Stacey Steele Psychology

06/22/2026

Last night was Sunday evening after a weekend of rain and the light was doing that thing it does in late June where it refuses to leave and I was at work on something that I wish I had ten years ago.

I have been building something for therapists and other helpers for the better part of a year. Not a course or another webinar series or another thing to add to your already impossible week and definitely not a promise of scaling a practice you're not sure you even want to stay in.

I think of it as a way through the hard stuff rather than a way around.

For months I have written curriculum at this kitchen table when the house was finally still, and my own nervous system finally settling. I have been mapping what it actually takes to come back from the kind of fatigue no weekend can touch and the kind you can't journal your way out of.

I keep thinking about who this is for and I think of my younger self:

*The therapist who is good at her job and feels like she's disappearing inside a system that promised to help and never did.
*The one who has nothing left for the people she loves by the time she gets home and feels guilt for something she can't control.
*The one who knows, clinically, exactly what is happening to her, and still cannot stop it.

Because awareness was never the protection we thought it would be.

Like I tell my clients, it's not a knowing problem.

Something is coming this fall with eight spots for clinicans ready to change the way they show up in their practice, and the rest of their life.

If you want first access, join the waitlist. Link in bio.

06/06/2026

Even goodbyes need a place to go ⭐️

We are trained to open a therapeutic relationship and to do the work inside it. We are not trained for what happens in us when it ends.
Felt separation is the letting go, the part we repeat dozens of times a week and almost never process. There is a relational cost of attaching and releasing, over and over, when you have nowhere to put it.

When we don't attend to the felt separation stage of therapy, it fuels burnout. The structure of our work needs to be built for the full cycle and it doesn't end when our clients walk out the door.

What helps is not caring less, but reflective space, noticing how you feel when a session ends, one small ritual between clients, and acknowledging the ordinary endings in addition to the hard ones.

I talk more about felt separation in this week's podcast

If you want somewhere to take what you carry, the ReLit Reset Circle™ is a free monthly peer space for clinicians. Link in bio, or relitpractice.com/circle.

06/01/2026

This post is a little different than my usual content, and it's personal.

I debated about going public because cancer is something that has impacted almost everyone I know and almost every client that walks through my doors. Truthfully, I didn't even want to share with my family, but my poker face has always been bad.

I am sharing because there are many women in their 40's who maybe haven't had their screenings or know that they can. This is for them.

I'll start with the end of my story, right now I have the same likelihood of having breast cancer as anyone else, I have had a full recovery. But that wasn't always the case. Cancer is scary but,

I wasn't scared when

eight months ago I walked into my mammogram appointment playing Pokémon Go and walked out with a 2% chance of having breast cancer and a biopsy appointment.

I've never been one to go with the crowd, so I joined that 2%.

I wasn't scared

when I had two surgeries with an amazing woman who quoted Ted Lasso to me. Every person in my care was phenomenal, from an inspiring nuclear medicine tech who treated my body with kindness and respect to the LPN who you knew truly cared, to my radiation nurse who made my blood pressure spike from laughing too hard.

I wasn't scared.

because I have two women in my life who survived the triple negative beast with grace and grit.

I wasn't scared

of dying, but I do fear women falling through the cracks.

Did you know you can self-refer for a mammogram at 45? With a doctor's referral at 40?
I didn't. Until a client mentioned hers, and it saved me.

Be proactive in your care. Ask your friends if they've booked theirs. Don't wait for someone to remember for you.

And the best thing my surgeon told me, her favourite Ted Lasso quote, is the thing I'll leave you with:

"Be curious, not judgmental."

Book the appointment. 🎗️

*edited to add the "AI Info" is the Pokémon, I couldn't get a clear shot of them IRL 🤣

05/17/2026

Note: I recorded this on Wednesday morning, the ReLit Circle meets the second Tuesday of every month. A space for helpers & healers for peer connection, to pause, and for reflection. Link in bio to learn more.

There were times in my life where cancelling social plans became way too common. It left me with intense guilt which prompted me to overfunction, over book, and over work therefore starting the cycle over again. And after a while, I was over it.

When I was under the weather and had to cancel this month's Reset Circle, shades of those same feelings come back but this time instead of isolating or sliding into overcompensation, I debriefed with a trusted friend and colleague and moved forward.

Does this sound familiar?

There are many reasons why someone may overbook or overfunction and includes:

⭐️ ADHD executive functioning barriers: I used to say yes or get excited about a new idea and commit without thinking it through, then eventually my life would overwhelm me.

⭐️Chronic and Acute Illness: On a good "spoon day", we can over do it or over commit for a variety of reasons. For me, it would be guilt for what I couldn't do when not at full capacity, eagerness to step back into the parts of life that were put on hold, and sometimes a big "F You" to my illness and I would rebelliously fill my calendar.

