Perkatory
Notes on Mindfulness
A few years ago, if you said the word mindfulness, my eyes would roll so hard they would end up in the back of my head. Especially since the most anxious person in the world, my father, is the one who suggested mindfulness meditation to me.
Read More...On Feeling Un-F***ed with Mindfulness
I just got back from co-leading a mindfulness in nature retreat in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan with a group of eight incredible young adult women from across the country who didn’t know each other before they arrived, but are all card-carrying members of the same exclusive club to which none of them wants to belong.
Read More...Mindfulness Takes Center Stage
It’s raining right now, and you’d think this would be the perfect atmosphere to write this piece. I have soft, relaxing music playing, and I can hear the pitter patter of the rain outside. Despite all this, I find writing this to be extremely difficult. I’m not used to reading my own work aloud, and the idea of doing so makes me second guess each sentence I type out.
Read More...My Story as a Medical Professional
Since being invited and enthusiastically agreeing to write this piece and speak, my pretty much constant thought has been- “Oh crap, what did I agree to?”. I’ve started and deleted more drafts than I can count, talked through what I wanted to share with friends (and aloud to myself), and had serious regrets about not taking my therapist’s assigned journaling homework more seriously.
Read More...The First Patient I Diagnosed with Cancer
The first person I ever diagnosed with cancer was me. Until that point in my medical training bad news had always been broken to patients before I met them. By the time of our introduction, their shock had subsided, and the initial fractures of their premorbid identities had ossified into therapeutic resolve.
Read More...A Letter to My Younger Self: Lessons Learned in the AYA Oncology Field
Dear 23-year-old baby social work student, Lauren – OK, so I want to share a handful of the things I’ve learned over the years from my time spent with AYA cancer patients and their families. We’ve got a lot to cover, but before we jump in, we need to get a few things straight:
Read More...Vulnerability as an AYA Program Manager
I’ve thought about writing this article for weeks now. I’ve even attempted multiple drafts, all of which ultimately got deleted. The thing is, I’m not afraid to be bad at writing. I’m afraid of how what I am writing will be perceived. Social workers are rigorously trained in maintaining personal boundaries, so it isn’t natural or comfortable for me AT ALL to focus on myself in this role.
Read More...Advocating for your Body in the Bedroom
Suddenly, the body I once knew — the body that ran half marathons and excelled in dance classes and mastered a crow pose in yoga and tackled other bodies in rugby and sexually satisfied my husband and grew, birthed, and nursed two babies — was foreign to me in every sense of the word.
Read More...How PCHP Led Me to Love (Myself)
So long as every person involved is a consenting adult, there is no wrong way to engage in sexual intimacy. In fact, I have found my experiences to be deeply liberating and a confirmation that we are all deserving of intimacy and pleasure regardless of our disability, illness, or trauma if that’s what we desire.
Read More...Intimate Issues with Marloe: Your Brain in the Bedroom
While it’s true that the physiological aspects of sexual functioning, like vaginal lubrication, erection, and orgasm, are impacted in part by both our hormones and the health of the blood vessels and nerves that supply our nether-regions, that’s not the whole story.
Read More...