Swimming in white waters and breathing white air may feel natural to a white woman like me. But to the BIPOC community? Not so much.

Our professor — a PhD, Black woman, skilled clinician — was sharing about microaggressions. She gave an example:

It was the first day of school and a white woman walked into class and said to her,
“Oh, your hair isn’t straight anymore. It looked better straight, like in your pictures.”

Inherently racist.

Straight hair is not genetically natural for many Black women. The implication is clear: you would look better with white features. Living in a white world, that can masquerade as “just a preference.”

It’s not.

The message underneath is: Don’t be so Black.

What the actual fuck?

Now — I want to pivot gently.

In high school I gained about 15 pounds. I was at boarding school. It was my first time away from home. I had gone from dancing three hours a day in California to barely dancing at all as a musical theatre major at Interlochen Arts Academy. I was homesick. I was eating chocolate bars and no-bakes because they were comforting. It wasn’t clinically significant. It was human.

And I loved my body then.
As I love my body now.

It is different now. I am older. I am mindful. I nourish myself. And especially given my history with my body and food, I treat it with respect.

Recently, I received a DM from someone I haven’t spoken to in almost 25 years telling me I look unwell. That I looked better in high school. That some women are meant to be skinny, but I am not one of them.

I’m sure it was meant to be helpful. Maybe even complimentary.

But commenting on someone’s body is not the move.

Again — what the actual fuck?

Now let me be clinically precise:

I am not equating microaggressions and racism with body shaming. Not one fucking bit. The systemic weight and historical trauma of racism is in a category of its own.

But the psychological mechanism beneath both incidents?
That’s worth examining.

Projection.

When we project, we take our internal discomfort, our standards, our fears, our “shoulds,” and we place them onto someone else.

You should look like this.
You should straighten your hair.
You should be thinner.
You should not be so Black.
You should be more like me.

Projection is an unconscious attempt to regulate the self by controlling the other. It’s also a power move. And it often hides behind the language of preference, concern, or advice. But here’s the thing: every time we “should” someone, we reveal ourselves.

We reveal:

• Our internalized standards

• Our unexamined bias

• Our unresolved wounds

• Our allegiance to a system we may not even realize we’re protecting

As clinicians — and as humans — our work is not to shift others into our comfort zone, it is to become aware of where we are projecting. Even onto ourselves.

Before you comment on someone’s body.
Before you critique someone’s hair.
Before you correct someone’s existence.

Pause and ask:

What part of me is uncomfortable right now?
What am I trying to control?
Whose standard am I enforcing?
And why?

Because “should” is rarely about the other person, it’s about our own anxiety. And if we are serious about doing no harm as humans, the work begins internally.

Not in someone else’s inbox.

I found safety in speed. In getting shit done. In making moves. I am my mother’s daughter after all. The mother who scheduled her C-section so she knew exactly when she could get back to rehearsal. The mother who compulsively worked until she was literally on her deathbed because not even stage 4 cancer would slow her down.

We are all safety-seeking creatures.

This isn’t necessarily conscious, but the sensation of safety is the thing. The holy grail. The internal exhale. The nervous system settling. The fascinating detail? We all have a different version of what safety is. What safety looks like. What safety feels like in our bodies. For my mother, safety was running. Fast.

I relate.

You could exchange the word safety for familiar.
And if it’s familiar, it’s familial.

This is why safety can be found in arduous places. The kid who grew up with an alcoholic father either becomes one or just happens to marry one. The girl whose mom was never around can’t seem to find emotional availability no matter how much she tries. The boy who was hit by his father feels the impulse to hit his own.

Familial = familiar.

We love a pattern. We are hardwired for them — even when they no longer move us in the direction of our values, our aliveness, our highest excitement. There’s the rub.

Just because it’s familiar doesn’t mean it’s good.
Just because our nervous system recognizes it doesn’t mean it’s safe.
Just because it feels like “home” doesn’t mean it’s where we’re meant to live forever.

Moving out of these patterns is like stepping into a hot tub that’s too hot.

It shocks us.
We clench.
Every part of us wants to jump back out.

The old way — even if it was chaotic, even if it was painful — at least it was predictable.

But if we stay…
If we breathe…
If we let the nervous system recalibrate…

The water regulates.
The body softens.
What once felt intolerable becomes soothing.

The unfamiliar becomes the new safe.

And maybe that’s the real work.

Not shaming the patterns.

But gently asking:

Is this truly safe — or just familiar?
Is this aligned — or just inherited?
Is this who I am — or who I learned to be?

Slowing down was never for me.

Until I realized speed wasn’t strength.
It was armor.

And armor is heavy.

Alexa Silvaggio, MA, AMFT is a psychotherapist, writer, international yoga and mindfulness teacher, and TEDx speaker based in Los Angeles. She specializes in relational dynamics, high-functioning anxiety, codependency, and embodied healing. Alexa integrates somatic awareness, Internal Family Systems, and mindfulness-based practices into her clinical work. She is currently taking new clients, connect with her at www.alexasilvaggio.com/workwithalexa

You know you have a problem when your ballet teacher tells you to eat.

I wasn’t just thin. I was starving. Emaciated. It didn’t take long to lose my period. Clumps of hair fell from my head. Meanwhile, fine hair began growing everywhere else. Lanugo, it’s called — when the body is so malnourished it grows a layer of fuzz to survive. It’s cold without body fat, so the body adapts.

Peach fuzz. Survival.

I was the thinnest person I knew. And frankly, the thinnest I had ever known. I wore that like a badge of honor.

I may not be lovable, but I am unique.
I am beautiful.
I am thin.

I was living inside a hell of my own making — a brilliantly architected prison. Brick by brick I built it. Gothic. Dreary. Airless. Every day it grew darker and heavier as I grew lighter and hungrier.

At my worst, I allowed myself 150 calories a day.
While dancing professionally for hours.
While walking through the snow because buses were for “lazy people.”
And in my spare time? The pièce de résistance: the gym.

“I’m starving,” I would think — a voice I had trained myself to silence.

Until one day, it hit differently.

I was 36,000 feet in the air on my way to San Francisco to see my sister. I hadn’t seen her in months. I knew I was thin. I knew I looked different. But body dysmorphia is a hall of mirrors. I saw myself as normal. Maybe even heavy.

