Veronica Dunn Therapy

08/22/2026

08/22/2026

Everyones experience will be different, and, what I've often come to witness and experience is that as we do our own work, the lenses in which we view the people around us change. Especially the lens we view our parents through.

Sometimes we begin to see just how much pain our parent's have been carrying their whole life. Sometimes we begin to recognize that the hurt we carried from them was all they knew. This doesn't excuse it, and it doesn't mean we will forgive it, rather, sometimes it highlights something for us.

Sometimes it redirects our desire to change or fix our parents or repair the past with them to now focusing on breaking the cycle ourselves. Sometimes it shifts how we see our experience and allows for some space to tend to our own pain without needing something to be resolved with our caregivers first.

Sometimes it shows us what we need to see in order to decide that the pattern ends with us, that we now longer need to stay in the cycle that our parents might always stay in. Sometimes it shows us what we so deeply want to change for our own future generations.

It's quite the phenomenon to begin seeing your parents as something more than just "mom/dad". And like I said, this doesn't mean any of the pain they might have brought onto us becomes valid or is something we even forgive - maybe it is for some, and maybe it isn't for others. Rather, it sometimes can give us a sense of freedom to choose if we want to continue the cycle that our parents did.

When we begin to heal, we see our parents wounding, and sometimes with that comes so many other pieces that are important for our journey of breaking the cycle.

Quote and Image: (on Instagram)

07/16/2026

Gratitude has a way of changing what we see without changing what we have.

It shifts our focus from what is missing to the many blessings already surrounding us. A grateful heart finds joy in places that a complaining heart often overlooks.

The more grateful we become, the richer life feels.

07/16/2026

"In order to empathize with someone's experience you must be willing to believe them as they see it and not how you imagine their experience to be" -Brené Brown

07/03/2026

Self-compassion means holding space for both the pain and the beauty of life, so we can enjoy it in all its bittersweet complexity.