Newsletter: Maybe Nothing Changed This Summer, and Maybe That’s the Problem
Hi friends,
It has been a minute.
The last time I sent one of these was April… which means we hadn't even entered Maycember yet. And somehow, here we are on the other side of it.
Maybe your summer looked like camps, vacations, sports, day trips, kids who were somehow simultaneously bored AND overscheduled, wet bathing suits everywhere, and approximately 4,000 snacks.
Maybe it was wonderful. Maybe it was exhausting. Probably both. Mine certainly was.
There were softball fields, Worthwhile events, podcasts, Williamsburg, the St. Lawrence River, baseball games, plays, a smash room, some very cool adventures and even a family of foxes I got to watch grow up in my backyard.
And somewhere in the middle of all of it, I realized something: Next summer, I'm only scheduling summer.
The boat days. The baseball games. The trips. The camp weeks. The afternoons that turn into evenings because nobody wants to get off the water.
What I'm not scheduling are all the things I can do during the other nine months of the year.
Because summer isn't the empty space around the “real” schedule.
Summer is the schedule.
And maybe that's something worth thinking about beyond summer.
What are you continuing to squeeze into your life simply because technically, you can? What deserves more space? What doesn't fit anymore? What are you doing because you've always done it? What did you swear you'd figure out this summer...and then didn't?
Because now September is coming. And I LOVE September.
Give me the new school supplies. Freshly sharpened pencils. Brand-new notebooks. That box of crayons before someone breaks the first one.
After the looseness of summer, I genuinely welcome routine back.
There's something about the beginning of a school year that feels full of possibility. January gets all the credit for fresh starts. I think September is the real one. The kids go back. Schedules change. Routines return.
And suddenly we start thinking about all the things we said we'd deal with after summer:
Your marriage. Your anxiety. Your ADHD. Your boundaries. Your relationship with your parents. The mental load you've been carrying. The thing you understand intellectually but somehow keep doing anyway. The change you've been talking about making since February.
Maybe something happened this summer and you need help figuring out what comes next. Maybe you're ready to focus on yourself again. Maybe you told yourself you'd deal with it when things settled down.
Maybe nothing changed this summer…and that's the problem.
Concierge Therapy Practice
There's something else happening this fall that I'm really excited about: I'm officially describing my practice as a concierge therapy practice.
The funny thing is, this isn't really a change. It's a name for the way I've always practiced. I've never particularly loved the idea that therapy happens during one appointment and then we basically say, “Okay! Good luck with all of that. See you next week.”
The actual work happens in your real life.
It's the conversation with your spouse on Wednesday night. It's recognizing a part of yourself showing up differently than it did six months ago. It's the boundary you need to set. It's remembering what we talked about before you're already halfway into the same pattern. It's the homework you swear you'll remember and absolutely will not.
So I'm formalizing what many of you already experience with me: therapy that extends beyond the therapy hour.
One of the biggest additions is Auralink, which gives clients access to personalized AI support between sessions.
Think of it as another tool for helping you carry the work we're already doing into your actual life—not a replacement for your therapist and definitely not AI doing therapy instead of me.
It's there to help reinforce what we're working on, support reflection between appointments, work through homework and help you remember the things that made SO MUCH SENSE when we talked about them Tuesday.
We're also now fully using Sessions as our electronic health record, and I LOVE it.
I genuinely think most of you have already benefited from this transition in a lot of ways. The scheduling tool, however, appears determined to personally humble all of us. We're working through it.
In case you missed it while we were all outside...
I've also been writing…a lot.
And lately I've been putting more and more of the things I actually teach, ask and assign in therapy into my blogs.
So instead of telling you what I've written about, let me ask you what you might need:
Why does “vacation” sometimes feel like significantly more work for moms?
What happens when drinking becomes part of the culture surrounding our kids' sports?
Could you use a SWOT analysis on your own life instead of a business?
Spoiler: Obviously I believe it can.
Consider this your reminder that the blog isn't just “therapist writes things on the internet.” A lot of it is becoming a library of the same concepts, questions and exercises I'm using in the therapy room.So if something above made you think, Oh God, that's me, click it.
Apparently I'm also a podcast person now.
This summer, I had the opportunity to have some really fun conversations outside of the therapy room, too.
I joined Raising Hope and It Takes Balls, and we got into some conversations about mental health, relationships, trauma, resilience and the very human messiness underneath all of it.
You can also hear me on Empowered Conversations and Healthy Mind Healthy Life.
If you'd rather listen to me talk while you're driving, folding laundry or pretending you're going to clean out a closet, I've got you covered.
And book club is BACK.
No commitment.
No need to attend every month.
Pick one book. Pick three. Come whenever the book or conversation interests you.
It's a chance to read something interesting, think a little differently and have an actual conversation about it.
Maybe this is your sign.
And finally, if you've been thinking about therapy...
Hi.
If you disappeared for the summer, I get it.
If we worked together years ago and you've recently found yourself thinking, I wonder if Renée would see me again?
Yes.
I LOVE a therapy tune-up.
If the kids are finally going back to school and you've realized you'd like to spend some of that newly reclaimed brain space figuring out you, let's do it.
If your relationship has been sitting on the back burner while you've spent three months coordinating camps, vacations, childcare and who needs to be driven where, maybe it's time to move it up the list.
If you've been telling yourself you'll deal with something when life calms down, I'm going to save you some time: Life is probably not going to calm down.
Maybe you don't need a year of therapy.
Maybe you need a tune-up.
Maybe you need support through one specific season.
Maybe something changed.
Maybe nothing changed—and that's the problem.
My fall schedule is shifting to 9 AM–2 PM, and I have room for a few additional clients.
Not a ton.
But a few.
Here’s to a Fresh Start
Here's to freshly sharpened pencils, brand-new boxes of crayons, routines we swear we're going to stick to, and the completely irrational but wonderful belief that September gives us another chance to begin again.
See you this fall,
Renée
