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Traci Ruble, MFT, San Francisco, CA (2026)

06/17/2026

Been writing a lot.
New Co Blog coming with a psychoanalyst pal soon. I am excited to get to write in collaboration with brilliant minds. It is just so fun.

But this one was churning in my bones for a few weeks. Hope you make some use of it.

If you are the one who always picks the restaurant, books the trip, makes the plan, holds the uncertainty, and then gets burnt out or resentful about it this article is for you. And if you are the one who says "whatever you want" and genuinely means it , this is also for you.

Direct link to article on my website here: https://www.traciruble.com/blog/overfunctioning-power-and-your-nervous-system-why-youre-always-burnt-out

06/11/2026

I've been listening to Ed Tronick and Claudia Gold's 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘗𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘳 𝘰𝘧 𝘋𝘪𝘴𝘤𝘰𝘳𝘥 while pumping iron at the gym, and it keeps reminding me of something I see constantly in couples work and came up in a convo with a friend today.

We just don't love perfectly, ever. Oh gosh, I long for perfection too. But, darn, it just ain't possible. Some psychological teachings convince people that unless relationships are perfectly attuned, unless there is no conflict, unless every need is met, then the relationship isn't good enough. Find a better one. (not saying there aren't relationships worth leaving but that is another post.)

But healthy relating is imperfect. We miss each other a lot and discord and conflict is a fundamental feature of all human connection.

A relationship can be good, but still have pieces that don't feel great or miss the mark on what we need.

A partner may love you but not be emotional enough.
A parent may love you but not know how to express their needs to you skillfully.
A friend may love you but not know much about your values.
A family member may love you but never celebrate your ambition or work life.

When this happens, many of us don't just feel disappointed. Ungrieved pain from the past creeps in and clouds our perspective.

We feel alone and unseen. Unwanted. Unimportant. Forgotten.

Then we act.

We criticize (the other person or ourselves).
We withdraw.
We become self-righteous.
We explain ourselves harder.
We convince.
We over-function.
We decide the relationship isn't good enough.
etc. etc.

Of course, we get defensive and self-protective if past relationships cut us to the core. Old hurts can convince us that an imperfect relationship is a bad one. So end it or change it.

The work of therapy is slowly untangling those defenses. Not to lower our standards. Not to accept what is genuinely harmful. But to develop the capacity to discern bad from good enough and then bear the humanity and limitations of another person and their imperfect love.

Healing is about feeling good in good enough relating in the present than defending against pain from the past.

06/10/2026

These women are some of the best tenders of relationships I've ever met. Responsive. Curious. I have been studying some of my friends taking notes because they are so damn good at tending relationships.

They check in for no reason. They text just to say they're thinking of you. A friend, not pictured, mailed me a teeny-tiny rubber cat because they remembered I love them. They say "I'll be in your neighborhood, want to get together?" and then actually show up. We plan to meet in person even though we live far away.

These friendships have taught me what tending actually looks like in practice. Being sent an article someone thinks I will love is kind of a love language. One friend in the picture sent me a tote bag, a total surprise, that simply reads "I love who you are" on it. Still one of my most prized possessions. I mean how random and how wonderful does that feel?

My husband and I tend too. We have a Tuesday ritual. Every week, at Noon, one hour, one question: How can I make you feel more safe and loved by me?

I didn't grow up with a lot of this. But after years as a couples and family therapist and leading a human connection project, I've watched what happens when relationships go untended. Couples arrive in my office still loving each other, but anemic. Depleted. The feeling of love was there. But because the practice of it wasn't, they were on the skids and that love turned to despair.

𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗹𝗼𝘃𝗲 𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗹𝗼𝘀𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗺 𝘁𝗼 𝗻𝗲𝗴𝗹𝗲𝗰𝘁.

So I've gotten more intentional. About how I make plans. About keeping people in mind and showing them. I know that connection is fragile. So I try hard to be responsive to my beloveds and prioritize keeping the people I love in mind and devoting my time and attention to them in a material way. It is kind of my favorite thing to do.

