Kayte Heslet, MS, LMFT

Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist in Los Angeles.Intersectional, culturally conscious, trauma informed, social justice informed, flexible fee mental health therapy for adults, kids, teens, and families.

[kaytetherapy]

We could all use some ways to connect with our own sense of peace these days. I’m hoping to post a series of tools for managing the stress and anxiety of uncertainty as we navigate the COVID-19 pandemic together as a community. . [[RESOURCING]] I invite you to bring to the front of your mind a person, place, or thing (a resource) that brings you the feeling you’re needing most right now: safety, connection, calm, solitude? Now if you’d like to, sense into what’s happening in your body as you think of this resource. As you notice what’s happening inside, try to connect even more deeply with these internal sensations to describe whether they have any qualities you notice—location in your body, shape, size, color, temperature, texture? Try to think about more details about your resource, a particularly strong favorite memory of it, a special detail about it? Notice what happens inside as you deepen your emotional connection to your resource. Do you notice any more pleasant sensations that come forward? Do the pleasant sensations move or shift at all from how you initially noticed them? Whenever you’re ready, just allow yourself to notice what it feels like to turn your intentional effort toward thinking about this resource and notice how it feels to know you can do this whenever you want or need to, and when you shift back to your present surroundings and situation, check in and see if you notice a difference in your state from before you resourced. Remember that this tool is in your toolbox for whenever you want to practice it. Part of what is so helpful about resourcing is that it can help you develop more awareness of what it feels like when you have pleasant or neutral sensations, vs. the hyperawareness we tend to have of our negative sensations. . Resourcing is a tool I learned within the Trauma Resiliency/Community Resiliency Models. Please check out the book Building Resilience to Trauma by Elaine Miller-Karas for more info, or go to TraumaResourceInstitute.com / @traumaresourceinstitute . #StressRelief #TraumaResiliencyModel #TraumaRecovery #CopingSkills #MentalHealth #COVID_19 #Coronavirus #AnxietyRelief #AnxietyCoping #CopingWithAnxiety https://www.instagram.com/p/B9-Fsh0AbJm/?igshid=bcxrat321kkp

[kaytetherapy]

At the start of November, I moved to a new office location in Studio City, CA and my plant corner is absolutely loving the room to stretch its arms and legs. 🌱💚🌿 . To get a little radically vulnerable and honest with you, it was very scary for me to take a big leap—the reality of a 15 mile office move in LA could mean a huge increase in travel time for my existing clients, and I was very afraid of creating a hardship for the clients who had been going to my previous office for months and even years. I was afraid that, by putting my own need to work closer to home (managing my own chronic health conditions, the overall stress of the drive was really getting to me, no matter how many car snacks and audiobooks and podcasts and punk rock I tried), that I would risk losing the hard work I had put in for two years already building a thriving private practice. So I found myself asking over and over whether this was really a good idea, and what if everything falls apart and I have to start all over again? What if, by expressing and caring for my own needs, I would hurt others and ruin everything I have? . I work with clients who ask themselves that question all the time (consciously and less consciously)! I find it is one of my greatest feelings of connectedness and success when I can help someone to learn that caring for their needs is not only NOT selfish, but will only enrich our experience of life and relationships because it takes the pressure off of the important others to do work that is for us ourselves to do, and frees our connections with those people we love to revolve around choice versus being constantly occupied with how the other person is feeling and if we made them mad or upset etc etc etc. . Now as December begins, I look back on this successful transition in my life and I am so excited and grateful for the opportunity to flex the muscle of giving importance to my own needs and trusting others to do what is right for their needs, and strengthening the foundation of my own experience of being well and healthy. It is truly by doing our own constant work that we therapists have anything to offer those who seek our help. Always growing. 💚 (at Studio City, California) https://www.instagram.com/p/B5gW2Hcg2tZ/?igshid=fqg3bbgiq4ov

[kaytetherapy]

Don’t let the way someone else feels or treats you make you believe that you are difficult to love. You are easy to love. Their challenges are separate from your deservingness. #therapy #psychology #selfworth #relationships #love #trauma #ptsd #healingfromtrauma #resiliency #traumarecovery #traumaresilience #mentalhealth https://www.instagram.com/p/B24oIwugIUZ/?igshid=agu2ntwsxdf8

