from our newsletter, written by Linda Lin, RCC, RCAT

Growing up my grandma who raised me always said, “friendships and learning to connect with others help us cross the bridges of life” 🪷 ୧ ‧ ˚ (this is roughly translated to English)

A couple of decades later, I find myself circling back to her wisdom, because building connections and friendships is active resistance to capitalism and individualism. Friendship is a refusal of a culture that tells us to stay polished, self-contained, hyperindependent, and endlessly ‘productive’.

But here’s the question, how do we actually build real friendships when we’re swimming in a culture that glorifies capitalism, perfectionism, and even buying into community, when it's dressed up as 'self-respect'?

via Pinterest

-`♡´- -`♡´- -`♡´- -`♡´- -`♡´- -`♡´- -`♡´- -`♡´- -`♡´- -`♡´-

Reciprocity is the heartbeat of relationship.

Robin Wall Kimmerer reminds us that reciprocity is the heartbeat of relationship. The Earth offers us gifts—berries, shade, clean water—not so we can hoard them, but so we can learn the joy of giving back. Reciprocity flows in a circle, isn't one-sided, sustaining everyone involved. It also reminds me of generosity, a value my mother taught me.

When we strive to live in the rhythm of reciprocity instead of keeping score, we learn to offer, and make room to receive. 

We make listening as important as speaking, holding as important as being held. 

 Reciprocity doesn’t keep score; it trusts that when we give, it returns in another form, in another season.

-`♡´-  -`♡´-  -`♡´-  -`♡´-  -`♡´-  -`♡´-  -`♡´-  -`♡´-  -`♡´-  -`♡´-  

sleepover and zine making a friend~

Prioritize connection > productivity! 

Individualism and capitalism teaches us to prioritize our needs above our communities and view relationships as transactional.

It's literally designed to keep us in disconnection and in loneliness.

There were so many days when I find myself after a full day of work and feeling so exhausted to make plans with people who support my nervous system and would interrupt these cycles of anxiety.

snippet of my friendship mantras zine!

✦ ‧₊˚ ⋅✦ ‧₊˚ ⋅✦ ‧₊˚ ⋅✦ ‧₊˚ ⋅✦ ‧₊˚ ⋅✦ ‧₊˚ ⋅✦ ‧₊˚ ⋅✦ ‧₊˚ ⋅✦ ‧₊˚ ⋅✦ ‧₊˚ ⋅

Rest and pleasure are portals to receiving care and love ♡

Especially when we are trained/conditioned to work, serve, and over-function, choosing rest, joy, pleasure, and time with friends is a way to restore love’s presence in our lives. Communion helps us interrupt cycles of hurt: healing personal wounds with relationships and those passed down through generations and systemic oppression. 

Prioritizing our needs is not above our relationships (capitalism/individualism) nor is our relationship above our needs (relational trauma/wounding).

✦ ‧₊˚ ⋅✦ ‧₊˚ ⋅✦ ‧₊˚ ⋅✦ ‧₊˚ ⋅✦ ‧₊˚ ⋅✦ ‧₊˚ ⋅✦ ‧₊˚ ⋅✦ ‧₊˚ ⋅✦ ‧₊˚ ⋅✦ ‧₊˚ ⋅

via Pinterest

⊹₊｡ꕤ˚₊⊹⊹₊｡ꕤ˚₊⊹⊹₊｡ꕤ˚₊⊹⊹₊｡ꕤ˚₊⊹⊹₊｡ꕤ˚₊⊹⊹₊｡ꕤ˚₊⊹⊹₊｡ꕤ˚₊⊹⊹₊｡ꕤ˚₊⊹

Communion is the antidote to loneliness and alienation! 

Communion counters loneliness and alienation. Our culture reinforces individualistic behaviours, which shape how we maintain—or let go of—relationships, like the drifting or disappearance of friendships in adulthood after life changes such as moving away, starting a new relationship, landing a new job, or having a child.

bell hooks reminds me in Communion that true connection invites us into intimacy, belonging, and presence. 

I’ve been practicing little ways of stepping off the hamster wheel, where I prioritize friendships and relationships instead of letting the system dictate my pace. I’m learning again and again that connection can be one of our greatest sources of nourishment and healing.

When we slow down enough to be with a friend, we’re pushing back against the myth that our value lies only in output.

Whether it’s cooking a meal together, walking or playing at the park, or even having an adult sleepover (SO fun), friendships are how we choose connection over keeping score, competition, and the endless busyness capitalism asks of us. 𖦹

⊹₊｡ꕤ˚₊⊹⊹₊｡ꕤ˚₊⊹⊹₊｡ꕤ˚₊⊹⊹₊｡ꕤ˚₊⊹⊹₊｡ꕤ˚₊⊹⊹₊｡ꕤ˚₊⊹⊹₊｡ꕤ˚₊⊹⊹₊｡ꕤ˚₊⊹

So here's to choosing each other in a culture that doesn't.

