here’s how those wounds form—and how we finally heal: (by a PhD psychologist): 🧵 1 in 6 U.S. adults has experienced 4+ types of childhood trauma (ACEs).
This kind of stress reshapes the brain:

- Hyperactive fear centers
- Numbed emotional regulation
- Distorted self-worth

Trauma isn’t “just in your head.” It’s in your wiring.

Dr. Gabor Maté

Vincent van Gogh wasn’t just battling madness.

He was living with a nervous system shaped by trauma—and a life of crushing isolation.

His paintings weren’t decoration, they were survival.

Here’s his story and how support is crucial: 🧵 (by a PhD psychologist)
Vincent was born into grief.

A year before his birth, his parents lost a son—also named Vincent.

Every birthday, he walked past a gravestone with his own name carved on it.

He grew up as a replacement child, haunted from the start.

The most deadly addiction?
Not alcohol. Not opioids.

It's food.

325,000 die in the US each year from obesity related illnesses—4x more than opioids.

Here’s how it takes hold and what to do about it: 🧵 (by a PhD psychologist)

Dr. Vera Tarman (Food Junkies) said:
“The brain chemistry that drives the addict to seek pleasure beyond the point of satiety is similar, whether the user favors Jack Daniels or Jack-in-the-Box.”

And yet, only one gets treated like addiction.

Don’t set boundaries to control other people.

Set them so you don’t abandon yourself.

Dr Gabor Maté says, "If your nervous system is in survival mode, boundaries feel like danger—not self-care."

Here’s how body-based healing changes everything: 🧵 (by a PhD psychologist)
76% of people in recovery say they never learned how to set healthy boundaries.

Most of us were taught to walk on eggshells—or to bulldoze others.

Both are trauma responses.

Infidelity hurts like nothing else.

It can even happen in the most conscious of relationships.

Carl Jung—genius of the psyche—wasn’t immune.

His affairs nearly destroyed his marriage.

Here’s what it teaches us about relationships and healing. 🧵 (by a PhD psychologist)
Emma, Jung’s wife, knew about his relationships with patients and collaborators.

She didn’t leave.

She also didn’t stay silent.

Their marriage was a crucible—filled with devotion, betrayal, rage, and repair.

Resentment feels like protection—but it’s actually self-destruction.

It hurts your body, hijacks your mind, and keeps you stuck.

Here’s how to transform resentment:🧵 (by a PhD psychologist) Over 60% of adults report carrying long-term resentment.

Dr. Gabor Maté, MD, calls it “a toxic emotional state that embeds trauma deeper into the nervous system."

This isn’t just emotional. It’s physiological.

Before Freud and Jung.
Before Bill W. and AA.
Before the APA...

One woman walked into jails—and found people with addiction and mental illness chained, beaten...

Left to rot.

Her name? Dorothea Dix. And she changed everything.

Here’s the story: 🧵 (by a PhD psychologist)
In the 1840s, people with addiction and mental health problems weren’t treated as patients.

They were treated as criminals.

Locked in cells. Starved. Mocked. Beaten until they couldn’t move.

This wasn’t rare. It was the standard.

Positivity is a trap.

In a culture obsessed with happiness, we’ve forgotten how to be real.

You don’t heal by pretending.

You heal by facing what’s been buried.

Here’s how: 🧵 (by a PhD psychologist) 78% of Americans report using social media, food, or alcohol to escape uncomfortable emotions.

We have an endless variety of ways to find temporary pleasure.

We don’t call it avoidance.

We call it “staying positive.”

But it's counterfeit happiness.

And it creates anxiety.

I was obsessed with getting people to love me.

Romance. Validation. Attention.
None of it ever filled the hole.

So I studied it—deeply.
Trauma, addiction, attachment.

And I found a way out.
Here’s how. 🧵 (by a PhD psychologist)
Someone once asked me,
“Do you plan to suction love for the rest of your life?”

It hit like a slap.
And then it cracked me open.
I cried for two hours straight.

It was the first time I met the wound underneath it all:
Abandonment.

Most people think confidence is about mindset and discipline.

But real confidence isn’t a mental hack.

It’s a regulated nervous system.

Here’s why we stay stuck in self-doubt—and how to build unshakable confidence from the inside out: 🧵 (by a PhD psychologist) Most people don’t lack ambition or talent.

They lack internal freedom.

If your body is locked in feer of being seen, speaking up, or taking up space—no affirmation or productivity hack will fix that.

You’ll freeze every time.

Crashing out isn’t weakness—it’s your body finally refusing to fake it.

The performance started in childhood.

Now your nervous system is done playing along.

Here’s how to stop crashing—and start healing:🧵 (by a PhD psychologist)
88% of people with chronic collapse and emotional exhaustion have trauma in their history.

It's usually subtle:

-Emotional neglect
-Parent-pleasing
-The quiet terror of never feeling safe to be yourself.

The body remembers what the mind had to forget.

Dr. Nicole LePera faced her trauma—and rewrote the rules of therapy.

Here’s how she made millions understand what it really takes to break old patterns. 🧵
She refused to follow the party line of psychotherapy, which focuses on intellect and behavior.

Instead, she said: “The body holds the truth. Heal the body, heal the mind.”

They called him a madman. A sex-crazed fraud.

But Wilhelm Reich discovered something no one was ready to hear:

Trauma lives in the body—and healing must begin there.

Here’s how he was silenced, erased, and proven right 70 years later: 🧵 (by a PhD psychologist)
Reich began as a rising star under Freud.

But he soon broke away.

Freud focused on talk. Reich watched the breath. The posture. The tension.

He said the body remembers what the mind forgets.

Trauma lives in our muscles, not just our thoughts.

Four men—two poets, two psychiatrists—spanning 900 years, spoke the same truth about healing.

Their wisdom is buried deep in history and psyche.

Here’s how you can use what they discovered to face your unconscious—and start to heal. 🧵 (by a PhD psychologist)


Rumi’s soul cracked open when his closest companion died.

Grief tore him apart but opened a door.

He wrote: “Don’t turn away. Keep your gaze on the bandaged place.”

He turned his grief into a dance that others still do today.

He knew healing begins where the heart breaks.