written and filmed by Linda Lin, RCC RCAT

For those who enjoy longer-form content to pair with my newsletters and blog posts, I launched a YouTube channel where I'll be talking through topics I'm exploring and sharing in a different format.

Since when did the word "consistency" start to feel like a threat? Somewhere between entering school age and trying to be a responsible adult, consistency started feeling like an obligation I'd already fallen behind on. It turned into a chore that feels meaningless, too difficult to even attempt. Like our dreams just stopped getting along with our capacity. There's this lingering disappointment of not living up to the version of ourselves we thought we were rooting for.

When we let ourselves down.

I am noticing a lot of us are struggling with consistency and the energetic toll it takes to adapt to life. Building a pace that fits you, specifically is getting harder and more ambiguous to find in a world with rapid changes, artificial intelligence, and end-of-stage capitalism. 

This topic is feeling tender and I often find myself and people I come across committing to too many things, and not able to commit to the course of action we need to actually do to take care of us.

In this newsletter we get into:

.✦ ݁˖ the relationship between consistency and cultivating trust within ourselves
.✦ ݁˖ unpacking / pacing consistency
.✦ ݁˖ “taking the path least taken” as a way to challenge and build consistency
.✦ ݁˖ art as therapy prompts to help build trust and confidence for consistency

Consistency is how we gradually create the conditions where trust becomes possible.

On another note, self-trust can be built from consistency. Trust in ourselves, like listening and understanding our capacity what we actually have time for, what will actually move the needle and support us.

There's something in psychotherapy I have been working with my clients on. I always remind folks that we learn from each other, that our brain has an innate feature of neuroplasticity: where we can update our beliefs, expand our worldviews, adapt and navigate the world more freely when we feel safe enough to do so, throughout our lifetime. 

When the conditions are trustworthy, new habits and ways of being actually stick and make sense in the body, not just the mind. Leading us to embodiment. Consistency is how we slowly create the conditions where trust becomes possible.

adrienne maree brown writes about something that rhymes with this in Emergent Strategy: "small is good, small is all". What we practice at a small scale sets the pattern for the whole. Every tiny, mundane showing-up counts and accumulates into something important. Safety and repetition build trust and consistency, together, they are building blocks of forming neural pathways that heal and support us.

Additionally, how we treat our own consistency (self-perception) is how movements treat their members. How we let ourselves rest is how communities learn that rest is allowed. The personal and the political are running on the same pattern!

Practicing an honest relationship with our own capacity isn't a detour from the work. It might actually be where the work begins…

Consistency, when paced well, builds trust.

To be transparent with you, trust tends to build brutally and slowly. The way we hyper-monitor inconsistencies like our job depends on it, distrust in incongruence doesn't back down easily, and anxiety shows up because it feels threatened. It's hard to know when to forgive our own inconsistency, like when the goals we set the night before didn't pan out the day after. :(

To start building a less familiar neural pathway, we could begin by allowing ourselves to dream about what we actually want to experience.

ideal land 🏰 

High energy plans could look closer to what we desire in ideal land. If I were to wave a magic wand, what would your most desirable, idealized outcome actually look like? Ideal land lets us imagine: if anything were possible, what would that be like for you?

Daydreaming, or intentionally practicing imagination to sort out what we want, is not supposed to hurt us. I say that because I'm aware of how many of us are afraid to even imagine what we want. It comes up a lot in the therapy room.

nice to have 🫧 

When we have a bit more in the tank, we can start to think about what would feel supportive as we move through something hard. Not what we should do, but what would actually be nice to have there. If we could name even one small comfort to bring into a difficult task, what would it be? How do we want to feel in the process?

necessities 🪞 

Permission to be consistent is where self-trust begins. Giving ourselves that permission means letting go of the need to do it perfectly.

When we're low on energy, in survival mode, just coping, sometimes the most grounding thing we can do is show up in small, consistent ways.

Part of that is learning to ask: what is actually necessary right now? What is the bare minimum that helps us move through this state rather than fight it? (Some things clients have found helpful are below.) We're not asking for much here!

There is no permanence in these states, like we don’t always find ourselves in ideal land. 