Tending isn't grand. It's a text back. A question asked. A small thing mailed in an envelope. It is setting aside the time to listen deeply.

But it has to be practiced. By someone. On purpose.

Sometimes therapy sessions involve a lot of tending when it has gone dormant.

Who do you tend well? How does it feel when you do?

06/09/2026

I have been immersed in some "good grief" work since going on holiday. Not the journey I was expecting on a week in Iceland, but it has been deep. I find myself a bit in awe and my clinical work has been deep AF upon return.

As a psychotherapist, I know that some of our strongest reactions are not just about what is happening now. They are often feelings related to something in the past. And they comingle like a sticky fart.

Sometimes big feelings, strong reactivity, obsessive thinking, or an inability to let something go are clues that we have unfinished business needing to be grieved rather than figured out.

I often find clients who come to therapy having read so many psychology books, trying very hard to understand themselves. Sometimes that understanding is genuinely helpful. Sometimes it's a way to avoid some pretty big grief.

We would rather "figure it out" ...
To avoid what was lost.
To avoid what never happened.
To avoid what cannot be changed.
To avoid ever having to feel that way again.

Me too. I do it as well.

Good grieving helps us digest life rather than organize our lives around avoiding old pain. It helps us accept reality rather than unconsciously demanding that people, communities, careers, partners, or friendships make up for bad stuff.

People disappoint us.

Communities are imperfect.

Families miss things.

Even the best relationships cannot rewrite painful history.

Healing is often less about getting the missing thing and more about grieving that it was missing.

Having a little love affair with grief these days because good grief is one of the most beautiful and empowering psychological practices available to us.

Not because it makes life easy and instantly happy.

Because it frees us from forcing the present to compensate for the past, only to end up spending our lives shadowboxing.

Curious whether this resonates with anyone else.

06/08/2026

Been traveling for holiday to Iceland and Berlin for work and meeting new people, visiting with friends, and getting to notice something STAIR (Self Trust and Integrated Resilience) really really impresses upon us in our training.

We humans do not have an objective view of reality. We think we do but we don't.

We filter experiences and info through our lived experience. Our body mind predicts constantly to stay safe and belong.

However, this predictive quality may have us in conversation listening to someone and thinking...

For example...
1. This person reminds of my mother, my boss, my ex. Yes, and your brain is predicting. What if you let them not be like those people for a minute.

2. When this person shares an experience and you reference it back to a similar experience you have had at a job, in your family, in a psychology training you shrink your ability to see this person because your brain is back to comparing what you have heard to something you have experienced.

Is this a terrible thing? Not at all. But it can have this quality of interrupting intimacy.

Listening with "not knowing" takes what Jules calls deliberate practice.

It is the stuff of Beginner's Mind in Buddhism. I like calling it "not knowing" because it really calls attention to what you are practicing which is really fully inhabiting a state of not knowing.

It is hard but also really intimate.

05/18/2026

I was in three different group spaces over the past two weeks and I kept noticing 𝘢𝘮 𝘐 𝘵𝘰𝘰 𝘮𝘶𝘤𝘩? plaguing me.

Groups are wild like that. If you haven't ever done group work, I recommend. It cleans out the psychological pipes for sure.

Today, in one of my long-term consultation groups (two years together, real trust), our consultant Rebecca Wong did something brilliant on this exact topic. She asked us to name out loud all the ways we monitor and hold back in group spaces. Then she had us turn those protection mechanisms into playful characters. A tree. A profanity phrase in another language. A cartoon character. A gesture.

"Out yourself every time you catch yourself doing that in our group with your playful thing."

OMG, we erupted in laughter.

And today's consultation with these badass, wise-as-hell therapists was way richer because nobody was holding back.

In the other training groups the last two weeks, I kept watching brilliant women say sorry before speaking. Every. Single. Time.

