I have this metaphorical box that I’ve been carrying around, full of unresolved grief and trauma. And every year I continue to hold onto it, the box gets heavier. This is grief debt, and I’m out of credit.

Familial love has been expressed through obligation and sacrifice, leaving me tangled in a knot of inherited guilt. Desperate to break free, I tried a remote Family Constellation Therapy (FCT) session. It helped me understand what I needed to “Return to Sender” to shed generational trauma and finally claim the path forward I’ve been scared to want.

The next time someone tells me that they “believe in science” and therefore cannot take me or my work seriously, I will point them to this study.

I’m done watering concrete instead of soil, spending precious resources trying to fit an ever-changing mold or continuously moving goalpost. Even as a consumer, I’m tired of being fed so much information I never actually asked for. The attention economy drains from us all, makers and consumers alike, and I fear we’ve lost sight of the exchange rate.