What this practice is for: 

If your usual neural pathway is to doubt in your ability to be consistent with anxiety hijacking your perspective, this practice is literally the opposite of that. We are noticing what your actual energy is capable of, and tapping into what it would be like if you could attempt at a difficult task to support you. 

“The best plan is one you will actually do”

As someone who wears a lot of hats day-to-day: therapist, group practice founder, clinical supervisor (training to be approved), participant of peer groups sharing ideas, hiring and outreach, eldest daughter, long-term partner, parent to my twin dogs... somewhere in there is also a person who needs to lots of rest.

When I'm burning out, I find myself revenge bedtime procrastinating, in attempt to reclaim back the time I didn't get to support myself during the day. Then waking up the next morning realizing I won't be able to complete the goals I thought I could the night before.

What I am learning (slowly, imperfectly) is that consistency has to be embodied before it can be planned.

We have to start with honesty about our actual energy capacity, not our aspirational capacity.

This is something I wish all of us can start to believe: the best plan is one we'll actually do.

Tips from YOU!

This past month I asked people what they do to rebuild consistency after something unexpected: a mental health episode, illness, a life transition, grief. Some common threads came up: when things get hard and the unknowns pile up, people return to spaces that feel like a routine anchor, somewhere familiar to land. They go back to debriefing with someone safe. And name what is energetically taxing, which is its own form of honesty. People return to the fundamentals: being gentle with themselves, easing up on the pace, going slower than they'd like to go.

Here's your Art As Therapy Prompt:

I think art as therapy can help us find our way back to what we truly want, and what kind of consistency we can actually sustain. Below is an art as therapy prompt from your friendly neighbour art therapist.

Feel free to draw, journal or meditate on this directive.
 

Ideal / Nice / Necessary (pairs with the three states of energy capacity)

Create three distinct spaces on a single page. Label them however feels true to you: ideal, nice, necessary; or high, medium, low; or dream, okay, enough. Then fill each space with imagery, colour, words, texture, or feeling. 

What does each state look like in your body?

What are you asking of yourself in each one? If it starts to feel overwhelming, try to make a frame or border to contain the expressions.

We aren’t here to resolve them but to allow them exist.

Thanks for creating with me .✦ ݁˖

Linda

written by Linda Lin, RCC RCAT

FEAR is the number 1 theme I’ve been witnessing throughout therapy sessions these days. 

A lot of us are going back to survival mode, while the western world of psychology calls this ‘dysregulation’. Whether it’s dealing with sudden major life transitions, many times out of our control, to the rapid changes of living in the world today, fear comes up hard and fast.

As a client calls it, "honestly our brain is just a meat sac with electricity".

Our brains get mushy and our feelings feel complicated when fear shows up. I see us grabbing at straws, searching for immediate relief, for answers, solutions, quick fixes as we navigate this territory. Then we try to cope with everything at once, and we end up self-sabotaging or freezing in overwhelm when things don’t go the way anxiety wants them to.

It doesn't have to be like that. 

Life shouldn't feel THIS complicated.

Here's how I am facing feelings like fear!

(in relevance to dealing with 2026, year of the fire horse)

1. Reminding myself, feelings aren't facts.

What if we didn't treat feelings, fear, rage, disgust, contempt, irritation, dislikes as verdicts? 

Imagine what it’d be like if we didn’t treat feelings as hard labels, like “this is just who I am” or “this is how things will always be”, but as guidance we can listen to, not obey.

Feelings always signal what matters to us.
They point to our unmet needs, unclaimed desires, and the ideas or beliefs we never consciously chose.

Kinda like when we're driving and we see a sign (the feeling) that says “slippery roads ahead”. This doesn't mean that we are bound to slip and fall so we gotta turn around and go home. We can drive or walk through with care, be mindful to go a little slower, or stay on parts of the road that feel safer.
 

I'd like to believe that feelings are always trying their best to guide us toward what hurts, what matters, and what needs care. They’re asking for our attention and trust.

At its very core, feelings want us to remember that we matter — that we are deserving of understanding, even when listening to this might change everything we once believed.

Pause for a moment. Take a breath.

Notice how these words land for you before you continue reading.