Here's what I think is happening:
Women in particular, but many of us often 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗳𝘂𝘀𝗲 𝗲𝗺𝗽𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗿𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗮𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁. (read that twice. I now have a post it on my desk as a reminder.)

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗾𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗽𝘀 𝗯𝗲𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗱𝗼 𝗜 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗸 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗯𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘀, 𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗜 𝗯𝗲 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝗳 𝗜 𝘀𝗮𝘆 𝗶𝘁?

I am not suggesting caring relational attunement is bad. It is wonderful. But if attunement to other people replaces or erases 𝘂𝘀, it is a problem.

I think empowerment means learning to stay boldly connected to yourself while staying connected to others.

Which is harder than it sounds, especially ESPECIALLY in groups. It takes nervous system skills and tracking the prediction errors your system is likely to make about group spaces, dealing with any attachment injuries you might have, and containing boundaries so you can be differentiated and connected in a group space.

𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗱𝗼 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗵𝗼𝗹𝗱 𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗶𝗻 𝗴𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗽 𝘀𝗽𝗮𝗰𝗲𝘀, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗱𝗼𝗲𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 "𝗜'𝗺 𝗺𝗼𝗻𝗶𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗺𝘆𝘀𝗲𝗹𝗳" 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗹𝗼𝗼𝗸 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲?

05/04/2026

"Hard-won rank is almost always the most defended." Words that came out of my own little mouth on this YouTube sermon I gave for 30 minutes. A couple of colleagues and former clients have egged me on to make these in the last few weeks, so I have made two now. Definitely helps me get clear when I speak things out loud.

I was up till 2am reading Arnie Mindell's conflict phases book and confronting myself about how much I like to restore harmony before the important stuff gets said. Process Work has been working this out of me for several years now.

So, watching credentialed therapists publicly going after other types of therapists, coaches, tarot readers, trauma healers, and unlicensed practitioners and calling it consumer protection had me reading Mindell, trying to sort out what was happening inside me and in our field.

We are definately moving into a bigger stage of conflict and I suspect it is because the Wellness Industrial Complex is getting some jet fuel from AI. But I have learned to say to myself "Traci go into the conflict with skill rather than avoiding or acting out. So that is what I am sensing here. We therapists got some stuff worth looking at and could probably make our work so much better and serve more people if we can hang in there in this conflict.

Mindell's framework from 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗳𝗹𝗶𝗰𝘁: 𝗣𝗵𝗮𝘀𝗲𝘀, 𝗙𝗼𝗿𝘂𝗺𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗦𝗼𝗹𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 and 𝗦𝗶𝘁𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗙𝗶𝗿𝗲 maps conflict as a process, a series of phases, not some screwed-up style of communication that needs immediate calming down.

🌙 Just phases, like moon cycles. Every phase is necessary. Phase two is the one we therapists keep trying to skip or lack some skills inside of. And the people with the most rank in the room are almost always the ones most invested in skipping it, by the way.

I named my own blind spots in this video, including some things about my own rank and what I've been defending without knowing it.

30-minute YouTube sermon. Worth it if this is your kind of thing. Or click over and read the show notes in the description and you will get a decent summary.

📽️ Video link here: https://youtu.be/Hg3lUA_moBQ?si=PRWpz6zjL5xzoJy-

Thanks for talking with me about these ideas, friends.

04/30/2026

Okay, real talk: WAIP? I am avoiding futzing with a CRM database for volunteer work. These two weeks of thinking I have been having about this question is way more fun. So I gave myself permission to post, and then I have to do this icky database work for two hours. LOL Then a walk as a reward. Yay!

Here is my wrestling question that I would so love your magical brain thinking with me on:
"What is the difference between policing behavior and holding someone accountable?"

Other aspects I ponder atm related to the question:
1. Power and rank of the people in the interaction
2. What is happening in the nervous systems of the people in the interaction
3. What the context is (obviously, if a kid could get hit by a car from speeding in that intersection, policing may be really important).
4. Why do we police people inside our own group so harshly? Therapist on therapist, climate activists on climate activists, etc.