[kaytetherapy]

#mentalhealth #vulnerability #psychology #therapy #trauma #ptsdrecovery #depression #anxiety #healing https://www.instagram.com/p/B2xk3jmgLsq/?igshid=l44j4apy1sb1

[kaytetherapy]

It’s easy sometimes, when we’re scrolling through Instagram, to see the many mental health resources here and feel like we should try everything we read about and it should work for us because an expert is telling us it works! And maybe every tip or trick or suggestion or positive thought you’ve ever seen on Instagram really does work well for someone who reads it, but that doesn’t mean it has to work for YOU. . When I think about all of the thousands of people I’ve spoken with in the 12 years I’ve been a therapist, I really couldn’t tell you that any two of those people were exactly the same, or even that I as an experienced therapist know exactly what will work for each new person I meet. And I can forgive myself for not knowing exactly which coping tool or communication method will be The Best One for each person because I’m not them, I’m not the expert on who they are, just a support person and ideas person and helper person who wants to share with others about what my educational and clinical experiences have taught me can help, but even more than that, what my human experiences have taught me can help. . But I worry sometimes that there’s a person out there seeing a tip or trick or skill on Instagram and trying it out, and then feeling awkward or finding it unhelpful—or even feeling like it triggered much worse experiences or feelings—and then blaming themselves for it not working the way they had hoped. . When something doesn’t work for you, it’s not your fault or something you’re doing wrong! NOT EVERYTHING IS FOR EVERYONE! Not everything has to be, or even should be, for everyone. I think the idea that we should all benefit from the same things is rooted in #ableism and insensitive concepts of #wellness that just don’t apply to the real world or real people. The truth is we are each our own person with our own resiliency, our own triggers, our own triumphs, our own sensitivities, our own expert knowledge of ourselves. We all deserve our own healing and wellness and resilience when difficult things happen. You already, right now in this moment, have exactly what you need to find yours... (hint: it’s you). . Happy first day of #MentalHealthMonth! https://www.instagram.com/p/Bw7QGM8AyKM/?igshid=yeemsyua4ihk

[kaytetherapy]

I absolutely love this message, and I share the perspective that therapists are just real people, who have (in the present tense) and have had their own struggles. I consider myself a witness to your expertise on your own life, and a supporter of your own discovery and journey. And the only reason I can be either is because I’m not in your life. I’m just here, hearing you about what’s going on and trying to shine a light on you. . REPOST from @counseling4allseasons: If you’re worried about disclosing something to your therapist just remember this: every therapist is just a human being who has fucked up things in their own life and still struggles with their own issues. Don’t let any therapist lead you to believe otherwise. Being a therapist means they know tools and interventions due to study & experience. They can help because they are not “in” your day to day life. That’s it. I know some therapists like to be performative and make it seem that in their own life they never have conflict or problems or say the wrong thing. WRONG. Sometimes the fear to disclose to a therapist is feeling that your therapist will judge, and if they do- that therapist isn’t being real with themselves. As a therapist, I tell clients am not an expert in their life, they are. Therapists are just ppl. #therapists #counselors #justpeople #everyonestruggles #realtalk #counseling4allseasons #therapy #disclosure #judgement #therapysession #weallfuckup https://www.instagram.com/p/BtHLre-H8VL/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=cjm8bqtkwvj9

[kaytetherapy]

If you wonder how to get more from your therapy, consider some of these great suggestions! [resource by @bodyimage_therapist and posted by @thefatsextherapist] . This also made me think of an important point about communication with your therapist. Has your therapist ever said something you disagreed with? Said something that bothered you? Said something that offended or hurt you? Something that constituted or perpetuated oppression against you? If you didn’t feel safe to confront it when it happened, then perhaps your therapist is at best doing you a disservice, or at worst is harming you and participating actively in your marginalization and oppression. . And if you’re a therapist and you have never questioned yourself about these matters, it’s time to consider that you may be actively harming your clients by not considering your potential to engage in microaggressions, invalidation, erasure, minimizing, prejudice, oppression, and direct harm. Safety cannot be created in the therapeutic relationship, and healing cannot be approached, without considering that you can cause serious harm to vulnerable people in your own limitations of understanding. This is why I see therapy requiring both a trauma-informed approach and a social justice-informed approach. . #mentalhealth #therapy #therapist #therapists #vulnerability #radicalvulnerability #selfcare #radicalselfcare #socialjustice #trauma #traumahealing #healingfromtrauma #kaytetherapy https://www.instagram.com/p/Bs6D5nSHW-T/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=pjj69wl8xc8m

