Galia Collaborative

A new study showed that we often “know” more quickly than we can consciously explain. 🤔

The findings fit with broader theories of intuition and predictive processing in neuroscience. The brain is constantly comparing present situations with past experience and generating largely unconscious predictions. What we call “gut feelings” might actually be compressed expertise.

Sometimes overthinking interferes with knowledge your brain has already organized beneath conscious awareness.

hope is a thing with feathers 🪶

My brother came out to our family when he was eleven years old. I’ll be honest that it felt like almost a non-event (When he told us, we basically all said, with love, “Well, of course. We knew that!”), but that’s easy for me to say. I have an eleven year old son now, and so it puts the clarity, courage, and resilience my brother had at that tender age in a new light.

My brother has kept me clear and honest over the years about the experience of the LGBTQ+ community. He ensures that I don’t forget things like the fact that nearly half of LGBTQ+ workers in the U.S. aren’t out at work. Or how often q***r folks avoid or delay healthcare (including mental healthcare) because of stigma and discrimination. (He’s a fierce advocate and I’m immensely proud of him.)

He and others, including the LGBTQ+ therapists on our team at Galia, have helped me understand some other things too. Things that the q***r community have illuminated by so generously sharing their lived experience.

Perhaps the biggest one is that we are each closeted in our own ways. That’s not to compare stigma or suffering, but to acknowledge that we all have pieces of ourselves that we feel terrified to truly be known – pieces that we lock away sometimes even from ourselves.

Wherever we fall (or move) on the gender and sexuality spectrum, so many of us are terrified of our own desires, bodies, dark thoughts, histories, or qualities. So many of us are convinced that if we were really, truly known, we would lose belonging.

Living in shame is so destructive to our psyches because it convinces us that we are separate. And the idea that we as humans are ever separate – from each other, from the earth, from all that is – is the lie that withers us from the inside.

To be clear, living in shame is not the same as living in the secrecy that safety requires. Some of what we keep hidden is for our very survival. But when stepping into the light is possible for us, it frees us from the prison of separation.

Separation is the root of fear, and so togetherness is the root of courage. When I start to feel fear (which is often), I’ve started renaming it “separateness” and then trying to relax my shoulders. I try to remember that there is no such thing and to find a sense of connection anywhere I can – in what’s happening around me, in my memories, in my body.

As we celebrate Pride, I want to offer gratitude and deep joy to all who are part of the LGBTQ+ community. This community reminds us that there is no separateness, no other, no going it alone. May we all find the courage, in whatever ways are ours to find it, to step a little more fully into the light.

If you’ve been feeling a little disconnected from your body — or like you’ve been living mostly in your head lately — this was designed for you.

Let Your Body Speak is a half-day retreat designed to help you reconnect through breathwork and writing practices. Not in a forced or overly structured way, but by creating the conditions where something more natural can emerge.

Together with Women Writing for (a) Change, we’ll spend the afternoon slowing down, paying attention, and exploring what becomes available when you shift out of analysis and into experience. Breathwork will open up space internally, and writing will offer a way to stay with what you find there.

You don’t need to be a writer. You don’t need any experience with breathwork. You just need a willingness to show up and be with yourself in a slightly different way.

The best. 🛋️ 🤍

Five years ago, Michelle joined our team at Galia. It was a beginning, but actually also a continuation of the relationship that I’d had with her for years.

I first met Michelle when we were both doing the work of supporting people with eating disorders. I got to hire her in that organization to help those who were considering taking a big leap into intensive eating disorder care. I remember in meeting her being struck by the pureness of her commitment to the work and to the people she would serve. I knew she would help people understand and feel supported during one of the scariest moments of their lives. And she did beautifully.

Michelle continues to help people on the edges of change make grounded and values-oriented decisions. She helps them feel less alone in the overwhelming moments. She helps them pull themselves out of the dark places of depression, anxiety, eating challenges. She helps them see beyond the stress and chaos of difficult parenting seasons.

I’ve been inspired by Michelle’s commitment to growing her clinical toolkit as well, through certifications in eating disorder care and in EMDR, as well as in expanding her expertise in different modalities like ACT and in clinical concerns, like perinatal challenges and parenting neurodivergent kiddos. She’s a well-rounded clinician whose clients have shared that they feel connected and seen.

Today I wanted to honor all of the gifts Michelle has brought to our team and her clients, including her steadfast presence and quiet commitment. Happy 5th Galiaversary, Michelle!

Your next opportunities to release and reset are right around the corner. 🤍

Join us for one (or more!) of our upcoming classes offered through Odessa, Galia's program that blends modern science, ancient wisdom, and whole-self healing to transform your mental health.

There is a place inside of us that wants what is best for us, and it's from that place that our strivings, our longings, our hard work to better ourselves come. What's beautiful is that we don't have to construct it or hustle for it. It's just there, always waiting for us.

We (by the skin of our teeth) survived Maycember, friends! 🫠

I know how much your heart aches when you think about those early days and the way that your heart was constantly pounding, your mind constantly racing.

I know how you long to be able to go back and be truly present for all of those precious moments – the ones you felt like you were barely surviving, never truly experiencing.

I know you would give just about anything to give your children’s younger selves a version of you that felt truly there, not a shell or a ghost.

It feels like anxiety robbed you of so many of the most beautiful mothering moments, and it hardly feels fair. You wish it could have been different for you, for them.

I want you to know that this particular grief is a bitter pill, and my heart aches for you too.

I want you to know that your longing to go back is a testament to your love, but that you don’t need to.

You can go forward into a future of presence and connection.

I want you to know that you still have time.

That you can be where your feet are.

That you can let down your guard.

That you can feel safe.

I want you to know that your children love you fiercely.

That new memories are blossoming every single day.

Anxiety may be showing up now as guilt or regret. Don’t let it rob more of your beautiful story.

To the mom whose heart aches because her mind cast dark shadows:

Let yourself feel the pain, but know too that you are safe, whole, and enough.

I want you to know you are far from alone.