Despite the size 00 pants.
Despite kids at school saying, “Wow, look at your hip bones.”
“Do you eat anything besides carrots?”

They weren’t cruel. They were confused. Holding up a mirror to something I refused to see.

At the time, I was reading You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay. I had always loved self-help — my hunger for improvement wasn’t only physical. In the book, she wrote that anorexia is an extreme form of self-hatred. A slow, painful attempt at self-erasure.

Extreme self-hatred.

That phrase landed.

A flight attendant rolled by with her cart. She was radiant. Healthy. Grounded. Real.

“I’ll have a tomato juice,” I said, calculating the calories in my head. A fruit-adjacent indulgence.

I clutched the can in my bony fingers and read the label.

50 calories.

Panic.

“I’ll have a Diet Coke. No ice.”

She looked at me — not judgmental, but knowing. Sad, almost. As I sipped the chemical sweetness slowly, it felt like I was watching myself from outside my body.

The plane might as well have crashed. The truth was undeniable.

I had a problem.

When I landed, I was shaky — a sensation I had perversely grown to love. Shaky meant thinner. Shaky meant winning.

My sister met me at baggage claim. I wore my usual uniform: oversized clothes, a heavy jacket — insulation from the cold and from scrutiny.

When I took it off, she froze.

“Oh my God, Alexa. What has happened to you? You’re sick. You have hair growing everywhere. Are you throwing up? Are you starving? What is happening?”

The jig was up.

My sister knew.
I knew.
Louise Hay knew.
Even the flight attendant knew.

Rock bottom isn’t always dramatic. Sometimes it’s just undeniable.

Here’s what I’ve come to understand:

The opposite of addiction isn’t sobriety.
It’s connection.

Whenever we’re caught in obsession — and let’s be honest, we all fall somewhere on that spectrum — the better question isn’t, Why am I doing this?

It’s:
What am I disconnecting from?
What feeling feels so intolerable that I need to escape myself?

Anorexia wasn’t the problem. It was a symptom.

When I was starving, hunger was all I could think about. And that was the point. If I was obsessing about food, I didn’t have to feel the fear of starting a career. I didn’t have to feel heartbreak. I didn’t have to feel uncertainty. I didn’t have to feel.

My emotions felt enormous — so I made myself small.

They felt like they would swallow me whole. So instead of turning toward them, I turned against myself.

It wasn’t until I began cultivating intimacy — and I define intimacy as in-to-me-see — that I started to recover.

Through therapy.
Mindfulness.
Yoga.
Meditation.
Self-compassion.
Breathwork.

I began seeing myself clearly. And that clarity saved my life.

Now, when obsessive thoughts creep in, I ask:

If I weren’t thinking this thought, what would I be feeling right now?

Often the answer is loneliness. Or fear. Sometimes even joy — which can be just as terrifying. Because to fully feel joy means I have something to lose.

But here’s the truth: feeling the emotion is far less painful than avoiding it.

Avoidance is a quick fix. A delayed discomfort.

When we allow the feeling — when we turn toward it instead of away — it moves.

The grip loosens.

It moves.

Let it move.

If you’re struggling with your body or your relationship with food, please reach out. If I can support you, it would be my honor.

Alexa Silvaggio, MA, AMFT is a psychotherapist, writer, international yoga and mindfulness teacher, and TEDx speaker based in Los Angeles. She specializes in relational dynamics, high-functioning anxiety, disordered eating, codependency, and embodied healing. Alexa integrates somatic awareness, Internal Family Systems, and mindfulness-based practices into her clinical work. She is currently accepting new clients at www.alexasilvaggio.com/workwithalexa.

Do I have children?
Do I move to a new city?
Is this the person I choose to build a life with?

Big.
Fucking.
Questions.

And answers that never arrive clean. Only nuanced. Only alive.

I’ve been sitting with the question of having children myself. Do I go for it? As someone who works as a psychotherapist — holding space for others, guiding them through some of the most tender and treacherous terrain of being human — this work is my daily sacred ritual. I love it. It feeds me. It inspires me.

And…

Do I have the bandwidth to come home and tend to a small, possibly screaming, wildly alive human after doing that all day? To hold their storms when my own nervous system is already weathered from holding so many others?

Unclear.

My fiancé and I have also been toying with buying a new home. Where do we go? Do we stay rooted in the neighborhood we love — where community, culture, and convenience weave through our days — or do we branch into something quieter, more spacious, more “adult”?

I love our life in Los Angeles. The access. The people. The pulse.
And still…
Do we want something else? Something slower? Something deeper? Something that feels like ease in the body instead of just momentum in the mind?

Maybe.

What I keep feeling into is this:
Every choice holds both grief and gratitude.
Every single one.

Whether the decision is tiny — chicken or fish — or enormous — do I have a second child? do I change my entire life? — something will be lost, and something will be gained.

You can’t have birth without death.
You can’t have death without birth.

There will be grief either way.
And there will be grace, too.

If I have the child, I may grieve the life I didn’t live — the spontaneity, the sleep, the financial freedom, the unencumbered movement through the world.
If I don’t, I may grieve not knowing. The invisible life. The parallel universe where I did say yes.

Perhaps I will always wonder.

More will be revealed.

All we can really do is orient ourselves toward what feels aligned. Not perfect. Not guaranteed. Just honest. This is why values matter more than goals.

A goal is a destination — California.
A value is a direction — West.

There is no finish line with values. We just keep walking West until something in us changes, and our compass gently turns.

A Gentle Practice: The Values Compass

If you’re standing at your own crossroads, try this:

1. Place one hand on your chest and one on your belly if that feels safe for you. Let your breath slow just 5% more than usual.

2. Ask yourself quietly:
   “What direction am I longing to move in — not where do I want to end up?”

3. Write down three words that feel like directions, not destinations.
   (Examples: ease, truth, steadiness, aliveness, devotion, freedom, belonging.)

4. Now, look at the decision in front of you and ask:
   “Which choice moves me even one step closer to these?”

You don’t need certainty.
You just need a compass.

And the beautiful, terrifying, miraculous thing is —
You already have one.