ᯓ :ִ ࣪✩ ݁∶⊹˖ᯓ⭑ᯓ :ִ ࣪✮ ݁∶ ᯓ :ִ ࣪✧ ݁∶

2. Practice the art of decision making.
 

Act before courage feels perfect. What if we focused on honesty instead of busyness, or the pressure to make everything “just right,” as if we were performing for a critical audience?

Building awareness. When we slow down, we can see ourselves more clearly like our values, desires, what we care for, and the unique energy we bring into the world. 

Part of presence building is slowing down and taking courage toward attempting. We don’t have to go far or move fast. The focus is more of that simple noticing and listening to what we need in the moment.
 

Practices like art journaling, using stickers and prompts, bibliotherapy and building in small rewards or celebrations, like a Big Paper Planning Day, have helped me build the courage to simply start. 

3. Your goals need to be neuro-informed!

Hate to break it to ya but did you know SMART goals increases fear and anxiety?

SMART goals may sound clear, functional, reasonable and responsible (due to surviving under a capitalist system)
…but people find that SMART goals work hand in hand with their anxiety and cognition instead of our energy and noticing what is happening in the present moment. 

An example like, “I have to go to the gym 5x this week.”
Our brain will do this thing by adding extra rules with it. 
“No matter what.” 
“Push harder than yesterday.” 
“Okay now increase the sets by 5%.”
Before we know it, the goal stops feeling motivating and we can't put ourselves to actually do it.

So why does demanding X amount by a certain time, in a specific way, make us anxious and self-critical?

It’s similar to how we overcomplicate our art, writing, and projects. We are trained to take pride in being driven by anxiety, perfectionism, the need to “look busy,” thinking that more effort will better ourselves so that we could finally meet our goals. 

Deep down, we know that all that pressure, all that busy-work rarely moves the needle and most often than not, we become frozen by overwhelm and FEAR.

That's because SMART goals originated from a place that was NEVER meant to be used for personal development! ( ˶°ㅁ°) !!

SMART goals started as a management tool for organizations and the C-suite. It wasn’t built for emotional well-being since the beginning, but to keep employees in check.

Did you know? The A in SMART originally stood for Assignable, not Achievable 😒 That’s why they land so cognitively, cold, performance-obsessed when we apply them to day-to-day goals we have for ourselves. 
 

For many of us, SMART goals lead to disappointment, lower self-esteem, and spike our anxiety. Say we’re low in energy, but we set these goals when we were high in hope. The same SMART goals can then make us feel disappointed, “not good enough,” or “inconsistent” when life doesn’t go exactly as planned.

TLDR; SMART goals weren’t made in accommodation to emotional wellbeing, neurodivergence, context to our current energy level, or to nuances and sensitivities, and when times are multi-faceted (feeling collective despair as an example).

4. Our identity builds when we see ourselves as consistent.

When we show up consistently, even in small ways, our sense of self starts to feel real, and fear becomes less relevant. Self‑perception forms when we are a certain way because we have acted that way repeatedly. 

Like when we set boundaries consistently, and it strengthens the way we see ourselves, while sustaining our relationships. A win-win-win!?!

Research shows that when our actions align with our values on a regular basis, the brain strengthens neural pathways that reinforce our self-image over time. Consistency isn’t about perfection, it’s about building a reliable story of who we are.

5. Simplify everything with essence goals.

Essence goals sound almost too simple, but they actually work. Instead of overcomplicating life with logic and overthinking, they guide us back to what really matters: our values and desires.

This is what essence means to me ↓

Essence is unwavering in self-advocacy and protection with unconditional acceptance of our values. 
Essence brings deep attunement like the way nature and land show up. Like a grounded tree or a portal accessing our intuition. 

I’d like to imagine that our essence has been with us our whole life.

 Essence goals are adaptive, discerning, and handles nuances. They focus on how we actually want to feel, live, and move through the world.

Instead of pushing past our capacities, we practice honouring our emotional reality!

Examples can look something like this:

“Move in ways that make me feel alive and strong this week.”

“Show up for my community with presence and solidarity.”

“Unplug easily and celebrate after each workday.”

So here’s to more moments of tuning into your innate wisdom (which is backed by science btw.ᐟ.ᐟ ) to support your emotional wellbeing.