[kaytetherapy]

Some people find it easy to give love and care to someone else who is hurt or needs something from them, but find it hard to do the same for themselves when they’re feeling badly. Some people find it easy to recognize others’ needs, but struggle to know how to tune in when they feel or need something. . Having difficulty feeling compassion for oneself is something many people experience, and there are many ways to learn how to be softer with yourself. Sometimes, this experience is related to the ways we learn to treat our emotional experiences as children, and when our feelings aren’t responded to or acknowledged as important (perhaps because our parent/s or caregivers experienced the same, or are busy with multiple jobs and aren’t attuned to children’s emotional experiences, or have serious illnesses, or sometimes are abusive or neglectful), we don’t learn how to feel good about expressing our feelings and seeing someone else understand and respond to us. So we don’t learn that it’s a rewarding experience to share or connect with our feelings, and it makes sense that we might stop trying to express them or not learn to value them, because we haven’t seen that the ways we feel are important or have value to someone else. . Self-compassion can sometimes be easiest to practice when we imagine ourselves in the place of a loved one, such as a close friend. How would I care for a friend who shared they were feeling this way? Would I blame them for their feeling? Would I reject their feelings as invalid? Would I patiently listen and show them acceptance and love? When we attune to the ways we might show compassion to a loved one, we can start to figure out how to translate these loving responses to ourselves when we are in need. . For more reading, click the link in my bio to find the article “7 Signs You Grew Up with Childhood Emotional Neglect” by Dr. Jonice Webb. . #radicalselfcare #radicalselfcompassion #vulnerability #mentalhealth #selfacceptance #loveyourself #therapy #emotionalneglect #childhoodemotionalneglect #selfcompassion #healing #healingfromtrauma #kaytetherapy https://www.instagram.com/p/Bss98svn0Zb/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=58qe0wkd380z

[kaytetherapy]

Let me introduce you to someone who has taught me a lot about the importance of communicating needs. This is one of my family’s two cats, the girl of a brother-sister duo. She’s always been fairly shy and anxious, but when she’s in contexts that feel safe, really seems to bloom into a loving, very emotionally connected and sensitive little being. . It took me well into adulthood (with plenty of good therapy) to really understand that I had always had trouble identifying what I needed, and asking for those things in relationships. Sometimes, our environments prevent or distort the practice of communicating needs and feelings directly, or maybe it isn’t encouraged and/or responded to. It can then be a real challenge to know what to do when we’re unhappy in a situation, or hurt or upset by someone, for example. . Many people have told me they don’t know why they feel uncomfortable telling someone else, “you hurt my feelings,” or “I felt [abc] when you [xyz],” and that they often just keep it inside. Inevitably, the person they’re upset with notices that something is wrong, asks what’s the matter, and a big fight ensues, because there’s so much unspoken emotion going on that’s being kept locked up tight! What could change about that pattern if we might just be able to let someone know that we’re hurting or upset, and that we need caring for? . You can see in this video, my cat is communicating with me in many different ways, with touch, guiding my hand to her head, hopping up to meet my hand with her head, even with bites to let me know this is important to her! She may often keep to herself and not ask much of us, but when she needs affection and attention, she is assertive and clear in her communication, and that gets her goal met. . What if we humans can also communicate more clearly when we need repair from a partner after a painful rupture in our relationship, or need reconnection with a friend who has seemed to drift away, or need some positive affirmation from a parent who seems very critical? Communicating a need allows others the chance to show up for us, and allows us to open to receive love! For many reasons it can be far from easy, but we can always try. https://www.instagram.com/p/Bsdz9R5HK9m/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1krxvsyuqtr5q

[kaytetherapy]