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Alexa Silvaggio, MA, AMFT is a psychotherapist, writer, international yoga and mindfulness teacher, and TEDx speaker based in Los Angeles. She specializes in relational dynamics, high-functioning anxiety, codependency, and embodied healing. Alexa integrates somatic awareness, Internal Family Systems, and mindfulness-based practices into her clinical work. She is currently taking new clients, connect with her at www.alexasilvaggio.com/workwithalexa

When I’m washing dishes, I feel my shoulders magnetize toward my ears like two lovers long amiss. Except this relationship isn’t dreamy—it’s downright toxic. The tension builds until it becomes visceral, physical pain. I move quickly, urgently, like I’m trying to get it over with as fast as possible. As if once it’s done, I could finally relax.

Relaxing while I wash the dishes is my practice. And I am imperfect at it, at best.

Driving home from the gym, I notice my foot press the gas. I want to be home now. I want to be anywhere but here. Faster. I catch it. A long exhale. The noticing itself becomes the practice. Choosing, even for a breath, to be here now.

Many of us—myself included, clearly—are living our lives like they are a full-on emergency. Sirens blaring in the nervous system, bodies chock full of tension. And yet, none of these moments actually involve immediate danger. What is present is a body that has learned urgency.

For some of us, that urgency is not just a habit—it’s a history.

When the Body Learned to Be on Alert

In trauma-informed language, what I’m describing can look like chronic sympathetic activation: a nervous system oriented toward fight, flight, or collapse even in moments of relative safety. In the DSM, this can live under umbrellas like PTSD, Acute Stress Disorder, or trauma- and stressor-related presentations—but the lived experience is often quieter, subtler, and more pervasive than any diagnostic label can hold.

For many people, especially those who grew up in homes shaped by unpredictability, violence, poverty, racism, immigration stress, intergenerational trauma, or systemic oppression, urgency wasn’t a personality trait—it was a survival strategy. Hypervigilance kept you safe. Speed meant you didn’t get in trouble. Attunement to others’ moods helped you belong, avoid harm, or stay connected.

If it’s familiar, it’s often familial.

And it’s also cultural.

Some bodies are carrying not only personal memory, but ancestral memory—of displacement, marginalization, and having to move through the world braced. In that context, “just relax” isn’t a wellness tip. It can feel like a threat. The body learned, wisely, that stillness wasn’t safe.

So when I ask, Why am I rushing through the dishes? Why am I speeding home? Why do I move through my morning like a drill? I try to hold that question with tenderness rather than judgment.

The body is always telling the truth. Curiosity whispers: What was unsafe then that makes me feel unsafe now? What did my system learn about time, attention, and worth? What does my body believe will happen if I slow down?

This is not meant to diminish very real somatic trauma. For many, sensations of urgency, numbness, or tension are not choices—they are nervous system reflexes shaped by events that overwhelmed the system’s capacity to cope. Presence, in those moments, is not about “fixing” anything. It’s about building just enough safety to notice what’s here without being flooded by it.

The Practice: How You Do the Small Things

Instead of trying to change your whole life, try changing how you do one ordinary thing.

A Micro-Practice in Everyday Presence

Pick one simple, repetitive task you do every day:

• Walking to the bathroom

• Brushing your teeth

• Washing your hands

• Opening your laptop

• Buckling your seatbelt

And experiment with doing it at 70% speed. Not dramatically slow. Just a little less rushed than usual.

As you do it, gently notice:

• Where is my breath right now? High in my chest? Low in my belly? Held?

• What are my shoulders doing? My jaw? My hands?

• Am I already mentally in the next moment instead of this one?

If it feels okay, add one small cue of safety:

• Press your feet into the floor and feel the ground hold you.

• Let your exhale be longer than your inhale.

• Quietly say to yourself: In this moment, I am safe enough.

You’re not trying to erase urgency. You’re introducing another option to the system: We can move, and we can be here at the same time.

Alexa Silvaggio, MA, AMFT is a psychotherapist, writer, international yoga and mindfulness teacher, and TEDx speaker based in Los Angeles. She specializes in relational dynamics, high-functioning anxiety, codependency, and embodied healing. Alexa integrates somatic awareness, Internal Family Systems, and mindfulness-based practices into her clinical work. She is currently taking new clients, connect with her at www.alexasilvaggio.com/workwithalexa

Survival gets activated when threat is perceived. Our limbic system rushes to the rescue, and our amygdala (that little almond-shaped protector nestled near the base of the brain) grabs the keys and starts driving the proverbial car of our life.

Important stuff.
When there is an actual threat.

But for many of us, our nervous systems have locked into this fear-gripped state long after the tiger has left the building. We remain activated—agitated, distracted, braced, and burnt the F out.

When survival is running the show, our vision narrows. Our hearing dampens. Our bodies flood with cortisol—the stress hormone most often linked to exhaustion, anxiety, inflammation, and yes… weight gain. This state is not designed for everyday living. Not for intimacy. Not for creativity. Not for collaboration. And definitely not for the poor soul you just snapped at because you were running on fumes.

Creation, on the other hand, is born from spaciousness, safety, and sovereignty.

The spaciousness I’m talking about is literal.
Room.
Room without urgency.
Room without constant interruption.

In today’s world, this kind of room is rare. We reach for our phones at the first flicker of boredom. We are bombarded by tasks that needed to be done yesterday. But here’s the quiet truth: when we are moving too quickly, nothing can catch us.

Not the poem that wants to be written.
Not the song.
Not the idea.
Not the recipe.
Not even ourselves.

And still—creation cannot come from an empty cup. You’ll have nothing to say if you’re not out there living your life. Songs aren’t written about inbox zero. They’re written about heartbreak, devotion, longing, sex, grief, awe—about being human.

Creation requires presence.
It demands embodiment.

Two things that, by all accounts (and certainly in my therapy room), are becoming increasingly scarce.

Then there’s sovereignty—the often overlooked ingredient.
Sovereignty implies choice.
It implies movement rooted in excitement rather than obligation.
It’s the felt sense that we are conductors, not victims, of this human experience.

Yes, there is so much we cannot control.
War.
Racial injustice.
Sexism.
Division.
The list could go on endlessly.

And it makes sense that our systems would want to stay on guard—to believe that survival is the safest way to live.

But it isn’t.

Creation is.

Creating a life of meaning.
Creating an internal environment that is pleasurable.
Creating relationships that are connective, alive, and depthful.

