Kristygrassmft

We hiked Timp!! 🏔️✨

Somewhere between the switchbacks, we started asking each other random questions. Neither of us had service, so we spent hours guessing, debating, building on each other’s theories, and laughing at how confidently wrong we probably were. 😂

As a systemic therapist, I love moments like this because we do not make meaning alone. The people around us can shift what we notice and how we understand our experiences.

It is pretty incredible to have a body that can carry me up a mountain and a friend beside me who challenges me to look at things through a more positive lens. I feel really lucky to have both. 💕

I’ve spent a lot of my life believing that belonging meant reading the room, adjusting myself, and proving how much I cared—trying to make myself easy to keep.

I’m learning that the right friendships don’t ask us to shrink, perform, or earn our place. They show us what safety, belonging, play, and mutual care can actually feel like.

Safe friendship doesn’t mean never struggling or experiencing rupture. It means we don’t have to abandon ourselves to stay connected. We don’t have to soften our color to belong. We’re allowed to be vibrant, full of life, and impossible to overlook.

We become ourselves in relationship. Choose people who make it safer to become more of you. 💕

Humans are so good at finding ways to cope to keep going. I am always in awe of what the brain can do to protect itself 😅

Meme credits were identifiable: Gülce Yavuz, , Jyotirgamya & . If you know the original creator of the first meme, please tag them so I can credit them! 🫶

Late to this trend, but better late than never 💅🏼

Kinda chic to keep figuring out how to be myself as the therapist.

If I ever wear business clothes or a cardigan, please know I am probably uncomfortable hahah. They are way too uncomfy, and I do not need a cardigan to prove I understand attachment theory🤪. I will most likely be wearing exercise clothes or whatever feels coziest to me that day.

I might swear when the situation deserves better vocabulary, and we will probably laugh in session.

I might say “I don’t know” when I don’t know. I will get curious with you. I will care enough to call you out without pretending I have you completely figured out.

I do not want to hide behind being a blank slate or a perfect therapist. I am still learning how to bring more of myself into the room while keeping the space about you.

Also, kinda chic to go to therapy when you’re the therapist. My therapist helps me keep becoming the therapist I wish I’d had, which is honestly rude because now I have to keep growing hahahah.💪

Therapy, but make it human. Imperfectly.

I’d like to bear my testimony that sometimes your therapist gets it wrong. 😂

Sometimes we misunderstand you. Sometimes we move too quickly. Sometimes we become so focused on helping you “see the pattern” that we stop being curious about why the pattern exists in the first place.

And sometimes what we call “resistance” is actually a client resisting our pace, our language, or the direction we decided healing should take.

That doesn’t mean therapists create all resistance or that clients never avoid change. It means therapy is a relationship between two actual humans, and only one of them has been professionally trained to take responsibility for what they bring into the room.

I won’t always say the perfect thing. I will occasionally ask a question that completely misses the point. But I want my clients to know they can tell me when something doesn’t land, when they disagree with me, or when they feel misunderstood.

You don’t have to perform healing correctly.

You don’t have to agree with your therapist.

And you definitely don’t have to protect your therapist from respectful feedback.
Good therapy isn’t a perfect therapist saying all the right things. It’s two humans being honest enough to notice what happened, repair it, and try again.

I know therapist accountability is true.
In the name of curiosity, repair, and doing better,

Amen. 😂

I’m gonna hold your hand when I say this… sometimes the common denominator is you. 😬

That doesn’t mean everyone else is innocent or that every conflict is your fault. It means healing requires enough courage to ask, “What part of this belongs to me?”

Therapy language can help us understand our patterns, and it can also become a very sophisticated way to avoid them. We can call control a boundary, call avoidance “protecting our peace,” explain our intentions instead of acknowledging our impact, and stay focused on the other person’s behavior so we never have to examine our own.

You can be self-aware and still be harmful.
You can communicate calmly and still be cruel.

You can have a valid point and still handle it poorly.

Taking ownership doesn’t make you the villain. It makes actual change possible.

And honestly? Accountability is sexy as hell. 🥵

What’s a “healthy” behavior you’ve realized you were using to protect yourself from accountability?

Yes, my body has changed. I know people have noticed. But this is NOT a weight loss post!

The goal was never to make my body smaller. The goal was to build a life that actually felt like mine.

I’ve been doing a lot of trauma work. Learning to live aligned with my values, set boundaries, listen to myself, stop hiding, and be okay being seen.

And somewhere in all of that, my relationship with my body changed too.

I preach body neutrality, but the truth is, I wasn’t neutral about mine. I hated her. I punished her. I wasn’t honest about how much resentment I carried toward my own body.