I’m always struck by articles targeting the millennial generation and the many perceptions of what’s wrong with millennials. . Often, this popular cultural stereotype portrays the entire US-American generation of people born between 1981-2000 as needlessly complainy, entitled, expectant of participation trophies, self(ie)-obsessed, don’t value hard work, financially illiterate and wasteful, the disappointing lazy products of overly soft parenting. . And the people popularizing these opinions frequently fail to examine this generation’s experience of the impact of the very real forces of massive-scale economic distress due to an imbalanced and inequitable economic system; the global political failure to preserve humanity from environmental destruction; increased political instability, corruption, and violence; the mindblowingly consistent increase in dangerously xenophobic, racist, and oppressive governments (including the one right here in our own home); the routinizing of institutionalized violence on people of color by police, the court system, and the jail system; the all but total invalidation of college degrees as a safe entry point to a desirable career path; the terrible and extremely long-term weight of debt from student loans to credit cards; persistent and widespread wealth inequity that robs humans of everything from fair access to quality food to education to housing to legal services to health care to child care to livable wages to freedom to live without fear of being killed for one’s identity. . Millennials are actually the generation who has collectively recognized the indignities of the world they were born to, and answers, “we don’t accept this and we demand that it should be better.” Millennials can be identified by: listening to the voices of all people and especially the most vulnerable, advocacy, speaking out, marching, demonstrating, spreading information and knowledge, and actually coming together to put potential new practices into writing and running for office to directly create change. . Clink the link in my bio to read the Buzzfeed News article “How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation.” #therapy #mentalhealth #kaytetherapy https://www.instagram.com/p/BsRWvn5ntao/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1v4pkgmg70oe4

[kaytetherapy]

Loving this chart I’ve seen going around the past couple of days, just in time for New Year’s Resolutions. Take a cue from Miss Piggy, and appreciate you for you. 💕 . #therapy #mentalhealth #selfacceptance #vulnerability #loveyourself #radicalselflove #selfcompassion #feelinmyself #kaytetherapy https://www.instagram.com/p/BsJnMeCnzl2/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1r5rrq71jklww

[kaytetherapy]

Sometimes someone can say something so real, so succinctly, so perfectly, and they don’t even have to be a therapist or some research-conducting psychological expert, just an expert in feeling their own feelings, and we can instantly relate, right? I love funny observations like this because it shows us that there’s more than one way to look at problems that feel so heavy and horrible, and if we can believe that, we can believe there’s more than one way to solve them. If you can laugh about it, you can look at it, and if you can look at it, you can also find the way to solving it. Tweet by @annabroges, via @latinxtherapy. #selfcaresunday #selfcarecanbelaughingattweets #whilestillinyourpjsat230pm #therapy #mentalhealth #humor #vulnerability #emotions #tooscary #farfartooscarybyfar #maybetrytalkingaboutit #nothankscanwegobacktotalkingaboutcats #kaytetherapy https://www.instagram.com/p/BrLuk9tH3vM/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=9r3tmgneqpvq

[kaytetherapy]

“If you feel like you don’t fit into the world you inherited, it is because you were born to help create a new one.” - Ross Caligiuri, Dreaming in the Shadows . You’re the one who can make the world you dream of living in. You are the architect and builder. . #therapy #mentalhealth #vulnerability #creativity #originality #uniqueness #selflove #youbeyou #kaytetherapy https://www.instagram.com/p/Bq5ZQQeHHom/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=as0ytqp2o4ho

[kaytetherapy]

[quote by @nikita_gill] . Given the violent colonialist history of Thanksgiving, it’s difficult for me to find celebration in it, but I can always try to connect to the feeling of gratitude when I am struggling with other, more difficult feelings and experiences. . I am grateful for you (yes, person reading this, I mean you). I am grateful for the ways you learned to survive in your immediate environments and in the larger world around you. I am grateful for the tools you learned that got you from childhood to here. I am grateful for who you are, and what is special in you that was forged in the joy and pain and fear and love in your own unique experience and story. . Thinking of you, the person who has a challenging time during the holiday seasons, being in close proximity to things that have caused you pain before, but wanting to still give what you can to the people who you can give to. Your opportunity, in these times of close interaction with the people who may have been part of or much of the cause of your pain, is to look as much as you can into the Whys of that pain, the Why of your adaptive responses to it, the Why of the benefits and challenges that those responses bring to your current experience. I don’t ask you to accept the pain you were dealt or the reasons it was dealt to you, but I ask you to accept and offer love to the parts of you that lived through it, were affected and molded by it, and survived it to become the person you are now. All of you deserves your love and curiosity, and maybe someday your understanding and appreciation, maybe eventually your complete acceptance and even celebration. Care for the hurt parts and the survivor parts of you today. I’m thankful and grateful you found the way to be here. . . #mentalhealth #family #holidays #psychology #survivor #abuse #neglect #therapy #nikitagill #nikitagillquote #kaytetherapy https://www.instagram.com/p/BqgCWPFHuhd/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=v0m9zmlhhqxi

