When your get up and go has gotten up and left…. The yield signs of life. Yield signs - signs that force us to slow down, to take our time, to move with caution. I absolutely adore this imagery! As a therapist and a fellow human, I use this concept in my work and my own life. These are the phases of life that force us to slow down, the times where exhaustion/grief/uncertainty has set in. When all we have left is to set it down and rest for a while. This can feel terrifying at

What is it, how we lose it, where it goes, what can happen when it’s gone, and why we need to find and nurture it to heal and live fully. I have been thinking a lot about self-trust lately. Here’s how the thoughts have rippled over the last few weeks: Epstein, Maxwell, and others, and their violence against women and girls. Violence against women and girls in general. My own experience with sexual violence and coersion as a young teenager. Patriarchal, colonial power dynamics

Hey everyone! This is my first blog post for Within The Seasons, and I want to thank you all for being here! My name is Allison Oke, my pronouns are she/her, and I am a therapist with Type 1 Diabetes. I’ve been in the helping profession since I was 23 years old. I started my career as a bedside Registered Nurse, and now I’m also a Psychotherapist with Seasons. How long have I been a type 1 diabetic? 32 years! Much longer than my career in the helping professions, and unfortun

Productivity used to live in numbers. Sometimes it still does. Boxes checked. Timers running. Morning routines that promised a better version of me if I followed them precisely enough. I thought the right arrangement of hours could turn me into someone calm, certain, accomplished. I treated time like a stubborn door. If I pushed hard enough, organized enough, optimized enough, it would open into a life that finally felt like mine. But time is not a door. It is weather. Some

When I sit with someone, conversation is never the first thing that arrives. The body speaks first. I notice shoulders that stay lifted even after a few minutes. Hands that rest near the edge of the chair. A breath that pauses halfway in, as if unsure whether it’s allowed to land. Eyes that map the room before they meet mine. Long before we talk about memories or coping or change, something quieter is happening. The nervous system is asking a more fundamental question: Is it

Hello everyone! Welcome, Welcome, Welcome! This is Karen, your friendly neighborhood Seasons therapist, and this week we are going to kick off our blog post with a little reality and a lot of vulnerability…. To be honest, the first experiences I had at the thought of contributing to a blog were filled with both fear and excitement! Though this is something I have always had interest in, narratives of not being good enough, fears of being seen, AND feelings of excitement at po

I ask myself this question most mornings as I stand in the kitchen, making my coffee to bring out to my office. It is part of my process of preparing my Self, my mind, body and soul, for my work. What is therapy? What is this beautiful thing I get to do with people each day?  I am aware that my intentionality as a therapist has a big impact on who I am and how I work, which has a very big impact on how my clients feel in my presence, and whether or not they feel safe with me.