Survival keeps us alive.
Creation is what makes life worth living.

A Practice: From Survival to Creation

Try this with a partner, friend, or even in journaling:

1. Name the State (30 seconds)
Ask yourself or each other:

“Am I in survival right now, or am I in creation?”
No fixing. No defending. Just naming.

2. Locate It in the Body (1 minute)
Where do you feel it?

• Survival often shows up as tight jaw, clenched belly, shallow breath.

• Creation often feels like softness, warmth, expansion, or curiosity.

Place a hand there if that feels safe. Breathe into that spot.

3. Make a Sovereign Choice (1 small one)
Ask:

“What is one choice I could make from creation instead of protection?”

It could sound like:

• “I need 10 minutes before continuing this conversation.”

• “I want to be honest instead of agreeable.”

• “I choose to listen instead of react.”

Let it be small but authentic.

4. Integrate
Notice how the interaction shifts—not because anyone changed, but because the state did.

This is nervous-system intimacy.
This is relational creation.

Alexa Silvaggio, MA, AMFT is a psychotherapist, writer, international yoga and mindfulness teacher, and TEDx speaker based in Los Angeles. She specializes in relational dynamics, high-functioning anxiety, codependency, and embodied healing. Alexa integrates somatic awareness, Internal Family Systems, and mindfulness-based practices into her clinical work. She is currently taking new clients, connect with her at www.alexasilvaggio.com/workwithalexa

Big exhale.

Clearly, self-love is something we all crave. Something we intuitively know we need. And yet—somehow—for so many it remains just out of reach. A concept we chase, romanticize, intellectualize, but rarely feel fully rooted in.

As I write this, I want to mention that the very fact that one wants to love themselves, lets me know that on some level, one already does. Doesn’t that make sense? That even having the awareness and the longing for self love, informs us that we care enough to well… care.

If you’re nodding your head in disbelief, I’m curious if just for now, you replaced the word love with acceptance?

Not as a downgrade. Not as settling. But as a window. Sometimes when the door is seemingly closed, we can find a window cracked to get in.

Acceptance doesn’t ask you to feel glowing, devotional, or inspired toward yourself. It doesn’t demand transformation or confidence. It simply asks you to stop arguing with what is.

Accepting yourself as you are.
In this body.
In this season.
In these circumstances.

“Yeah, but I screwed up.”
Okay. I accept you like that.

“But I’m ten pounds heavier than I want to be.”
Alright. And I accept you just like that.

“Yeah, but I did something I’m ashamed of.”
Yes, and I accept that part of you too.

This is the part we miss: love follows acceptance.

The places you’re trying hardest to love are often the places that are still waiting to be allowed. Still waiting to be welcomed back into the fold of your own belonging.

The parts you criticize, exile, or rush to improve don’t need more discipline. They need permission to exist without condition.

What I’ve often found in my work as a clinician, as a yoga teacher, and in my life in general is that healing begins with inclusion, by pulling in and looking at what’s here. Not with the rebuffing. Start there.

A Somatic Self-Acceptance Practice (5 minutes)

Find a quiet place where you can sit or lie down comfortably. You don’t need candles or music—just your body and your attention.

1. If it feels safe to do so, place one hand on your chest and one on your belly. If not, let your arms rest on a part of you that does feel safe.
   Feel the warmth. The contact. Let your breath slow naturally.

2. Notice what part of you feels the hardest to accept right now.
   Don’t analyze it. Just notice where it lives in your body.
   Is it tight? Heavy? Dull? Achy? Numb?

3. Gently bring your breath into that area.
   Not to change it. Not to fix it. Just to be with it.

4. Silently say:
   “I don’t need you to be different right now.”

5. Stay for a few breaths.
   If emotion arises, let it. If nothing happens, that’s okay too.
   Acceptance doesn’t rush.

When you’re ready, return your awareness to the room.

This is how self-love begins—not with fireworks or affirmations, but with presence. With staying. With no longer abandoning yourself in the moments you need yourself most.

You don’t need to love yourself perfectly.
You just need to stop leaving.

Alexa Silvaggio, MA, AMFT is a psychotherapist, writer, international yoga and mindfulness teacher, and TEDx speaker based in Los Angeles. She specializes in relational dynamics, high-functioning anxiety, codependency, and embodied healing. Alexa integrates somatic awareness, Internal Family Systems, and mindfulness-based practices into her clinical work. She is currently taking new clients, connect with her at www.alexasilvaggio.com/workwithalexa

I’m talking about the worth you arrived with.
The worth already coursing through your blood, being pumped through your heart, oxygenating every cell that makes you you.

When you know that worth, you stop offering discounts.
You stop depleting yourself.
You stop giving from a cup that was never meant to be emptied.

People who aren’t aware will take what they can get. They will, baby.
That’s not a moral failing — it’s just unconsciousness doing what it does.

What is your responsibility is this: knowing your own magnificence.

Because when you know it, others feel it.
Your energy speaks long before your mouth ever opens.
Your nervous system broadcasts your self-regard louder than your words.

If you ever forget your innate perfection, look at a photo of yourself as a baby.
Notice how instinctively love arises.

Babies cry.
They poop.
They keep you up all night.
They demand everything and offer very little in return.

And yet — we adore them.

No one looks at a baby and says, “You need to earn this.”
No one withholds love until they’re more productive, quieter, thinner, calmer, or easier.

Now here’s the part we don’t like to look at:

Every time you think something cruel about yourself, you are saying it to that baby.
Every time you tell yourself you’re too much, not enough, behind, wrong, or unworthy — that message lands somewhere in your body.

You are still that baby.
You always were.

Act accordingly.
Change the conversation.

A Somatic Worthiness Practice (3 minutes)

You don’t need to believe this.
You just need to let your body feel it.

1. Place one hand on your heart and one on your belly.
   Feel the temperature. The weight. The contact. Let yourself be held by your own touch.

2. Inhale slowly through your nose.
   On the exhale, soften your jaw, your shoulders, your belly.
   Let effort drop where it can.

3. Silently repeat:
   “Nothing is required of me in this moment.”
   Say it again. Let your body respond before your mind argues.

4. Bring to mind your baby self.
   You don’t need an image — just a felt sense.
   Notice what happens in your chest, throat, or gut.

