Jennifer Mann, LCSW

06/11/2026

06/05/2026

You can’t know something until you’ve been through something. Experience makes you the expert. Rav Laundau made a video the other day about how people go for therapy or to speak to a Rav looking for answers. He said the answer lies within you! I’ve always always believed this. We often resist this idea because it is so comforting to believe someone has the answer for us. Ofc it is wise to seek counsel and guidance. And, you have the answer inside you.

Something that turned out “bad” is not necessarily indicative of a mistake. It is indicative of a life lived, felt, tried for. There are no guarantees and we all suffer here on Earth in some way(s), shape or form. All of us. To live is to feel joy and to feel pain. Pain seems to be unavoidable.

Your feelings are signals. Important signals. They must be listened to and tended to or they grow louder. Understand also, (in yet another iteration of two opposing truths existing at once) that we can all continue to seek beauty and joy alongside our pain. One does not discount the other or preclude it.

I don’t believe that we are here to get everything “right.” I see very clearly that pain is part of the story here on Earth. Pain does not mean that you’ve done something wrong or are doing something wrong.

Pain means:
I am alive
I love(d)
I try/tried
I am open
I am expansive
I am self aware
I feel
I touch
I breathe
I see
I taste
I sense
I long for
I desire
I want more
I miss

To be in pain means we are human and alive

Acceptance of pain creates space for the happy

Jen

04/28/2026

I was driving over the Atlantic Beach Bridge, windows cracked, that salt air coming in, and I ran into something that didn’t just pass.

It stopped me.

It felt like I had hit something solid.
Like uncovering gold buried in rock; something that was always there, but you don’t see it until you break through the surface.

The word “expert.”

And right behind it, the word “experience.”

For the first time ever, I noticed the shoresh. The nerdy Aquarius that I am, I was so excited with this thought! (Like, really excited!) I have always cringed at the thought of someone being an “expert.” It feel inauthentic to me. I am sensitive to these things and know that inside of everyone, even a movie star, a baseball player, or a guy making five million a year… most people like kids who are winging it. Or alone. Or scared. Or covering. Or hiding. Or pretending. This is human. Even for the experts! What a lonely word!

They come from the same place.
To try. To go through. To live something.

And suddenly it felt so clear.

We’ve taken a word that was meant to describe someone who has been through something
and turned it into someone who claims to know something.

But those are not the same.

Because when you actually go through something—really go through it—
you don’t come out holding answers.

You come out holding truth.

Not loud truth.
Not performative truth.

Raw emes.

The kind you don’t read.
The kind you arrive at.

And there’s something about that kind of truth that feels different in the body.

It’s not forced.
It doesn’t need to convince.
It just… lands.

Like, of course.
Like, this was always here.

Because it was.

The truth is always there.

Experience doesn’t create it.
It reveals it.

But only if you’re paying attention.

Only if you’re willing to sit inside what’s uncomfortable long enough to let something real emerge from it.

Otherwise, you just go through things and stay the same.

But if you use it, if you actually let it work on you,
something opens.

You start to see patterns.
You start to understand people differently.
You start to understand yourself differently.

And slowly, these truths begin to surface.

Not as conclusions.

As something deeper.

Something that gives you space.
That gives you clarity.
That gives you freedom.

Because truth, real truth, doesn’t trap you.

It releases you.

It takes you out of confusion.
Out of needing to prove or defend or explain.

And brings you back to something steadier.

So maybe that’s the difference.

An “expert” sounds like someone who has arrived.
Someone who knows.

But someone who has truly experienced,
who has paid attention, who has let life shape them…
they don’t sound finished.

They sound real.

They speak from something lived.
Something earned.

Something uncovered.

Like gold that was always there
just waiting for someone to dig deep enough to find it.

03/26/2026

Listening to Blue Oyster Cult’s “Don’t Fear the Reaper,” I felt compelled to immediately write this, even before I unpack my groceries. (I did put away the ice cream.)

You know what addiction is? Addiction is a way we cope. Drugs, alcohol, s*x, shopping, work, smoking, gambling, food and even people. That’s right… many of us have an addiction to people. We are in relationships of various kind, subconsciously using people in all sorts of ways to make ourselves feel OK. Because we don’t feel OK inside.

A drag, an “I love you,” the thrill of sleeping with a tenth partner in a month, the hope the ding of the slot machine brings, the fourth piece of cake, the eighth dress you purchased on Amazon when you needed three outfits, loved the fourth and fifth, felt embarrassed with 6, needed reprieve by getting the seventh and said “one more, just do it this time and this is the last dress” on the 8th. You know what’s funny? Most of us are addicted, and we talk about it like it’s a bad thing… and the shame…

I’ve always loved the prayer after Aleinu… “Al tirah mipachad pitom.” Do not fear sudden terror. When we are coping through numbing or heightening or escaping, we are out of the moment and in terror. We feel so deeply that we need the coping mechanism to protect us because the pain of the moment is too much to bare. And then we are so ashamed that we couldn’t stay in the moment. And we do it again and again and again. It hurts.

When we stay… when we face our fears and our uncomfortable or downright awful feelings and feel them, we show our feelings… “I am not afraid of you.” We can show our feelings they have value and merit and worth. We can show ourselves compassion by staying with ourselves. You are not scary. Your feelings are not bad. Much like to our own child, we would stay and listen and be there and tell them it’s OK to cry. Every time we stay with our feelings, and don’t escape, we become more and more powerful. In the moment. Living. Healthy. Powerful. Full of self love.

“Seasons don't fear the Reaper
Nor do the wind, the sun, or the rain
Come on, baby
(Don't fear the Reaper) Baby, take my hand
(Don't fear the Reaper) We'll be able to fly”

I have in no way, shape or form mastered this. I wanted to share my thoughts.

Jen

03/06/2026

We can spend the rest of our lives lamenting the ways the our family and friends aren’t capable of loving us back.

We can leave.

Or…

We can shower them with the exact kind of love we don’t get from them, and focus on all the ways they DO love us.

♥️💕♥️💕♥️💕♥️💕♥️💕♥️💕♥️💕♥️💕

02/16/2026

Do you ever get really intense déjà vu? I’m having coffee, hanging out on what’s app and social media a bit, before I meet my mom (and possibly) sister for a belated birthday lunch on my day off from work, and I’m texting with a good friend about something really challenging and emotional in my life, and I JUST experienced intense déjà vu. The kind that gives you more than pause. The kind that takes your breath away and makes you question your sense of reality and if you’re “normal” or “OK.” And because it’s an inside job and you’re left alone with it, you don’t know if you’re going crazy because it didnt happen to anyone else and you were alone in it. So, there are parts of my life I struggle with and of course the feelings that come along with those parts, and for the briefest moment I felt that I’ve lived this before. And it felt so familiar and right. This recognition that maybe I’ve done this already. And suddenly I feel so planted in this reality and this feeling of being able to do it. I do believe that I’ve lived past lives with many of the people I travel this world with. So who knows??
Have you ever had Déjà vu??
Jen

02/15/2026

Living in truth is glorious. Its recognizing and make space for who you are. Part of that is listening to your nervous system and honoring that it is your internal wisdom and knowing speaking to you. Listening is self love.

02/06/2026

Knowing that holding two realities at once is wisdom. Doing it feels terrible. Releasing the idea that there comes a time when we are “healed” and no longer feel pain is grief. Maintaining and/or cultivating play and child like euphoria and fun is where the magic is.

Jen