When my kids were toddlers, I learned this parenting thing: if you want a four-year-old to stop throwing blueberries on the floor, you can't just bark commands at them. You have to be relational first. Then name what you need.

I tested this. My youngest used to kick me in the shins when he was mad. Hurt like hell. I'd grab his leg and say: I'm going to help your body not hurt me. You're allowed to be mad. We just need to find another way to get your mads out without you hurting mommy.

It worked over time, and he has a pretty awesome relationship with his anger today. And I've noticed it works in most human systems.

Lately, I've been watching therapists police other therapists online, and every time I see it, I feel this specific kind of loneliness. I am someone sensitive to a void of relationality. I even see people who run relating projects relate this way (all impact, no relating).

I'm not saying policing is always wrong or that we always have the bandwidth to be relational. Sometimes you have to get firm.

But I am curious: how do you think about this distinction? And what are your values when someone is doing something that is not ok for you or isn't values aligned or is just plain dangerous?

04/29/2026

After my post yesterday on "why am I posting" and a comment I left on Rachel Wood's thread about more people turning to AI for connection, I found myself swimming in a question that drove me a little nuts: what is influence, and why are we so damn addicted to it? And more specifically, what has therapy's influence done to human connection and loneliness?

So I made a video. Unscripted, Invisalign out so no weird saliva lisp, and no research pulled in to sanction if my thinking is valid. Here is thlink: click or type it in: bit.ly/TherapyInfluence

Here's what I play with out loud: psychotherapy may have done something we haven't fully reckoned with.

We've built a culture that reserves its depth, vulnerability, and philosophical reflection for a therapist's office sometimes, and surveys its own behavior against a new set of commandments: good communication, emotional literacy, empathy (the psychological commandments, if you will).

Not so different from the Ten Commandments, when you think about it. Just secular.

And I wonder if that's part of what's making us lonelier. Self-surveillance. Self-editing. Saving our vulnerability for the blessed few.

My original hope for therapy was always that it would make people healed enough to be their weird, full, odd selves. Not flattened. Not palatable. Not American cheese.

The video is 14 minutes. No agenda, just thinking out loud. Think with me? I have more to say but just want to start thinking with you therapists, in particular.

04/28/2026

A few months ago I started doing a gut check about my social media uses. Before I post anything, I've started asking myself: WAIP. Why am I posting?

A few psychotherapist influencers have gotten in trouble lately for not pausing before posting.

I have been helped out by a pause and an inquiry around lots of things in my work and life.

So I ask myself questions before posting or commenting on stuff on social media these days:
Is it the part that wants to be seen as smart? The part that's a little bit pi**ed off about something? The part that wants to matter? The part that genuinely has something to offer? The part that feels she needs to save the world?
Sometimes it's all of them at once.

I do lots of somatic resourcing and parts work with these voices. Feeling them in my body with a big smile and a "Hello there, you need some care boo?"

I just added on Schema Therapy to my lovely STAIR Trauma Training so I played with my homework a bit and made this deck about the different schemas that could drive how/why we post. A lot of our posting behavior maps directly onto many core schemas.

Schemas are core emotional patterns that we often developed at a really young age. Totally wise and human but often we keep using them long past their expiration date.

I'm not saying only post from the pure place. I'm not a big purity person in general. But I am a choice and agency person and a little pause and a little inquiry helps me post from my values rather than old schemas. It is a fun growthful excercise to engage in while posting on social media. I dig it and have changed how I post. I'd rather be values-aligned than algorithm-aligned.

Swipe through and see if any of these land.

Traci Ruble, MFT

06/17/2026

06/11/2026

06/10/2026

06/09/2026

06/08/2026

05/18/2026

05/04/2026

04/30/2026

04/29/2026

04/28/2026

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