5. Offer this sentence inward:
   “You don’t need to earn my love.”
   Stay long enough to feel where your body says yes.

When you stand up and move through your day, notice this:
Do you speak differently?
Do you pause before over-giving?
Do you stop mid-discount?

That’s worthiness integrating.
Not as a concept — but as a lived, embodied truth.

And from that place?
You don’t have to convince anyone of your value.

They can already feel it.

Alexa Silvaggio, MA, AMFT is a psychotherapist, writer, international yoga and mindfulness teacher, and TEDx speaker based in Los Angeles. She specializes in relational dynamics, high-functioning anxiety, codependency, and embodied healing. Alexa integrates somatic awareness, Internal Family Systems, and mindfulness-based practices into her clinical work. She is currently taking new clients, connect with her at www.alexasilvaggio.com/workwithalexa

The posture is the same.
Hands in the dirt.
Something precious lowered into the ground.
A moment of pause before covering it up.

Laying something to rest and planting something new are visually identical acts. The difference is not in the movement—it’s in the meaning we assign to it.

You can’t have death without birth.
And you can’t have birth without death.

They are not opposites as much as they are eternally paired partners in this wild, tender, devastating, exquisite journey called life.

When I met my now fiancé, Alex, it felt like the most wholehearted yes I’ve ever known.
He is my person.
He is the safest, kindest man I’ve ever known.
Choosing him felt aligned, grounded, and unmistakably right.

And yet—unexpectedly—there was grief.

Grief for my old life.
Grief for the version of myself who belonged only to herself.
Grief for the way I thought things might look.
Grief for my singleness, which quietly, lovingly, ceased to exist.

My previous life—my solo experience—died the moment I said yes to partnership.

Beautiful.
And hard.

Both true.

When my mother died, I was brought to my knees by heartbreak.
I grieved the mother she was.
The mother she wasn’t.
And the mother she would never get the chance to be.

I grieved what happened.
And I grieved what would never happen.

Her not being at my wedding.
Never meeting my children.
Never being able to pick up the phone and hear her voice again.

The loss was absolute.

And yet—what was quietly being planted in the soil of that devastation was a new life.
One no longer organized around emotional and physical caretaking.
One that allowed me to step into the lead role of my own story.
One with more spaciousness.
More peace.
More connection.
More choice.

Hard.
And beautiful.

We move through these iterations again and again.

Sometimes life emphasizes the burying.
Sometimes it emphasizes the planting.

But the truth is—they are always happening at the same time.

Grief and gratitude are not opposites.
They are allies.

They walk hand in hand.
They teach each other how to exist.

If you find yourself aching, something meaningful is likely being born.
If you find yourself expanding, something beloved may have just been laid to rest.

Let them coexist.
Let them weave their quiet magic.

A Tangible Practice: The Burial & The Planting

If this resonates, I invite you into a simple ritual:

1. Write down what is being laid to rest.
   A role, a season, an identity, a relationship, a dream, a version of you.

2. Write down what is being planted.
   Not a demand. Not a timeline.
   Just an intention. A quality. A possibility.

3. Bury one. Plant the other.

   • Bury the first piece of paper in the soil (or a pot).

   • Plant seeds, a bulb, or a small plant above it.

4. Say this quietly (or out loud):
   “I honor what has ended.
   I welcome what is becoming.
   I trust the wisdom of this season.”

Then walk away.

You don’t need to know how it will grow.
You don’t need to control the timeline.

You’ve already done the brave part—
you showed up, hands in the dirt, willing to feel it all.

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Alexa Silvaggio, MA, AMFT is a psychotherapist, writer, international yoga and mindfulness teacher, and TEDx speaker based in Los Angeles. She specializes in relational dynamics, high-functioning anxiety, codependency, and embodied healing. Alexa integrates somatic awareness, Internal Family Systems, and mindfulness-based practices into her clinical work. She is currently taking new clients, connect with her at www.alexasilvaggio.com/workwithalexa

You don’t necessarily need more of it.
You need more presence with it.

You need to slow down enough to fully receive it.

Because what we are really hungry for isn’t “more food”—it’s to savor our food with attention. We don’t need more sex (although some of us may lol), we need deeper, more present, more connected sex. Most of us don’t need more stuff—we need the kinds of experiences that make us come alive. The ones that procure actual joy, actual aliveness, actual awe.

More isn’t necessarily more.

Deeper is more.
Slower is more.
Presence is more.

And honestly? This is why we go unconscious around feelings we don’t like. Because we assume numbness means we’ll experience less of it.

We get our hearts broken and binge-watch a show.
We feel anxiety and reach for a drink (or seven).
We lose someone we love and spend five hours a day on TikTok.

This works in the moment. It’s anesthesia.
But long term, it’s a no.

Because avoidance doesn’t erase pain—it delays it. It metabolizes nothing. It simply pushes the bill to later, with interest.

A life of meaning isn’t one flavor. It’s many flavors. Dare I say… all of the flavors.
Exquisite and excruciating.

So if you’re ready: let’s go deeper, shall we?

The Real Flex: Getting Rich With Presence

I’ve been thinking about how presence is a kind of wealth. Not the wealth that looks good on paper—the wealth you can feel in your body. The kind that makes ordinary moments luminous. The kind that makes you feel like your life is actually happening while it’s happening.

And the thing is: presence isn’t a personality trait. It’s a practice. It’s trainable. It’s a muscle. And like every muscle, it strengthens with repetition.

Here are a few ways to get more rich with presence—in ways you can actually do, today, in your current life, with your current nervous system.

1) The “3-Second Savor” Practice

This is the smallest unit of presence I know. And it’s powerful because it’s doable.

Once a day, pick one moment and give it three full seconds of undivided attention.

• The first sip of coffee

• Warm water on your hands

• The smell of your dog’s head

• A text from someone you love

• The first bite of dinner

Three seconds is not long. But it’s long enough to interrupt autopilot.

Ask yourself:

• Can I let this land?

• Can I actually receive this?

Presence is often less about effort and more about permission.

2) Use Your Senses Like a Portal

Your mind is a time traveler.
Your body lives in the now.

If you want to come back to the present, don’t argue with your thoughts—enter through sensation.

