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Michelle Levy

Home: Family

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Home: Family

This November, MHT is participating in the Miry’s List Friendsgiving Fundraising Drive. The money goes to programs that support refugee families that have been resettled in the United States. In tandem with these efforts, our clinicians are writing posts reflecting on what home means to them.

Home is where you find your heart, over and over again. Maybe in new ways, maybe in familiar ways, maybe in challenging ways…

“Family” came to me most strongly as I first associated to the word “Home.” Recently, several family members and friends were evacuated from fires in the middle of the night in Los Angeles. Experiences like these have a way of heightening our senses and awareness and bringing crystal clarity to what we value, what we cherish, and what is most important.

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Family has become the people in my life that I love, that support me, and who I support - the people that surround me; made up of blood relatives, friends, colleagues, and sometimes even an unexpected stranger where one of us meets the other and there’s a need or maybe a shared meaningful experience or a joy.

“Home is where the heart is” as the saying goes…I had a strong sense of home as a young child – very strong in fact. And for me home meant the physical home I lived in, my parents, my close neighbors, teacher, a few very close friends, school and our kitty furball at home.

Over time there were some big changes and my sense of home had to be expanded to new places, new people and other new loves. As much as I loved my first home, and wow, did I love it there!  – the grass outside, the canyon with the blackberries, the sunshine, and sunken living room with the music playing…it needed the people, the community, and the belonging within context to really locate me as HOME.

It was again clear more than ever that home is where you find your heart, over and over again. Maybe in new ways, maybe in familiar ways, maybe in challenging ways…

I am blessed to have a location to reside – a place I can go that is safe to live and to call home. I have a container for the experiences of my life in my dwelling, and in the dwellings of those I call family. And these places root me and provide memories that root me as well, in the neighborhoods, the stores, the familiar sights, sounds, smells of the blooms as they come and go, the rain, and, of course, food - the associations I have learned though the day to day, week to week, year to year living.

Miry’s List has a specialness in its mission in that it looks at home in all the ways we as humans need to feel we are safe - to feel like we have a sense of belonging; located in space and time with people that care and that we care for as well. Miry’s List goes beyond the obvious to what we all know constitutes real home. HOME is where the heart is…and our heart is housed in a body in space and time with an intricate working system to support it, keeping it pumping happily, resiliently, and strongly.

Miry’s List has a specialness in its mission in that it looks at home in all the ways we as humans need to feel we are safe - to feel like we have a sense of belonging; located in space and time with people that care and that we care for as well.

HERE'S HOW YOU CAN PARTICIPATE IN FRIENDSGIVING WITH US:

Give! Visit our Miry’s List campaign page and make a donation. It's that simple and no sum is too small. Truly.

Follow! Be sure to follow us on Instagram and our blog throughout the month of November. We will be reflecting on what it means to be welcomed, received, and known.

Share!  Help us spread the word. You can do this by sharing our social media posts or links to our Miry’s List Friendsgiving Fundraiser page.

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A little about Miry’s List:
Refugee families come to the United States seeking a safe haven from violence and persecution in their home countries. They leave behind family and friends, as well as virtually everything they own. Many Americans, seeing these families in their communities, wonder: What can I do to help? Miry's List provides a mechanism for people to directly help new arrival refugee families with the things that they need to get started in their new lives – from diapers to beds to cleaning supplies and toiletries. To learn more, visit miryslist.org.


Michelle Levy, PhD, is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist. Dr. Levy’s clinical interests focus on parenting practices, attachment, child mental health and developmental concerns as well as the effects of trauma on youth, families and communities. 

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Women are Powerful

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Women are Powerful

Owning our voices safely is not always easy to do. We cannot do that alone by sheer will. We are social beings through and through. We are deeply influenced and affected by one another, and therefore, deeply vulnerable in one another’s company...When we feel we lose our power, it is as if we are boxed in.

