Mindfulness Isn’t Always the Answer

Mindfulness is everywhere—touted as the cure for anxiety, trauma, burnout, and even capitalism (if you squint hard enough). It’s promoted on therapy websites, smartphone apps, and your HR department’s wellness portal. The messaging is simple: If you’re suffering, just breathe through it.

But what if “just notice your thoughts” feels like being told to stay quiet while your house burns down?

Mindfulness can be a beautiful, liberating practice. But stripped from its Buddhist roots and repackaged for productivity culture, it too often becomes a muzzle—one that silences big emotions, numbs justified rage, and individualizes suffering that’s deeply systemic.

In my work with queer and questioning clients—especially those with trauma histories—I see how mindfulness gets used as a way to avoid discomfort, rather than move through it. Clients are told to regulate instead of express, to calm down instead of speak up, to accept instead of resist. This is not healing; this is self-management in service of staying “functional.”

Mindfulness isn't the problem. The problem is when it becomes the only tool in the room—or worse, when it's used to shut down the messy, vital parts of our experience that actually need to be felt, named, and processed with care.

If mindfulness has felt like a dead-end, you’re not doing it wrong. You might just need a practice—or a therapist—that makes space for the full spectrum of your humanity.

If mindfulness has ever left you feeling like you’re “doing healing wrong,” you’re not alone. I work with queer and questioning folks who want therapy to be more than symptom management. If you're craving a space that welcomes the whole messy truth of who you are, I’m here.