Try this in real time:

• Name 5 things you can see

• 4 you can feel (fabric, air, weight, temperature)

• 3 you can hear

• 2 you can smell

• 1 you can taste

It’s simple. It’s classic. It works.

And if you want the “grown-up” version:

“Where is my body contacting the world right now?”

Feet. Chair. Breath. Ground.
That’s the doorway.

3) Make One Thing Sacred (Yes, One)

Presence becomes easier when something has a container.

Choose one daily ritual and stop multitasking inside it.

Some ideas:

• Morning tea without your phone

• Shower like it’s church

• A candle at dinner

• Walk the dog with no podcast

• 10 minutes of “just music” in the car

You’re not trying to become a monk. You’re trying to become available.

Let one thing be enough.

4) Stop Eating “Fast”—Not Just Food

We consume our lives like we’re late for something. (Oh man this one is me)

We scroll fast. We talk fast. We snack fast. We love fast. We grieve fast. We move on fast. We “optimize” ourselves into numbness.

Try this:
Pick one thing today to do 10% slower.

• Walk 10% slower to your car

• Chew 10% slower

• Speak 10% slower

• Put on lotion 10% slower

• Kiss 10% slower

Your nervous system will notice.
Your life will notice.

5) Practice Being With a Feeling for 90 Seconds

Most feelings crest and move when we let them.

Try this when something arises (irritation, sadness, longing, anxiety):

1. Name it: “This is anxiety.” / “This is grief.”

2. Locate it: “I feel it in my chest / throat / belly.”

3. Stay for 90 seconds, breathing naturally, not fixing.

Ask:

• What is the texture? (tight, hot, buzzing, heavy)

• What does it need? (space, movement, reassurance, release)

This is how you build capacity.
This is how you build intimacy with yourself.
This is how you stop outsourcing your aliveness to distraction.

6) Replace “Numbing” With “Nourishing”

Let’s get really honest: sometimes we’re not “resting”—we’re dissociating.

And again: no shame. It’s a protective strategy.
But it’s worth getting curious about.

Try asking:

• Is this soothing me or sedating me?

• Will I feel more alive after this, or less?

Then offer yourself a replacement that still comforts, but doesn’t abandon you.

Nourishing alternatives:

• Put your hand on your heart and breathe for one minute

• Stretch on the floor

• Voice note a friend

• Journal a single paragraph titled: “What’s actually here?”

• Cry with music

• Sit outside for five minutes (yes, that counts)

We don’t stop numbing through discipline.
We stop numbing by giving ourselves something better.

7) Make Contact: The Antidote to Hyper-Individual Life

Presence isn’t just internal. It’s relational. We become richer through contact.

Try “micro-contact”:

• Make eye contact with the barista and say thank you like you mean it

• Text one person: “I love you. No need to respond.”

• Put your phone down when someone is talking

• Ask a deeper question and actually wait for the answer

If you want more love, more meaning, more beauty—don’t just seek intensity.

Seek connection.

A Tiny Presence Challenge (Because We Love Homework)

For the next 3 days:

1. Choose one moment each day to fully receive.

2. Write one sentence about it.

Examples:

• “The sun hit the kitchen floor and I let it warm my legs.”

• “I tasted cinnamon in my coffee and stayed for it.”

• “I hugged my partner and softened my shoulders.”

This is how we train the nervous system to notice goodness.
Not as a bypass. As a balance.

A meaningful life isn’t a life with only the sweet flavors.
It’s a life where you’re willing to taste the whole meal.

Exquisite and excruciating.
Bitter and holy.
Devastating and alive.

More isn’t necessarily more.

Deeper is more.
Slower is more.
Presence is more.

Let’s go deeper, shall we?

www.alexasilvaggio.com

What do you offer those around you in exchange for being seen, appreciated, validated, or loved?

It’s rarely conscious. And yet, most of us are walking around with an unspoken currency—something we lead with, something we trade—hoping it will secure the one thing we’ve always wanted: a sense of safety in the world.

These currencies are almost always forged in childhood.

Maybe you learned early on that if you supported Mommy emotionally—listening, soothing, holding space with your small body—you had value. Or perhaps if you performed acts of service, like making Daddy dinner or being “the helpful one,” love would arrive in small but precious doses. A smile. A thank you. A fleeting sense of being appreciated.

And so we learned: this is how I matter.

Often, we carry these same currencies into our adult relationships, still attempting to obtain what we longed for back then—without realizing that what we are so generously giving is often the very thing we ourselves need most.

If you’re constantly offering emotional support, I’d be curious to know if support is your deepest longing. If you’re endlessly validating others, I wonder if validation is what your nervous system is quietly begging for.

What I’ve found, both personally and in my work as a psychotherapist, is this: most of us give what we want. We tell ourselves it’s altruism, kindness, or simply “who we are.” And often, that’s partly true. But if we look a little closer, peeling back a proverbial layer, we might notice a hope underneath it all—surely, if I give enough of this, it will come back to me.

Eventually.

Where Hyper-Individualism Gets It Wrong

Here’s where this conversation can easily slip into something distorted.

The answer is not to conclude that we shouldn’t need others. That would be another kind of defense—one that masquerades as strength while quietly abandoning our very real relational needs.

We live in a hyper-individualistic culture that tells us we should be entirely self-sufficient: Heal yourself. Regulate yourself. Love yourself. Don’t rely on anyone.

But this isn’t how humans are wired.

We are relational beings. We heal in relationship. We regulate in community. And in today’s climate—marked by injustice, isolation, burnout, and systemic strain—external support isn’t optional. It’s essential.

This isn’t a call to bypass community.
It’s an invitation to bring responsibility alongside it.

Because both things can be true.

We can need the world to show up for us and acknowledge that we are not meant to outsource our entire sense of worth, safety, or nourishment.

When we don’t take responsibility for meeting ourselves at all, it’s like pouring water into a cup with a hole in the bottom. No matter how much love, validation, or affirmation we receive, it never quite lands. It drains right through us, leaving us just as hungry as before.

The world could give you everything you’ve ever wanted—but if you aren’t also turning toward yourself, it will never feel like enough.

The Quiet Work

This work begins in the quiet of your own heart.

If what you crave is validation, how can you begin to offer it to yourself—without waiting for permission? If what you long for is support, how might you support yourself in tangible, embodied ways?