WOMEN ARE POWERFUL. This phrase was inspired by a young client who is not yet an adult woman. It has special meaning for her because she has experienced bullying and yet is a strong, bright, and compassionate girl. She is finding healing in the midst of the messiness and owning her voice – her vulnerability, her fierceness, her unflinching sense of justice, her laughter, her grace, and her ability to say what is true for the sheer simple reason that it IS true. What she knew of women and girls was that we have a voice AND that each voice is strong - this IS powerful.

Owning our voices safely is not always easy to do. We cannot do that alone by sheer will. We are social beings through and through. We are deeply influenced and affected by one another, and therefore, deeply vulnerable in one another’s company. We have a whole field of social psychology that has shown us this. When we feel we lose our power, it is as if we are boxed in.

What I found fascinating, and also frustrating, while searching for a word to describe what women are to me, is that words have often have the unintentional effect of boxing us in. Each word has a cultural connotation and means something different to the person hearing it. Now, THIS is powerful, too. For example, women are POWERFUL. Maybe I mean that women are strong and able to connect deeply to themselves and others; are able to unarm someone’s defenses with a smile and a few words spoken in the right tone at the right time. That is powerful, that is beautiful, and that is love in a sense.

Now, but what does POWERFUL mean in a cultural context? Perhaps a powerful person is seen as domineering, controlling, and ruthless. And we have heard, at times, that strong and/or powerful woman can be intimidating or worse…

So, I ask myself, what kind of power has most value to me, in my world? How do I want to show up or stand up?

I want my power to come through in my listening, in my attuning to myself, to others, to my family, to my friends, to the tree outside my window, and to the sand beneath my feet when the ocean water flows gently around my legs from it’s source. The power of love I feel when I look at the night sky with the moon and the stars reflecting in my eyes. And the power to say no, to stand up, to not back down, the power to fight – all when necessary. Power to discriminate or to discern.

“They” say we are at a crossroads in our humanity on this planet. And maybe that is true. I ask you, what is real power? What does it mean to be powerful in the most beautiful interpretation of the word?

For me, what is powerful is both my vulnerability and my fierceness. BOTH are necessary.

I bow to you, to us, to our humanity, to what makes us the same, so we may support each other in our differences and in our sameness. To not give up on ourselves, to remember to use the power that is our birthright. The power of our hands, of our voice, of our heart, of our minds, and of our feelings of connection.


HERE'S HOW YOU CAN PARTICIPATE IN DRESSEMBER WITH US:

Give! Visit our Dressember page and make a donation. It's that simple and no sum is too small. Truly.

Follow! Be sure to follow us on Instagram and our blog throughout the month of December. We will be documenting our fierce fashion choices but our deepest intention is to empower and educate.

Share!  Help us spread the word. You can do this by sharing our social media posts or links to our Dressember fundraising campaign page.


Michelle Levy, PhD, is a Registered Psychological Assistant #PSB94024010 working under the supervision of Gabrielle Taylor, PhD. Dr. Levy’s clinical interests focus on parenting practices, attachment, child mental health and developmental concerns as well as the effects of trauma on youth, families and communities. 

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Paced Out?

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Paced Out?

My guide sent me out with a friend, but we parted company some hours ago, as she was attracted to the crest of a hill, and I was attracted to the womb of the valley. We had been instructed to vocalize loudly once we honed our location - to help us release what needed to be released.

I found the most private area I could, nestled in the valley with trees around me, in a little gully. I decided to start slowly with just a little air reverberating through my vocal chords, and then gradually allowed myself to grow louder. To my surprise, the louder I got the better it felt until I was really belting with my mouth wide open. After some time, the vocalizing faded as tears came, offering their own gifts about where I had left my self. With the tears came an understanding that I had been leaving MY pace over and over again in ways that I moved internally in my own being and externally in relationship to the world.

Where does our pacing come from? – not the pacing that has been conditioned, but our pacing that connects us to ourselves and to our world organically and in ways that sync us.

