Kara L Zimmerman, LMFT, LCPC, LPC

06/16/2026

Relationships don’t change because both partners wake up one morning and magically do everything differently. More often, one partner starts interrupting the negative cycle. One partner becomes a little more curious, a little less reactive, a little more intentional. And when the emotional environment begins to shift, it creates space for the other partner to shift too.

06/16/2026

The truth is, many grieving people are not fine.

They've just become experts at hiding it.

They've learned how to smile through conversations, show up for responsibilities, and make it through the day without letting others see what's really happening inside.

Not because the pain is gone.

Not because they have healed.

Not because they have stopped missing the person they love.

But because grief is exhausting, and explaining that pain over and over again can be even more exhausting.

Sometimes it's easier to say "I'm fine" than to explain that your heart still hurts.

That certain memories still make you cry.

That some mornings still feel impossibly heavy.

That there are days when you miss them so much it physically aches.

If you've been carrying the weight of "I'm fine" while struggling inside, please know you are not alone.

💔 How often do you say "I'm fine" when you really aren't?

06/16/2026

06/16/2026

Many couples spend most of their conversations talking about responsibilities, schedules, and everything that keeps life moving.
The Express Yourself Check-In is a simple way to create space for a different kind of conversation.
Questions like:
What's been bringing you energy lately?
What's something you miss doing just for yourself?
What's something you've been feeling but haven't really said out loud?
According to Gottman research, emotional intimacy grows when partners continue sharing their inner world with each other. Not just what's happening around them, but what's happening within them.
This month's Love Notes includes the complete Express Yourself Check-In, along with a guided 10-minute exercise designed to help couples reconnect through curiosity, understanding, and conversation.
Sign up here: https://bit.ly/4g0CwVT

06/15/2026

Asking for space when you are flooded is one of the healthiest things you can do in a conflict. But for someone with anxious attachment, a partner going quiet without explanation does not feel like a break. It feels like the beginning of the end.

Most people either push through while too activated to hear anything, or disappear without saying enough and leave their partner suspended in uncertainty.

The couples who take space and communicate it clearly build a kind of safety that changes everything about how conflict lands.

Save this for the next time you need it.

06/15/2026

When my yellow Lab died last spring, I was flattened by an overwhelming sadness that’s with me still. And that’s normal, experts say, because losing a pet is often one of the hardest yet least acknowledged traumas we’ll ever face.

06/10/2026

Here’s something I write about in my book,

Somewhere along the way, a lot of us learned to rank our pain.

There's often someone with a harder story, so who are we to suffer?

Pain doesn't work on a leaderboard. The fact that someone else is suffering more doesn’t lessen what you're carrying. It just adds a layer of guilt on top, so now you're hurting and ashamed of hurting.

Two things can be true. Your problem can be smaller than someone else's and still deserve your attention.

See what happens when you let it just be true.

06/10/2026

06/09/2026

One of the biggest surprises in my own grief journey was realizing that year two was harder than year one. And I totally wasn't prepared for that.

Like most people, I assumed the first year would be the worst because it contained all the painful firsts, the first birthday, the first holiday, the first anniversary, and every milestone I never imagined facing alone.

The first year was really hard, but looking back, I was mostly surviving. There were countless decisions that needed my attention. My days were filled with just trying to get through the next hour, the next appointment, or the next task. Everything felt like a blur, and I don't think I fully understood what happened.

Then year two rolled in.

By then, life returned to normal for most people around me. The cards stopped coming. The phone didn't ring. Fewer people asked how I was doing. It wasn't because they didn't care. It was because enough time had passed that they assumed I was doing better.

Here’s the thing…I was only just beginning to understand the reality of my loss.

The shock that carried me through those early months started to wear off. The numbness was fading. The reality that my person wasn't coming back settled in more than it ever did during that first year. There was no longer a part of me waiting for things to return to normal because I was finally beginning to understand that normal didn’t existed anymore.

What I discovered was that year one was about surviving the loss.
Year two was about learning how to live with it.
And those are two very different things.

Surviving is about endurance.
Living with loss is about adaptation.

It's about waking up each day and figuring out how to carry someone you love into a future they won't physically be part of. It's about learning how to build a life around an absence that never completely goes away.

I also found year two to be lonelier. During the first year, people naturally expected me to be grieving. But during the second year, they expected me to be healing. But grief doesn't always follow the timelines other people imagine it should.

There were days when I looked fine from the outside and felt completely overwhelmed on the inside. I was functioning, working, and moving through life, but I was still trying to figure out who I was without the person I loved beside me.

For me, year two wasn't the end of my grief.
It was the beginning of learning how to carry it.

And that, in many ways…was even harder than I ever expected.

Gary Sturgis
Author: SURVIVING GRIEF – 365 Days A Year