Always in your corner,
Linda ♡

written by Linda Lin, RCC RCAT

Year end / holiday stress is so real. 

Many of us enter December already depleted, with our numbing or protective safety behaviours running on overdrive.

So I wanted to write a newsletter to validate some of these experiences and patterns I’ve been noticing. 

These patterns can be so familiar that they often go unnoticed, even when we know this season feels heavier than it appears from the outside.

Please note that language I use may sound ‘too clinical’ so if you’d like to personalize with different language/words to describe similar things, go for it!

The end of the year often asks us to push through exhaustion, emotions, and (over)stimulation.

This time of year often stirs up financial pressure to find the perfect gifts, brings complicated interpersonal or family dynamics to the surface, and encourages us to wrap things up or end on a high note. 

It’s easy to become overstimulated by end-of-year sales (side note: did you know we can be exposed to 4,000 to 10,000 ads a day?), while juggling invitations and obligations, both external and internal, and navigating feelings of isolation when we’re “supposed” to feel joyful, restful, and connected. 

The stress can affect our body weeks or even months before anything actually happens at all.

A lot of us are going through this month with our safety behaviours activated. These behaviours help us numb or cope with discomfort so we don’t have to fully feel or process it. 

Safety behaviours are any acts that reduce distress in the short term by anticipating or preparing for the worst, often increasing our perception of fears. They can be very sneaky, work alongside anxiety, and often go unnoticed, leaving us feeling confused, lost, and overwhelmed.

Some examples of safety behaviours I’ve noticed (not exhaustive!):

• Overcleaning or working overtime

• Bed rotting but not allowing for true rest

• Frozen in doomscrolling

• Retail therapy or overconsumption

• Comfort eating, or restricting/picking/counting/purging, or obsessing over food/”health”/body

• Exercising excessively with little to no recovery

• Always trying to fix ourselves without ever celebrating our wins

• Avoiding conflict by pleasing others (while we have no idea what our needs are)

• Rehearsing how situations will play out at future gatherings

• Replaying something you said or something unresolved over and over in our mind

• Hyper-vigilance or hyper-independence that feels “right”

• Fixating on rigid routines that fuel perfectionism

• Harsh internal dialogue when routines are disrupted or our goals aren’t met

• Numbing with something because you feel distressed or irritated at ourselves, others, systems, or the world

• Exhaustion from masking or showing up performatively at gatherings

• Texting back immediately even when we have no more capacity, or the latter, avoiding texting back for weeks

• Seeking reassurance from others for most decisions we need to make

• Intellectualizing or over-analyzing everything.

Good news is that there are patterns / wiring that we start to become more aware of! 

Here's what safety behaviours have in common:

• Coping, not processing: They keep us “safe” momentarily, but not in the long term.

• They play on our fears: Safety behaviours increase our perception of existing fears. They make fear feel more intense or obsessive, rather than helping us heal from it.

• They respond to urgency: Acting “before the shoe drops,” safety behaviours turn anxious thoughts into rules, rituals, or compulsions in the hope of preventing a consequence. These can be physical actions, mental acts, or rigid routines we feel we have to do in the moment—or else.

• They've worked before: At some point in history, these behaviours helped you cope and feel safe. That’s why they’re so familiar, and may even feel safe and comforting.

• They dislike uncertainty: Safety behaviours often show up when situations are unpredictable, unresolved, or ambiguous.

Some practices I’ve been using for long-term care and support instead of safety behaviours:

• Catching, disengaging, and redirecting from my safety behaviours toward what actually matters. For example a fear I’m working through, always feeling responsible for my team, is gradually being redirected into the belief that I am becoming a stronger leader and team member.

• Making, creating, or crafting something with my hands (great for slowing down). 
  
  Enter our giveaway to drop in access to Off Screen Hours and an art journalling kit here: a special collab with 1912 Amax Stationery.
   

• Reducing screen time on my phone, using apps like Opal to block distracting social media during the week for more mindful consumption.

• Allowing 15+ minutes of boredom each day to check in with my nervous system and mind-body.

• Eating food that keeps me satiated, exciting, and simple (base repetitive, toppings rotated!).