I learned a lot about myself that day. I understood that in pushing and not listening to regular visceral calls back to my center, it had the capacity to effect small things, like a lovely meal, or large things, like missing a job opportunity, a relationship, a treasured project, or even my sense of feeling safe and loved by ME. And it seems somewhat cumulative – the more my pacing is off each moment, the more it dominoes. For when my pacing is off, my connection to myself is also off.

Coming back to myself and where I was internally long ago…in the womb, before the womb. Where does our pacing come from? – not the pacing that has been conditioned, but our pacing that connects us to ourselves and to our world organically and in ways that sync us. And how does our pace work to harmonize with all the other paces and rhythms we encounter, like a river that flows fast at times, and meanders slowly at other times, even catching in stillness in moments maybe near the shore or in a shallow pool between rocks?

Like most of us, I imagine, when we lose our pacing, we lose so much more. Staying with my body, it seems to know more even than my mind…about how to bring me back. Our bodies are wired to find their way back when we get help with how to connect to their wisdom, how to read the signals we are being given. In a fast paced, often disorienting world, our organic pace may be one of our greatest strengths, greatest friends, and very welcomed ally to those around us.


Michelle Levy, PhD, is a Registered Psychological Assistant #PSB94024010 working under the supervision of Gabrielle Taylor, PhD. Dr. Levy’s clinical interests focus on parenting practices, attachment, child mental health and developmental concerns, as well as the effects of trauma on youth, families and communities. 

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Granny Joy

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Granny Joy

When thinking about what I would write on the topic of joy, my mind immediately landed on my paternal grandmother. Her name is Simcha, which means Joy in Hebrew. I used to call her “Granny Joy.” She would have been 100 years old this past year if she were still here in physical form.

[Joy] seems like an internal state that comes from our being, and it seems tied to being able to feel present in the moment.

What strikes me as significant about my grandmother and JOY, is that she experienced tragedy and struggle in her life, yet, by the time I got to meet her, her joy seemed to be so available regardless. Granted, she had seven children, 16 grandchildren, and twenty-something great grandchildren to feel joyful about, (well, and to worry about), but there was and is something very meaningful and significant to me about my grandmother and joy.

If my grandmother were alive and I asked her what gave her the most joy, outside of her family, she hands down would have said gardening. And why gardening? Because it took her mind off of everything and brought her into the present moment with beauty, with the earth, with the roses, with the poppies, the squash, the green beans, the peach tree, the avocado tree, plum tree, and the fig tree. It brought her hands into the earth – into the soil with the seeds.

My grandmother could laugh, and she did – a lot. She laughed in conversation with others - this joyful laughter that seemed to come when she was in the company of others.

As I mentioned, she experienced loss and heartache and pain, just like the rest of us, yet this didn’t seem to interfere with her ability to feel joy. Yes, during those times of great suffering, I imagine it absolutely interfered. But in her life, in general, there was this ability to find the joy again and again by doing things that spoke to her soul, to her being. Gardening and family were those things for her. She didn’t seem to need to chase the joy, she seemed to connect to what she loved and the joy would start coming through her.

In thinking about my grandmother, how I experience joy, and how my friends have described their experiences with it to me, it seems like an internal state that comes from our being, and it seems tied to being able to feel present in the moment.

The safety, security and feeling of love I feel when I think of my Granny Joy, of Simcha, feels deeply rooted in her love for her family, her ability to nurture us and her own ability to connect to the JOY that she could bring through her. There is something safe and nurturing about joy - something that feels organic, authentic, deeply alive, and available to everyone.


Michelle Levy, PhD, is a Registered Psychological Assistant #PSB94024010 working under the supervision of Gabrielle Taylor, PhD. Dr. Levy’s clinical interests focus on parenting practices, attachment, child mental health and developmental concerns, as well as the effects of trauma on youth, families and communities. 

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