But my body was also one of my biggest protectors. If someone rejected me, I could blame my body. If I hid, I didn’t have to risk letting someone fully see me.

I don’t need my body to protect me that way anymore.

And maybe that’s the biggest change. Not that my body is smaller. It’s that I’m not hiding inside of it anymore.

Holy s**t, I’m grateful for this body. For my stretch marks. For a body that moves through yoga, carries me up mountains, runs, lifts heavy s**t, dances for hours, hugs my friends, and lets me experience this weird, beautiful life.

I used to punish my body because I hated her. Now I take care of her because I want her around for a really fu***ng long time.

My body isn’t more worthy of love now because it’s smaller. Every body deserves care, pleasure, rest, nourishment, joy, and the right to take up space—regardless of shape or size.

And my body will change again. She’ll age, soften, strengthen, stretch, get bigger or smaller.

She doesn’t have to stay like this to keep my love.

I’m not proud because I got smaller. I’m proud because I stopped hiding.

Body neutrality taught me my body didn’t have to look a certain way to deserve care. But neutrality doesn’t describe where I am anymore.

I love my body. Not because she’s smaller. Because she’s mine.

If you’re struggling to build a relationship with your body or a life that truly feels like yours, that’s the work I love doing with people. Reach out. Link in bio. 🖤

I’ve loved Dolly since I was a little girl. I don’t think I understood then how much she was teaching me about femininity, power, love, and what it means to live as yourself. I just knew that looking at her made me feel like there might be room in the world for girls like me too.

I grew up in a family that valued sports, toughness, and not being “too girly.” I was made fun of for loving feminine things. Dolly showed me that I never had to make myself harder or less sparkly to be powerful.

Dolly never made happiness feel naïve. She made it feel like a practice. Looking for the light doesn’t mean pretending the darkness isn’t there. It can mean the darkness doesn’t get to have everything.

Dolly stood up for LGBTQIA+ people, Black lives, and people whose humanity was being debated by others. She showed me that loving people means believing they deserve dignity and freedom, even when standing beside them costs you something.

Dolly never made herself smaller, quieter, or easier to understand. She knew exactly who she was and built an entire life around being her on purpose.

There is a difference between being accepted because you made yourself fit and belonging because you showed up as yourself. Dolly helped me believe I could stop auditioning for spaces that required me to disappear.

Dolly had a way of making people feel like there was room for all of them. She taught me that acceptance isn’t just something you say you believe in. It’s how you treat people when they are different from you, struggling, or still figuring themselves out.

Dolly built something extraordinary and then used what she had to pour back into her community. She taught me that love is more than warmth or good intentions. It’s giving your time, money, voice, and power to make someone else’s life better. She stood on business. 😭

Dolly knew people confused femininity with a lack of intelligence, and she let them underestimate her while she built an empire. She taught me that being smart doesn’t have to look serious. You can laugh, wear the rhinestones, and still be the one making the smartest moves in the room.

Not everything has to be a lesson. Sometimes you just get to lose yourself in the bass, be fully yourself, find your people, and have a damn good time!💕

But once the music stopped, I realized how much this version of me had to say. 🤭💜⚡️
Das Energi Festival | SLC EDM Festival

Happy Pride Month!
This June, we celebrate the LGBTQIA+ community’s resilience, resistance, and the ongoing fight for equality. ✊

Why Pride? ️‍
Pride Month commemorates the Stonewall Riots of 1969, a pivotal moment when LGBTQIA+ patrons at a New York City bar fought back against a police raid. This act of courage ignited a movement for LGBTQIA+ rights.

It’s more than rainbows and glitter. ✨
Pride is a protest. It’s a celebration of diversity. It’s a reminder that the fight for social justice continues. Many LGBTQIA+ individuals still face discrimination, bullying, and violence.

How can therapy help?
A therapist who is affirming of LGBTQIA+ identities can provide a safe space to explore your journey, navigate challenges, and celebrate your authentic self.

Here are some resources: ️‍
* The Trevor Project: 1-866-488-7386 (Provides crisis intervention and su***de prevention services to LGBTQ+ youth.)
* National Center for Transgender Equality: National Center for Transgender Equality
* Human Rights Campaign: Human Rights Campaign

Pride & Palestine: Intersectional Solidarity ️‍🇵🇸
The fight for LGBTQIA+ rights is intrinsically linked to the fight for liberation for all. This Pride Month, let’s stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people who are also struggling for freedom and self-determination.
Let’s celebrate Pride with joy and purpose. Be an ally, speak up, and support LGBTQIA+ rights everywhere!