• Moving in ways that make me feel strong while allowing ample recovery time. Lately I’ve been enjoying low-impact, high-intensity workouts (iykyk!).

• Inviting friends to do mundane activities: dog walks, grocery shopping, co-working, cooking a meal together, or asking them for help (this one is huge for me).

What have you been practicing? 

Below I'm sharing my fave reflection questions that really help slow me down (fyi they can go deep)!

Since we tend to be reflective during this time of year, I’m inviting us to journal, discuss with a good friend and/or make some art to check in with ourselves if safety behaviours have been showing up.

Get your tea, pens and stickers ready! ⊹

• What signals do my body give me when I feel safe, and when I feel overwhelmed?
• What are my safety behaviours? List them out and try calling them out. (see above for some examples)
• What are my go-to ways of avoiding or distracting from conflict or discomfort?

• What feelings have been harder to feel lately?
• Are there parts of me that learned to stay quieter/numb/unnoticed to stay safe?
• What does this protective strategy/response want me to know?
• Where do I notice myself toning down or editing parts of who I am, especially around others this season?
• What has it taken for me to arrive here, and what needs acknowledgement and care?

In a society designed to keep us numbing, with no time to slow down, where rest is mistaken for laziness and bursts of anxiety are mistaken for productivity, our awareness is rebellion. Slowing down to notice our limits, finding ways out of misery and fear, and understanding our grief are acts of resistance. And this resistance doesn’t have to feel endless or scary.

If you’re needing some extra love and support navigating these complex experiences, our team is here for you!

May this season of reflection lead us to explore moments for rest, awareness, and connection to support us into the new year. Take good care, First name / friendsee you in 2026 ♡

Sincerely, 
Linda

Enter our giveaway before the end of the year (Dec 31st, 2025) for a chance to win: 
📓 Drop-in access to weekly Off Screen Hours (Friday workshops until Feb 2026)*
🖋️ An AMAX journaling kit — Hitotoki notebook + Pentel brush pen set

written by Maryam Dada, M.A., RCC ; intro/outro by Linda Lin RCC, RCAT

We are living in a moment where information is everywhere, yet attention feels increasingly scarce. Our phones promise connection, stimulation, and ease, often at the cost of depth and our sense of presence. As scrolling replaces reading and fragments replace stories, some are describing our entry into a post-literate society.

Each notification shapes the way we think and feel, speeding up a pace that asks our nervous systems to adapt faster than we might choose or want. This creates what some call cognitive debt: the mental fatigue and attentional strain that builds when our minds are constantly stimulated but rarely allowed to rest or reflect. Navigating social media today is therefore not simply about screen time. It is about how we care for our internal wellbeing in an attention economy that profits from this depletion.

History of Instagram and its Original Function

Instagram was first released in 2010, fifteen years ago. It was a time where pink-coloured skinny jeans and shudder shades were all the rage. We wore bright colours and messy prints, our hair in a trademark sock-bun, lips pursed, and duck-face at the ready to post on Instagram. 

Instagram at its inception was so new and so special. Previously, if we wanted to share photos they’d be through a Facebook album – and while that was an online sharing platform it didn’t have the instant effect of instagram. An instant way to share photos and only photos with friends and family.

In its humble beginnings, Instagram existed purely as a way to share photos with loved ones and build community. Photos were sequential, we could comfortably scroll to the end of our feed, feel ‘caught up’ and neatly put our phones away. It was simple, easy, and a mark of the time. 

In the 2010s we started to see a shift to online platforms, whether that was through Facebook, Instagram, or Buzzfeed, a subtle shift had started to take place. Our attention was moving online. 

We didn’t know it at the time, but this would mark the beginning of a new way to consume media and with it, of course, would come a whole host of other considerations that we are only now starting to unpack. 

In this blog post, we’ll be exploring:
• the different pitfalls of social media (like targeted marketing)
• being bombarded with content
• influencer culture and performativism
• having an online presence
• our self-perception
• and doomscrolling.

At the end, I’ll share some tips to help you navigate social media in today’s world.

Pitfalls of Social Media 

Today, social media looks a lot different, with the advent of short form videos like TikTok/Reels, instagram stories, and ads, we are living through a time where we are constantly being bombarded with content. 

