Lauren Shah

About

There is a moment I watch for, and it usually comes without warning: someone is describing something difficult and then notices, mid-sentence, that their hands are steady. They stop. Almost everybody says a version of the same thing, which is that they expected to come apart and did not. That is the actual measure of progress. Trauma keeps its grip largely through the expectation of being overwhelmed by it, and discovering that you can approach something and remain intact changes more than any insight does. We build toward those moments deliberately and in very small increments, and I will not move faster than the increments allow. I am still refining how I do this, and this area has made me more patient than I am naturally inclined to be. Rushing costs more here than anywhere else. If you have been assuming you would come apart, get in touch.