Jenny Lehman, Licensed Clinical Social Worker and Psychotherapist

Jenny Lehman, Licensed Clinical Social Worker and Psychotherapist My goal is share thoughts on mental health and support the community.

08/23/2026

Women in midlife: just be yourself. Release the judgment of other people. It’s all ok.

08/11/2026

You have the ability to shift fear to trust and love through the breath and the calming of the mind.

08/10/2026

There is a moment in this work I watch happen again and again. Someone has been circling something for a long time. Thinking about it. Reading about it. Telling themselves, they will begin when they feel more ready, more settled, more clear. And then something happens – a loss, a threshold, a quiet moment where the noise finally stops – and they realize they have been waiting at the edge of the diving board for years. The readiness does not arrive before you jump. It arrives in the jumping. This is not an instruction to act recklessly or to bypass what is genuinely not ready to be touched. There is a pace to this work, and it deserves to be honored. But for most people circling the edge, the hesitation is not wisdom. It is the old operating system doing what it was designed to do – keeping you safe by keeping you still. Sometimes when you were on the edge of growth, the only answer is to take a few steps towards the edge of the diving board and… Dive. The water is cold at first. And then you are in it. And the thing you were afraid of turns out to be the thing you needed most. ’sHealing

08/05/2026

I have watched people dutifully meditate in ways that don’t suit them for years. Sitting in silence when their soul needs movement. Following someone else’s prayer tradition when their own language is closer to music, or to water, or to the feeling of soil. There is nothing wrong with any tradition. What is worth examining as whether you chose it because it resonates, or because someone told you it was the right one the question I ask in this part of the work is simple: what makes time disappear for you? Not what you think you should enjoy. Not what looks good. What actually makes you forget, for a moment, that you were supposed to be somewhere else. For Greg, it was sculpture. He was an art major in college, who would put his clay away for years. When he finally picked it up again, slowly, time melted away. He got up the next morning and did it again and then again. That is not a coincidence. That is the soul recognizing itself.

07/24/2026

A belief is not a thought. You can change a thought, deliberately, consciously, by choosing a different one. A belief is a conclusion that formed before you had the capacity to question it. It lives in the body as much as in the mind. It organizes how you perceive, new information, what you notice, what you dismiss, what feels true before you have time to think about it. This is why positive affirmations, by themselves, often don’t work – or work temporarily and then stop. You are placing a new thought on top of an old belief. The belief is still running underneath. Real belief work is different. It involves going back to where the conclusion formed – not to re-traumatize, but to revisit with adult eyes and adult resources what a child experienced without either. The question is not: can I convince myself to believe something different? The question is: is this conclusion actually true? And if it isn’t true, is there something true I can put in its place – not something positive, but something honest? That distinction,, between positive and true, is the difference between a reframe and a real shift. work

I have watched people work very hard to heal without ever actually touching the thing that needed to be healed.They unde...
07/23/2026

I have watched people work very hard to heal without ever actually touching the thing that needed to be healed.
They understand it intellectually. They can explain the mechanism. They have reframed it beautifully. They have done enormous amounts of therapeutic work around it.
And then something happens - a loss, a threshold, a quiet Tuesday afternoon when the noise finally stops - and the original wound is right there. Exactly where they left it.
Real compassion is not the same as comfort. Sometimes the most loving thing I can offer someone is not a reframe or a technique. It is my willingness to stay in the room with the difficult thing, without looking for the exit.
God enters through the wound.
That is not a comfortable sentence. It is the truest one I know.
Hashtags: womenshealing innerwork deephealing spiritualgrowth mindbodysoul emergentsoul holistichealing womenswellness emotionalwellness selfcompassion divineconnection consciousliving healingfromwithin

07/19/2026

Not as memories. As operating systems. Everything you’ve experienced – every message about whether you were enough, every early conclusion about what you had to do or be to be loved – those didn’t stay in the past. They became the framework through which you see everything that comes after. The belief that formed in a family organized around achievement: I am only worthwhile when I produce. The belief that formed when emotions weren’t welcomed: my feelings are a burden and should be kept out of sight. The belief that formed when the environment was unpredictable: if I relax, something bad will happen. You cannot update an operating system system. You cannot see. Which is why origin excavation is not optional in this work – not because we want to live in the past, but because the past is currently living in you, running decisions, you think you’re making freely. We go backwards, not to blame anyone. Most of the people who shaped you were doing the best they could with what they had. We go backwards because you cannot understand the present without understanding where it came from. And once you can see it clearly – the whole thing changes. work ’sHealing

If we can pause for a moment and notice, without judgment – most of us were never taught that our feelings were simply a...
07/17/2026

If we can pause for a moment and notice, without judgment – most of us were never taught that our feelings were simply allowed to exist. We were taught to manage them, explain them, justify them, make sure they were proportionate, make sure they weren’t causing anyone any trouble. We became very skilled at processing from the neck up. Analyzing the feeling. Explaining the feeling. Understanding where the feeling came from. Keeping the feeling from being inconvenient to anyone. And the body, which was never interested in any of that, is still carrying what it was carrying before the analysis began. The body does not need a reason. It needs a Witness. Learning to be that witness for yourself – to sit with what is present without immediately moving into explanation mode – is not a small thing. For many people, it is the most radical act of self compassion they have ever attempted.

07/16/2026

I know how it feels to look at a pattern - the hyper-independence, the bracing, the compulsive need to achieve, the inability to let people in - and feel nothing but frustration with yourself for still doing it.
You know better. You’ve done the work. Why is it still running?
Here is what I want you to consider. That pattern was not a mistake. It was a solution. An intelligent, adaptive response to a situation that required it.
The child who learned that emotions were dangerous in her family and shut them down - she was protecting herself. The woman who became fiercely independent because needing people led to getting hurt - she was being wise about the landscape she was navigating.
That used to work for you. But it’s not working now.
Not because you did something wrong. Because you outgrew the environment the pattern was designed for, and the pattern didn’t get the memo.
You are not running the pattern because you are broken. You are running it because some part of you is still protecting someone who needed protecting.
That part deserves compassion before it receives a new instruction.
# innerwork healingjourney deephealing emotionalhealing spiritualgrowth mindbodysoul selfcompassion emergingsoul holistichealing

Here is the exercise I want to offer you. Quietly, honestly, finish this sentence:I am only worthwhile when I...Whatever...
07/14/2026

Here is the exercise I want to offer you. Quietly, honestly, finish this sentence:
I am only worthwhile when I...
Whatever completes that sentence - that is the map.
For some women it is achievement. For some it is being needed. For some it is approval - from a parent, a partner, a culture that has very specific ideas about what a woman of a certain age should be.
The completion will feel obvious once you find it. It will also feel uncomfortably true. That discomfort is important information. It means you have found the actual thing rather than a story about the thing.
You speak to yourself with such judgment. I notice that in almost everyone who does this exercise. The completion comes out, and immediately the voice says: I know. That’s so shallow. I know better than that.
You do know better. And knowing better has not made it stop running.
That is the difference between understanding a belief and releasing one. We are interested in the second.
Hashtags: emotionalhealing selfworth spiritualgrowth deephealing mindbodysoul emergingsoul selfcompassion holistichealing womenswellness emotionalwellness consciousliving healingfromwithin innerpeace spiritualwellness womenspirituality authenticself soulawakening authenticliving rootwork beliefwork

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