[kaytetherapy]

So many people have a hard time with “self love” and so often, it’s because we have learned a specific set of values (e.g., success and accomplishments, working hard, caretaking, pushing feelings away to be ‘strong’) from the people/circumstances around us as we grew up. We repeat the behaviors and self-appraisals we learned from those values and sometimes end up feeling like we’re on a never-ending search. . Of course we sometimes have trouble loving ourselves or showing ourselves the love we would show another, because so often, there is no way to find an end goal to those learned values, and we work ourselves to exhaustion trying to be those things and do those things more and more and more. It’s like we are searching for a treasure we haven’t seen before, but we feel certain it must be out there somewhere because we were told long ago that it would be. . But as we grow, we often meet new people with new systems of values, new ways of loving the people around them, new treasure maps. Friends, friends’ parents, romantic partners, mentors, teachers, coaches, faith leaders, therapists, all kinds of people who have had different and similar experiences to ours. We’re given the gift of learning new ways that someone else loves us, and the idea that there are SO MANY lovable and valuable things about us is part of an entirely new treasure map of the exact same sea. It’s a fact: there are so many lovable and valuable things about you, and maybe you haven’t had a treasure map that noted where they were, until you found that someone else had marked those things on their own map, knowing what values those things really hold. . We learn how to love ourselves more wholly by being loved well and wholly by those around us. Those people who expand our learned maps of who we are and what previously-invisible-to-us, long-buried treasures are within us. . . [image description: photo of a brick wall with text: “We learn a lot about how to love ourselves through the ways that others show us love.”] . #therapy #mentalhealth #selflove #loveyourself #emotionalsupport #vulnerability #empathy #radicalempathy #kaytetherapy https://www.instagram.com/p/BpFf6ftHa2_/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1rodxwis0gvuw

[kaytetherapy]

This World Mental Health Day, I feel it’s important to talk about some of the barriers many people face in accessing mental health care and professional support. This image by the wonderful @makedaisychains illuminates a lot of the external factors that can limit access. . As a mental health care provider, I feel it’s my duty and responsibility to be aware of these factors and to do what I can to help increase access to therapy. One way I do that is by listening to people of all kinds of different backgrounds and experiences so that I can understand more about what it’s like to be someone whose life is different from mine. Increasing our empathy is an important thing in a culture that seems to perpetuate violence, erasure, silencing, minimization, and harm to anyone who is “different.” We can all be part of rejecting that way of thinking by practicing empathy toward everyone, and educating ourselves about others’ experiences by listening, reading, and supporting. . Another way I actively try to minimize access barriers is by offering a flexible fee structure so that therapy can be affordable for my clients. When I was first looking for therapy of my own, long before I was a therapist, I found therapists who offered reduced fees and it was the only reason I was able to afford therapy. It has always been important to me to make sure that someone who wants to engage in therapy is not shut out just because of money. You’re worth it, you deserve to have what you need to feel good, and your existence on this earth should never have to be dependent upon whether you can afford it. . As long as we keep looking out for each other, we can build a culture-wide net to catch everyone before they fall through the cracks. That’s the goal. ❤️ . #therapy #mentalhealth #empathy #radicalempathy #vulnerability #kaytetherapy . . . [repost from @makedaisychains] https://www.instagram.com/p/BoxdO9sn4Vj/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=tl4p2kv0y48u

[purplebuddhaquotes]

Make sure you don’t start seeing yourself through the eyes of those who don’t value you. Know your worth, even if they don’t.

Thema Davis (via purplebuddhaquotes)