You might roll your eyes if I begin this with the universe has a funny way of unravelling your life, however who really has the proof to say otherwise? Doomscrolling during an “unravelled” part of my life recently, a stroke of good luck– one of my favorite local booksellers posted that one of my favorite (online) therapists, Meg Josephson, was celebrating her book launch that very evening near me in Boston. That was all I needed to discover to get me off of my actual couch and onto a more metaphorical one.

Psychology has always been of wild interest to me and working for a learning and development company that focuses on behavior change, I will absorb any material I can on the matter. All this to say, I am so pleased to share Meg Josephson’s new book: “Are You Mad at Me? How to Stop Focusing on What Others Think and Start Living for You“. The book focuses on the lesser represented trauma response, fawn. What makes this a trapping cycle, as Meg puts it, is that the fawn response consists of typically rewarded behaviors– over-delivering at work, little-to-no boundaries in relationships, perfectionism. All active contributors to burnout and a dysregulated nervous system.

In all honesty, I didn’t particularly attach to this profile. To be a perfectionist, I thought, you had to be perfect, and I am far from it. But page after page called me out, called to light tendencies I identified with that could use a lot of attention.

I re-read some of the lines like they were foreign language.

I re-read some of the lines because they stunned me into self-awareness.

I re-read some of the lines because they felt like a hug.

I re-read some of the lines because my anxious brain would jump to another thought mid sentence.

Without getting into too much pulp, I cried throughout the book but especially when it was over. It was a little like bringing your best friend to the train station to say goodbye.

This book is fresh. Meg writes as if she’s bringing you into the room with her. And she isn’t sitting in the chair atop Maslow’s pyramid, rather she’s walking and resting with you through it. She inserts anecdote and case study though with none of the clinical sterility, it’s confronting but it’s comforting.

I will return to this book again and again because the most important and comforting fact in it is: the healing journey of being human is a work in progress and perfect doesn’t exist, just presence. Even if this profile type doesn’t necessarily resonate with you, I promise there are self awareness and conflict navigation tools in this book worth exploring. I also encourage you to check Meg out on instagram, her meditative micro vids unpack behaviors in a truly delicate and supportive way.

In person Meg is just as her videos emit, she is the most graceful, bright energy with such thoughtful perspective on working through friction and conflict and how you can head towards healing and repair. I feel so lucky to have been able to hear her speak and it truly rang through me “people are just looking for connection and healing”.

From one heart to another,

B