No you’re not behind: the truth about meaningful healing and activism

If you’re reading this, you’ve probably been overwhelmed by every new crisis this administration is throwing at us.

It can feel like one of those nightmares where you have to run, but your legs are stuck in molasses. Your muscles feel weak. You get overrun.

Advocacy—or honestly, just staying informed—can feel a lot like that. The idea of “doing enough” is laughable, especially when you’re so overwhelmed you can’t do anything at all.

It’s hard to make out the small victories through the noise. It’s even harder to have compassion for yourself in this constant state of emergency.

I get it—not just as a therapist, but as a person. I’ve tried to outrun regular depression more times than I can count, and political burnout hits differently. I’ve felt truly hopeless. Cynical. Like crawling into the dissociated part of my brain and never coming out.

It’s taken a long time to untangle my own burnout—but the good news is, even in times like these, it is possible to find a regulated way to get involved. To find your place.

My Website Went from 30 to 200 Views a Month—Here’s What That Means

I know those aren’t viral numbers—but they’re real numbers. A year ago, I was getting 30 views a month on my website. Then it became 180 every other month. Now, I’ve hit four months in a row of 200–300 views.

I’m sharing this to be a little vulnerable. Building a therapy practice is as terrifying as it is freeing, and the way I’ve felt about this growth has stirred up a lot of old feelings from my political organizing days—those intense, “out-there” advocacy seasons when everything felt urgent and personal.

Back then, I thought success meant showing up big, bold, and fast. We’re sold that idea constantly, whether we’re building a business or trying to build a better world. Change should be immediate. Growth should be exponential. Impact should be obvious.

But that’s almost never how it works.

The truth is: slow growth is still growth. Small-scale change is still change. Those 200 monthly views are 200 real people—many of them strangers—who were searching for something gentle and true and found me. That matters. That’s impact.

And if you’re feeling stuck, like your efforts aren’t doing anything… maybe it’s time to measure by connection, not scale.

Why I Track Progress Differently Now

As part of my own exvangelical deconstruction, I’ve shifted the way I think about impact—both in my therapy practice and in my activism. I’m no longer trying to save people. Instead, I’m learning how to walk alongside them. My work isn’t about outcomes I can measure in quick conversions or grand transformations—it’s about building something slower, deeper, and more sustainable.

That’s been one of the biggest lessons of both therapy and deconstruction: I cannot convince someone to leave an abusive relationship. I cannot force someone to believe they’re worthy. I cannot rush someone’s healing—or mine. And trying to do so burns us both out.

Because I’m a person who loves to win, I’ve had to redefine what victory even means. These days, it looks like showing up with integrity. It looks like a client saying, “No one’s ever said that to me before.” It looks like baby steps that start as stumbling and become steady footing.

And honestly? That shift has saved me.

I think a lot of us who come from high-control religion carry the unspoken pressure to fix things fast—to redeem, to convert, to rescue. Activism can become just another place we reenact that same exhausting story. But when I started tracking my progress by connection instead of outcomes, everything changed.

That’s when the work became human again.

That’s when I started to heal, too.

The Inner Work That Doesn’t Show Up in Numbers

As a data-driven person (and like I said… someone who really likes to win), I’ll admit—I love analytics. I love watching the numbers climb, even slowly. I’ve spent years around political organizers and nonprofit folks who live for data, because we all want evidence that our work is working. That’s also part of why therapy modalities like CBT are so popular. CBT has the data. It asks you to collect evidence about your own thoughts, your own behavior, your own “progress.” It turns healing into a measurable process.

But here’s the thing—some of the most meaningful healing work I do isn’t measurable. It’s nonlinear, creative, and deeply relational. It doesn’t always translate into neat little checkboxes or charts.

It looks like building the muscle of connection after a lifetime of spiritual isolation.

It looks like identifying ancestral wounds—both the ones passed down through trauma and the ones passed down through unexamined privilege.

It looks like unlearning savior complexes and starting to trust interdependence instead.

Even in EMDR (a modality that tries to quantify emotional healing), the most important moments aren’t about the number you rate your distress. They’re about what happens in your body. In your nervous system. In your story.

The truth is, healing doesn’t always look productive. But it is powerful.

Reframing Success After Political Burnout

In 2017, long before I found my path as a therapist, I burned out hard. Not just politically, but maybe especially politically. I burned out all the way into the hospital, into my bipolar diagnosis, into an intensive outpatient program. Once I started grad school, I felt myself retreat from public life and finally exhale for what felt like the first time in years.

And I knew in my heart I couldn’t show up the way I used to. I never wanted to go canvassing or phone banking again. I’d see others doing those things and feel a mix of guilt and grief. I was learning how to help people, but it didn’t feel “real” alongside my business plan. It didn’t feel “radical” enough. It didn’t feel like it counted if I wasn’t constantly sacrificing myself.

I had to reckon with the internalized belief that activism only counts if it hurts.

And yet—something else was growing in its place. I was learning how much I love making change at the individual and small group level. I was learning how good it feels to witness someone come back to themselves. I started to feel the power of deep listening, of collective processing, of nervous system regulation. But instead of feeling proud, I felt ashamed. Because I wasn’t trying to overthrow a system—I was helping someone not feel broken by it.

It took years for me to name this work as enough. And in many ways, I’m still practicing that. Still reminding myself that my impact doesn’t have to look the way it used to. That activism shaped by compassion is just as powerful as activism shaped by urgency. And sometimes even more sustainable.

Success doesn’t always look like a win. Sometimes it looks like rest. Sometimes it looks like staying in the room when your nervous system says to run. Sometimes it looks like choosing connection over correctness.

And honestly? I think that kind of success is revolutionary.

Small Steps I Help My Clients Take That Matter

So much of the work I do with my clients isn’t about massive life overhauls—it’s about building capacity through sustainable, embodied shifts. It’s work like:

• Learning how to name emotions without chasing them away with thoughts.

Instead of only intellectualizing or “fixing” their feelings, we practice sitting with them—gently, curiously—so they can be felt and processed instead of pushed down or problem-solved away.

• Figuring out what “yes” and “no” feel like in the physical body.

A lot of us, especially post-religious folks, were trained to override our inner knowing. Rebuilding that trust starts with tuning into body signals and honoring them, even when they feel inconvenient.

• Reducing the impact of news exposure.

This might mean creating a “safe space to scroll,” setting time boundaries, or learning how to re-regulate after being hit with overwhelming content. It’s not about avoidance—it’s about choosing what your nervous system can handle.

• Understanding their burnout skills.

We talk about the things they’re “good at” but that secretly drain them. Skills they’ve overused out of obligation, trauma, or survival—like being the go-to person, the emotional processor, the one who always says yes. Recognizing these patterns lets us build a life that feels more aligned, less extracted.

• Exploring what level of change their nervous system is best suited for.

Not everyone is meant to be in the streets—or online—or in policy work. Some people do their best work in one-on-one relationships, community spaces, or creative expression. And that’s not a flaw—it’s a fit.

• Identifying barriers to community and working to remove them.

Whether it’s shame, social anxiety, executive dysfunction, or bad past experiences, a lot of folks are lonely but deeply scared to reengage. We unpack those fears and start small—finding ways to reconnect without pressure or performance.

You’re not alone in the slowness 

The hardest part of healing from urgency is that urgency tells you healing needs to be fast, too.

But the truth is: slow change is still change.

The small things you’re doing—the boundaries, the awareness, the tiny brave decisions—they matter. You don’t need to have it all figured out to start feeling more like yourself again.

You just need a place to start. And if you want support in finding that starting place, I’d love to help.