⭐️ People pleasing & perfectionism core beliefs that drive us to do more and be more as a way to outrun guilt and shame.

⭐️Cultural and familial obligations can create a bind where not doing the things may mean facing disappointing someone we care about, interpersonal conflict, or a moral dilemma.

⭐️Workplace systems may reinforce and reward over working through explict or implied expectations.

Is this something that you relate to? Maybe you know someone who is going through something similar.

Share with someone who needs to hear this message!

Space in your calendar 🗓 is just that, space.

05/16/2026

Last weekend was a valuable two days of fellowship, reflection, and planning for the board and staff of the Psychologists' Association of Alberta!

Last week, the PAA team connected, collaborated, and celebrated at the latest Board and Staff Retreat.

The focus was a lookahead for the organization: what the next five years will look like for PAA.

It was also an opportunity to give thanks to our exiting board members, Dr. Sandra Dixon and Tamara Austin, and a welcome to our new board members Dr. Ruby Sharma, Dr. Denise Mannell, and Dr. Julie Curley.

Thank you to everyone for their contribution and making this retreat a huge success.

05/15/2026

Non-profit trained me to do everything with nothing and document it in triplicate.

Private practice let me stop doing that.

Somewhere between the funding reports and the Friday I finally stopped scheduling clients, I figured out what a sustainable practice actually looks like and it had a lot more to do with design than discipline and self care.

Whether you're in public systems, agency work, or private practice, the pressures may look different but the impact of burnout is the same.

And the thing that actually helps is peer connection &
If you're ready to stop designing your life around your recovery time the ReLit Practice Program waitlist is open.

ReLit Practice ™ is burnout recovery for therapists and other helpers because you deserve the same quality of care you give your clients. Grounded in research, lived experience, and the reality of the systems you're working in.

Link in bio. 🌿

05/11/2026

Sunday Scaries, Monday morning dread....whatever way you call it anticipatory anxiety correlates with burnout in the helping professions.

Vulnerabilities to this can include being a novice therapist, larger caseloads with high acuity, experiences of moral injury, and when the actual workload does not match what was expected and not enough resources to meet demands.

You know what this is, but knowing hasn't made it stop.

Awareness is not protection against burnout.
But peer connection is.

The Reset Circle™ is a free, online, monthly gathering for therapists and other hleping professionals navigating burnout and the weight of practice in demanding systems. Each 60 minute circle includes a brief masterclass on topics that matter in and out of the session, a guided grounding practice, and an opportunity to reflect and share (always optional!). But mostly, this is a space you can actually exhale in with people who get it.

The next one is May 12th at 7pm EST where the topic is "Bringing our whole self into the therapy room".

Save your seat and register at the link in bio!

Registration also gets you access to the replay and subscription to the ReLit Practice™ newsletter.

Send this to the colleague who needs it!

Hope to see you there💖

05/01/2026

Therapists, ever feel overwhelmed by the volume of therapy influencer & get caught in the comparison trap?

Me too.

Check out my latest blog; "I'm Not Doing Enough: A Therapist's Honest Take on Therapy Influencer Culture"
Where I show behind the curtain of what it's like to be a therapist on social media, examine the research on therapy influencers (it may not be what you think!), and offer a next step for getting out of your head online!

04/20/2026

I opened my socials today and was reminded again of the huge canyon of reality between therapy on socials and therapy in real life.

This post is not about Therapy Jeff in particular, you can find the post and make your own call, it is about how to practice discernment because therapy content is particularly vulnerable to misrepresentation and some can cause real harm.

Your favourite tik tok therapist? You may love their content, and a lot resonates with your experience, but....

that confident authority may still be in grad school, the private practice expert teaching you how to run a group practice could have never owned a business, that edgy intellectual could have lost their license for harming a client, and the wise and warm mentor giving advice on PTSD recovery may have a weekend course in fairy energy healing (which low key sounds lovely, just not for medical advice).

Look for what defines them as an authority, who recognizes them as an expert, and fact check the hot take that didn't feel right. Use discernment and ask questions, you deserve well being online as much as anywhere else.

04/15/2026

We need nuance in the conversation about boundaries in the helping professions because it isn't just personal, we need to examine structure.

I shared a post last week about boundaries vs practice architecture and today I invite you to go deeper.
Even better, share with a colleague and go through them together!

Are your boundaries working harder than they need to?
Are you "shoulding" yourself for not saying no when the system didn't give you good enough choices?
And, where are these patterns being recreated?

If you're interested in exploring your practice design and rhythms more, hit the link in bio to grab the free "Reset Checklist" when you subscribe to the newsletter or register for the Reset Circle.

The checklist is a tool to guage where you need recalibratiing and where you are on track.