This doesn’t negate your need for others. It stabilizes it.

Because when we meet ourselves even part of the way, our relationships shift. We stop unconsciously bargaining. We stop over-giving in hopes of being chosen. We stop collapsing into resentment when our currency isn’t returned at the same exchange rate.

And something softer becomes possible.

If you don’t know what you need, take a look at what you give.
Notice what you lead with.
Pay attention to where you overextend.

The answer is already there—quietly, patiently—waiting for you to notice it.

Ps.

I am taking new clients starting this month. Go to www.alexasilvaggio.com to connect.

And while we can’t know—really know—what will unfold (because who ever could), we can assert, with some tenderness and courage, what we desire to move toward. We can name an orientation. A feeling. A way we want to live inside our own lives.

Everything we do, everything we pursue, everything we hold onto—we don’t do it or want it for the thing itself. We do it for the feeling the thing evokes.

“I want this partnership because I long to feel deeply connected.”
“I drive this car because it helps me feel safe on the freeway.”
“I take this dance class because it allows me to feel feminine, alive, expressed.”

The object is never the point.
The feeling is.

When we lose touch with that truth, we chase outcomes, milestones, and identities—hoping they’ll deliver a feeling they were never meant to guarantee. But when we remember it, something softens. We begin to ask better questions. More honest ones.

What do I actually want to feel more of?
What drains that feeling from my body or my days?
What supports it—quietly, reliably, without drama?

So often, clarity doesn’t come from adding something new, but from noticing what’s already crowding the space. What’s expired. What once protected us, but now quietly costs us.

I created the following self-inquiry to invite you—my beloved reader—into gentle curiosity about what 2026 could look like, yes, but more importantly: what you want it to feel like. And whether there is anything in your orbit—habits, relationships, beliefs, obligations—that makes cultivating that feeling harder than it needs to be.

There is no right way to answer these questions. No timeline. No gold star for certainty. Just an opportunity to listen a little more closely to yourself, and to let that listening guide the year ahead.

If this inquiry feels supportive, share it with someone you love. Sit with it together. Or return to it when the noise of “shoulds” gets loud again.

As always, I’d love to hear what you notice.

With warmth and curiosity,
Alexa

2026 Individual Goals & Intentions Worksheet

Clarity, self-trust, and sustainable momentum

How to use this worksheet
Set aside 30–60 quiet minutes. Move slowly. Let your body be involved.
This is not about optimizing yourself—it’s about aligning with yourself.

Part I: Orienting to the year

1. Naming your inner orientation

Complete intuitively—don’t overthink.

• A word or phrase that feels true for my 2026:
  

• If my nervous system could speak about 2026, it would say it wants more:
  ☐ safety ☐ steadiness ☐ expansion ☐ rest ☐ play ☐ creativity ☐ freedom ☐ pleasure ☐ clarity ☐ other: ___________
  
  

Part II: Non-negotiable personal pillars

(These come before goals)

2. What must be protected this year

For me to feel well, regulated, and resourced in 2026, I need:

(Examples: alone time, financial clarity, movement, creativity, emotional honesty, spiritual practice, routine, novelty.)

Body check:
When I name these, my body feels:
☐ open ☐ calm ☐ relieved ☐ resistant ☐ unsure
(Resistance = information, not failure.)

Part III: Letting go (making space)

3. What feels expired

In order for something new to arrive, something may need to soften or end.

In 2026, I am ready to loosen my grip on:

(Examples: over-functioning, people-pleasing, scarcity thinking, outdated identities, clutter—physical or emotional.)

Ask gently:

• What has this protected me from?
  
  

• What might become possible if I let it go?
  
  

Part IV: Desire-based intentions (not pressure)

4. What I want more of

In 2026, I want to experience more:

Let this be about quality of experience, not outcomes.

Part V: Structure that supports me

5. Supportive structures (light but real)

Structure creates safety for freedom.

I function best when I have:

• A rhythm for rest: ______________________
  
  

• A rhythm for work/creation: ______________________
  
  

• A rhythm for movement/body care: ______________________
  
  

• A rhythm for pleasure or play: ______________________
  
  

What structure feels supportive rather than restrictive?

Part VI: Mapping the year (personal lens)

6. Quarterly overview

You can keep this loose—this is a weather report, not a contract.

Q1 (Jan–Mar):
Focus, themes, known events

Q2 (Apr–Jun):
Focus, themes, known events

Q3 (Jul–Sep):
Focus, themes, known events

Q4 (Oct–Dec):
Focus, themes, known events

Ask:

• When will I likely need more gentleness?
  
  

• When might momentum come more easily?
  
  

Part VII: Self-support & regulation

7. When I’m activated or overwhelmed

When I notice I’m in survival mode, what helps most is:

When I feel shut down or avoidant, what helps is:

(Examples: movement, naming the story, asking for space, asking for help, returning to the witness.)

Part VIII: Integrity & self-trust

8. A personal commitment

Complete this sentence out loud:

“In 2026, I commit to being in integrity with myself by ____________________.”

Notice where this lands in your body.

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We’ve all heard it: talk is cheap.
We can say one thing, mean another, or even more insidiously, we can mean something deeply yet never act on it.

As a clinician who works intimately with couples, I’ve been made privy to a defining differentiation between relationships that make it and relationships that, well… don’t. The architecture of relational unraveling is complex, full of shadowy corners and subtle hurts, but today I want to hone in on a dynamic that has been surfacing again and again—one I’ve explored with clients and one that has touched my own human experience right where it stings.

The overfunctioning / underfunctioning dynamic.

In this dynamic, there is always an overfunctioner—the one who has it handled.
The one who is on top of it physically, mentally, emotionally.
They are the do-er, the go-getter, the conductor of the relationship’s symphony.
And underneath that productivity?
Anxiety.

Then there is the underfunctioner—the one who appears laid back, go-with-the-flow, allowing their partner to take the lead. But beneath the surface, this person is riddled with analysis paralysis, living with suppressed shame that has calcified into debilitating perfectionism. And as we know, perfectionism will keep us from beginning at all. If it can’t be perfect… why start?

This relational dance is a spiderweb of landmines, spinning denser and stickier threads with each “I’ve got it,” or each resigned “I guess she’s got it.”