In addition, marketing strategies, advertisements, and a daunting algorithm, curate content that is specifically tailored to you. What you are seeing has been cultivated for you. In a lot of ways this can be efficient, intended to make your life easier, and in other ways, it can feel nefarious, taking away your ability to choose the time/place you want to look into something.

Social media has also taken on an amorphous quality – a shapeless thing that is somehow tangible in nature. The platform exists online but we are very much impacted by what we see.

We are influenced by influencers, locked into other peoples’ routines: what I eat in a day, what my 5-9 looks like after my 9-5, get ready with me’s…etc. This can negatively affect our sense of self and self-esteem. 

It has made news accessible in a way that allows us to be informed but also pressures us to feel on top of everything all the time (a big ask).

This can lead to performative activism which actually serves to disconnect us from what we are seeing/feeling and how it’s impacting us and shift instead into thoughts of, how is my online presence being perceived? 

While it is important to be informed about what is going on in the world, when we are operating from a place of “I need to share this to fit” or “I feel anxious because everyone is talking/sharing about this”. Give yourself permission to take the time to learn about the issue at hand, and then, make an informed decision about your impact. 

Additionally, it is important to note how our attention spans are being impacted, short form content has made it difficult to focus and we find ourselves in the endless chasm of doomscrolling - content that is targeted and tailored to us, with no end in sight.

It’s what our parents warned us about: social media can be a distraction. Not only is it impacting our ability to focus on longer forms of content, it can also surreptitiously eat up hours of our time without us realizing if we’re not paying attention. Revenge procrastination, time warps, and of course, doomscrolling. This can be particularly harmful if we use social media to avoid tasks that we need to complete. 

All of this makes it especially important for us to be able to filter what we are seeing. Not necessarily to turn away, but instead to start tuning in to ourselves. 

I am of the belief that social media is here, and here to stay. There can be some really lovely benefits in finding and participating in online communities, but the onus is on us to be aware of social media pitfalls too. How can we be using social media in a way that benefits rather than harms us? 

Practical Tips for Navigating Social Media Use

(download full list in pdf below!)

• ‘Hack’ your algorithm - intentionally watch videos that will bring you comfort, joy, humour…etc 

• If you are getting your news online, allow it to digest (i.e. take a moment to understand what you are seeing) before instantly sharing/reposting 

• Recognize the system at play (i.e. capitalism) that makes things like doomscrolling so appealing. 

• Opt out of notifications

…more in our pdf download!

Benefits of Social Media 

Finally, I want to end with a positive take on social media. I think we do have to be mindful of how we spend our time online and that it is our responsibility to do so in ways that are sustainable and overall feel good for us. 

Social media has also been a place of community, education, resource building. It’s created platforms for us to learn about each other directly, learn from one another, we’ve been able to see things as they are happening in real time and form our own opinions about them. We’ve felt less alone in our struggles. We’ve enjoyed fandoms, communities, allyship, memes, and advocacy. It’s given us a place to express ourselves, our love, our friendships, our style…it’s taken some of the mystery out of being human. Sometimes, it helps us feel as though we know one another. These are all good <3

Living in a postliterate society does not have to be black or white like accepting where technology will lead us or grieving of a predigital past. It can mean noticing the costs within our personal lives and the broader shifts in society, while making intentional choices about how we reclaim our attention, how our bodies are responding through our behaviours, and what we truly value. It can also mean supporting and challenging the status quo by strengthening our capacity for critical thinking.

Navigating social media today is less about discipline and more about relationship—how we relate to our attention, our time, and our sense of self. We do this through small and intentional acts: reading slowly, writing imperfectly, posting as if we are speaking with the people we want to connect with, and pausing before the next scroll. In choosing moments of depth over endless input, we are not falling behind. We are remembering a different rhythm of being human, one where meaning is not optimized, but felt.

Maryam is a Registered Clinical Counsellor at Decipher. If you like to explore themes in tv, media, or literature and how it relates to your life or the different things you may be going though, she may be a good fit.  She is currently taking new clients! Book a free consultation with Maryam today—available online and in person in so-called Vancouver, BC.