Kindred Connections Counseling
Kindred Space
Who Is Taking Care of You?
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We are often very good at taking care of everyone else. We check on our families. We show up for our friends. We meet deadlines, answer messages, manage responsibilities, support other people through their difficult moments, and keep moving even when we are tired.
But every now and then, it is worth asking ourselves a different question. Who is taking care of you? Recognizing that you show up for everyone but yourself can feel frustrating and even deflating. It may seem like no one notices or cares for your needs. This is an important question to sit with throughout your day.
This month, I want to invite you to think about balance. Not perfect balance. Not having every area of your life under control. Just enough awareness to notice what you need, and enough permission to respond.
You deserve care, too.
I made this the way I hope our work together feels: unhurried, honest, and rooted in who you already are.
With care, Dr. Olivia Easley
Welcoming new clients for telehealth in NC and FL. Explore the Client Resource Portal at gatherkindred.com.
Our nervous systems respond to what is happening around us and within us. When life becomes overwhelming, we may notice changes in our thoughts, emotions, behaviors, energy, relationships, or even our bodies. One way to support ourselves is to build a variety of coping skills instead of relying on just one.
Movement can be a powerful way to reconnect with your body and shift out of feeling stuck. Take a walk. Stretch. Dance to your favorite song. Exercise. Garden. Get outside. Move in whatever way feels supportive.
Our thoughts, feelings, and actions are connected. Pause long enough to notice what you are thinking, what you are feeling, and what you are doing in response. Not every thought needs to be believed.
Connection does not always have to be deep. Sometimes we need to laugh with a friend or simply be around people. And sometimes we need something deeper. Make room for relationships that allow you to be both seen and supported.
Create a jar filled with small acts of care, connection, movement, reflection, and joy. Write each idea on a small piece of paper and place it in your jar. When you feel overwhelmed, disconnected, or simply need a change of energy, pull a prompt. You do not have to do everything. You just have to choose one small thing.
If someone asked you today, “Who is taking care of you?” what would your honest answer be?
And then ask yourself:
What is one thing I can begin doing for myself instead of waiting for someone else to notice that I need it?
For our first issue of Kindred Space, it feels fitting to begin with a book that asks us to look at connection, not only to the people around us, but to the histories and experiences that shape who we are.
Published in 1979, Kindred follows Dana, a young Black woman living in 1970s California who is unexpectedly transported back in time to a Maryland plantation during slavery. Through these experiences, Butler explores identity, survival, power, family, history, and the lasting impact of trauma.
While Kindred is not a mental health book, it creates an important opportunity to think about how experiences shape the ways we understand ourselves, our relationships, and our responses to the world around us.
Throughout the story, Dana repeatedly finds herself taking care of, protecting, and trying to save others. She carries an enormous sense of responsibility for what happens around her and, at many points, places her own needs and safety aside because she believes the future depends on what she is able to do.
Sound familiar? Sometimes we become so focused on helping, protecting, fixing, supporting, or saving others that we stop noticing what it is costing us. We may tell ourselves: “I’ll deal with me later.” “They need me.” “I can handle it.” “Just a little longer.”
Dana’s story gives us an opportunity to think about the difference between caring for others and abandoning ourselves in the process. Sometimes we can become so invested in protecting the people we love that we forget that we are also someone worth protecting.
As you read, notice Dana’s relationship with responsibility. Notice the moments when she prioritizes someone else’s needs, and what happens when she ignores her own safety. Then consider your own life: where might you be taking care of everyone else while quietly putting yourself last?
Who are you constantly trying to protect, support, or save, and what might it look like to extend some of that same care toward yourself?
You can care deeply for other people without abandoning yourself. You are allowed to be part of the equation.
Octavia E. Butler was an acclaimed American science fiction author whose work explored race, gender, power, humanity, survival, and social change. She became the first science fiction writer to receive a MacArthur Fellowship. Kindred remains one of her most widely read and taught novels.
Your September resource is something you can create and return to throughout the month. The digital version of Kindred Space will include the Kindred Jar activity, where you can save or print your prompts.
A guided healing space where story, body, and community meet. This season we read Kindred by Octavia E. Butler, moving through the text together while noticing what it awakens in the body.
You’re not alone, and you don’t have to navigate it in silence. A 10-week virtual counseling group for Black women living with PCOS, now formally renamed PMOS (polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome). A space for real conversation, emotional healing, and tools to support your mental and physical well-being.
New cohorts and reflection circles open throughout the season. There is a seat for you.
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