And to be clear:
There is no gender assignment here. Overfunctioning and underfunctioning can be embodied by anyone, in any body.

However… in our current culture of “do it all and make it look easy,” I’ve noticed—often, not always—that those with more feminine energetics step into the overfunctioning role. Masculinity and femininity are not genders; they are energies. And in a patriarchal society, those who carry more femininity are often socialized to hold more, do more, tend more.

Why?
Because not only are we doing the patriarchal hustle of working and creating and producing, but we are simultaneously carrying the emotional and physical labor of being the world’s caretakers. Bringing home the bacon and cooking it. Literally.

Here’s the irony:
The more the overfunctioner does, the less the underfunctioner has to do.

This is the web.
The overfunctioner’s momentum keeps the underfunctioner stuck.
The underfunctioner’s shame deepens, which fuels perfectionism, which fuels more shame.
And the overfunctioner’s anxiety escalates alongside their quiet question:
“If they really loved me, wouldn’t they…?”

I’m here to tell you:
Love has nothing to do with it.
This is about soothing anxiety and healing shame.

Imagine a relationship where, instead of one person overfunctioning and the other underfunctioning…
everyone is simply functioning.
Functioning well, even.

Because when we are in our shame or in our anxiety, the heartbeat of the system becomes:

“What can I get?”
In shame: What can I get others to do so I don’t have to risk being imperfect?
In anxiety: If I do everything perfectly, maybe they’ll finally reciprocate.

Both are rooted in getting.

In a healed dynamic, the question shifts from getting to giving.
The heartbeat becomes:

“How can I serve?”
How can I show up and support my partner—and myself—in a balanced way?
How can I contribute value?
How can we create a life of meaning together?

Because love is not a feeling.
Love is not a performance.
Love is not control, nor sacrifice, nor strategy.

Love is an action.
A daily choice to show up, to regulate, to tend gently to your own system so you can meet your partner from fullness rather than fear.

The work is not about doing more.
The work is about doing differently.

Relationship transformation doesn’t happen through wishing, hoping, or waiting for the other person to change.
It happens when each partner gently unhooks from their default role — the anxious doer or the shame-frozen avoider — and steps into responsibility for their part in the dance.

When both people choose to function, not over or under, the relationship becomes a place where love can actually move.

Because love, in its truest form, is something we practice — not something we perform.

- Alexa

I've been sitting a lot with, and I feel called to share, the thought of being fully alive. The embodiment of being fully alive. The experience of being fully alive.

Do you know that many people that are in their fullest expression? Their full authentic life force? That are truly alive?

To be clear, I don't know all that many that are.

Today's episode will offer you some practices and inquiry to help you tap into your own innate aliveness. Reminding you to remember who you truly are and feel it all. It's there, it's waiting to be expressed and it's meant to be felt into...

So let's get Altared with today's solo episode.

Ps. If you liked this episode, consider leaving a 5-star review and a written review wherever you listen. This will help it get in more people's ears. And, if you'd be so kind, share it!

Walking beside you fam

x Alexa

@dradijaffe - www.adijaffe.com

Adi Jaffe, Ph.D. is a #1 best-selling author (The Abstinence Myth - His upcoming book, Unhooked, is being published by Hachette) and a nationally recognized expert on transformation and communication, especially in times of deep crisis.

Dr. Jaffe’s work spans work/career, mental health, addiction, and relationship crises. He was a lecturer in the UCLA Psychology department for the better part of a decade and the Executive-Director and Co-Founder of one of the most progressive mental health treatment facilities in the country - until he started IGNTD.

Through IGNTD, Dr. Jaffe is changing the way people think about and deal with mental health issues. His passion lies in helping his clients move through shame, discover their deepest sense of purpose and joy, and forge a new path in life that brings them, and those around them, fulfillment and happiness.

Yeah, because it is. And it's totally possible.

In today's episode we dive into the correlation between sex, money, and power. Kate explains conscious parenting, and allowing our children to fully understand, and hone in on their values from an early age. We discuss allowing versus forcing, and how to embody receptivity. We talk about the power of having enough, and how that magically opens us up to the infinite possibilities that surround us. It's all delicious. You don't want to miss...

If you haven't already, please do leave us a 5-star review and a written review wherever you listen to this, and if it resonates, share it, will ya? Thanks again for tuning in, now without further ado, let's get Altared with Kate Northrup.

@katenorthrup www.katenorthrup.com

Hi! I’m Kate,

As an entrepreneur, bestselling author, and mother, I have built a platform that reaches hundreds of thousands globally. Everyday, I’m committed to supporting ambitious women to light up the world without burning themselves out. I teach folks, just like you, how to heal your relationship with money, time, and work. I’m the author of two books–Money: A Love Story and Do Less, and the creator of the Do Less Planner System. My work has been featured by Oprah Daily, The Today Show, Women’s Health, Glamour, The NY Times, Harvard Business Review, and more. I live with my husband/business partner and our two daughters in Miami.

In our conversation we discuss what to do with pain, and how to move through it. We talk about purpose and how to find it inward and outward. We touch on boundaries, what they are, why we need them, and he even gives examples of things we can say to set them...

Basically, Sylvester is a gift, and this episode is your Care Package. That also happens to be the name of his latest book published by Hay House. Give it a listen, and if you dug it, share it. If you haven't already, please give Altared a 5 - star review wherever you listen as this will help spread the good word. Connect to our beloved Sylvester, and learn more about him, below.

@sylvestermcnutt www.sylvestermcnutt.net

I believe the best decision I ever made was to commit to a lifetime of healing, presence, and joy.

During the 1980s my parents brought me into this world at the end of August. Growing up with four seasons in the Chicago-land area gave me access to year-round activity and engagement. I fell in love quickly with sports, the arts, and expressing myself as a human being. There was pain & addiction in my family system that I had to overcome. When I was younger I wished I had the skills, knowledge, and energy to keep my parents together, to keep my family unit together. This thirst for an understanding of psychology, communication, and spirituality became my life’s dharma. Now, I’m 10+ years into my career as an author, speaker, podcast host, and I also am certified yoga teacher. I became the adult that I needed as a kid. I believe the best decision I ever made was to commit to healing, presence, and joy.

Namaste,

Sylvester