Last week, I wrote about something I see all the time in therapy—and something many of us do with the best intentions. When someone we care about comes to us with a problem, we immediately jump into fixing it. We offer advice. We brainstorm solutions. We tell them what we would do. After all, if someone we love is hurting, of course we want to help. The problem is that sometimes people don’t need a solution right away. They need to feel heard.

Father’s Day is just around the corner—a time we often celebrate dads with barbecues, ties, and "World's Best Dad" mugs. But this year, I want to offer something different: a skill that can transform not just fatherhood, but every relationship a man treasures. That skill is listening.

May is a beautiful, complicated month. We celebrate mothers. We also honor Mental Health Awareness Month. And for many women—whether they're moms, stepmoms, grandmothers, foster moms, or caregivers who've never given birth—navigating personal needs while tending to everyone else can feel especially heavy this time of year.

Spring is full of ceremonies. But the real transition isn't the one on stage—it's the quiet one after: the first time someone who's always had a built-in community suddenly doesn't. No more dining hall with familiar faces. No more friends two doors down. Just a job search, an apartment, and the slow work of building a life from scratch. That's not just true for recent graduates. It's true for anyone who's ever moved to a new city, gone through a breakup, retired, or realized that adult friendships don't just happen anymore.

A few weeks ago I wrote an article from the edge of a desert. I was about to head into Death Valley, hoping to see wildflowers bloom. I’d been thinking a lot about dreams, about how our unconscious mind is really on our side, and how trauma can push the truth of who we are underground—like a seed, just waiting for rain.

A few weeks ago I attended a conference on dreams. The approach was Jungian. It shifted how I understand trauma. In EMDR therapy we talk about negative cognitions. These are beliefs your psyche forms after pain or trauma. They almost always fall into one of two categories.

I was in the middle of writing this article—a piece about my mom reuniting with her friend Evelyn—when my phone buzzed. It was a text from my own childhood best friend. The one I went to grade school with. The one I've written about before, in this very space, when I explored what it takes to "find your people again."