₊˚🍏 ྀ౿ written by yours truly, Linda

Community building events coming to Decipher this Fall/Winter!

✮ monthly TEAR CLUB! (anti-perfectionism) with Chloe, our art therapist .ᐟ.ᐟ ˚⊹

 

✮ weekly OFF-SCREEN HOURS art therapy drop-ins with our interns coming soon .ᐟ.ᐟ ⋆˙⟡

A space where we can build community, make art, and connect more deeply with yourself and the world! Think of it as a group therapy session, but in a fun, casual, community-focused way, away from screens and winding down from our week.

Also a perfect activity for rainy days with a friend or two in our studio located in downtown ‘Vancouver’.

Check back soon for updates!

quick note: this blog post is not written by AI. The writing below features ideas and wisdom of artists, personal journalling and newsletter writing, curated to what a therapist feels the world is needing these days. 

Image via @realizationbypea

from our newsletter, written by Linda Lin, RCC, RCAT

Be real with me… what is your relationship with time like?  ୧ ‧ ˚ 

When I am overwhelmed, time feels like the scariest, most unattainable currency that I cannot get back once it pasts by. From the hours, minutes to seconds, I find myself reacting to my thoughts, the ‘standards’ and shoulds on how I need to be spending my time and transforming it into something valuable, productive, ~rich~.

This obsession leaks into how I see money, work, relationships and I'd hate to admit this, my entire sense of self.

I’ve met so many people who try to force outcomes to ‘shape their reality.’ That might look like getting a perfect job with no career gaps or trying to appear as though they have their life together by a certain age (we're not even on linkedin btw •̀ ᴖ •́). Over time, those expectations can attach themselves to our identity and perceived reality.

via pinterest

The more we obsess over time, the more it breeds fear, frustration, hesitation and misalignment.

Did you know? 
Your energy is your most VALUABLE resource in life.

Therefore where you put your time and attention determines everything.

Instead of forcing outcomes, what if we start curating your reality with alignment, creative direction, and thoughtful refinement. Like an artist curating their work 𖦹

via pinterest

I journaled this the other day: “my relationship with time is kind, sweet, caring, full of life, light”

Perhaps mourning/stressing about time and next thing, which is heavy in weight, is dictating a relationship with time that isn’t valuable to me!

We cannot time hop in multiple streams of consciousness. 

So disappointing, am I right? It's really too bad that we can’t live in every parallel timeline like we are everything everywhere all at once. Trying to juggle all the goals, tasks, and “what ifs,” whether it’s making our days off perfect or savouring the end of summer, usually just leaves us with an abstract and confused state of feeling.

HOWEVER, I’ve been thinking a lot about quantum leaping, also called timeline jumping. The idea is that if you’re on level 1 and you want to get to level 8, it’s really about giving yourself room to believe that level 8 is just the next step, waiting for you.

Time is not something we need to centre and obsess over.

Thanks to this tiktok I watched last month, I've been on this case ever since. Obsessing about time traps us in procrastination, locks us into overwhelm, and confines us to cycles of productivity and capitalist urgency which are the very things we don’t want taking over our lives.

When our most easeful and fluid path (the realm where time flow exists) starts to blur under pressure, how can we anchor ourselves to remember how we want time and life to truly feel?

Here’s your art journalling prompt:

Draw and describe how fluid time is to you currently. Draw a portal that allows you to experience time the way you want time to feel.
 

Use your fave mediums: Mine are stickers, collaging, digital media like Pinterest images, sparkly gel pens, words, pencil crayons, oil pastels, coloured pens to express myself.

From this prompt, TIME IS A MEADOW came up for me. I call her, Mother Time. Instead of me trying to micro-manage/control time, or duelling it out with time, she is here to support me. This isn't a battle. I also don't have to mother time. Time is here for me and with me. I'm rolling with it and curious to what this art prompt will reveal for you!

TLDR; or don't feel like journalling? Try reflecting on this in the month ahead:

✩ Gently build curiosity by learning your unique rhythm and pace.

✩ Practice your ability to redirect and focus with purpose and intention. 

✩ Slowly expand your capacity for flow instead of control with time.

I see you! ⋆˙⟡ written by yours truly, Linda

quick note: this blog post is not written by AI. The writing below features ideas and wisdom of artists, personal journalling and newsletter writing, curated to what a therapist feels the world is needing these days. 

from our newsletter, written by Linda Lin, RCC, CCC, RCAT

What does it take to feel our enough-ness these days?

Lately in therapy sessions, in conversations with friends and family, and while recording the self-directed workshop series in collab with @friendlybureau on healing money (made for children of immigrants and working-class folks), I keep sensing a common thread. That we’re all experiencing a quiet, complex grief, each in our own way.

And one symptom that festers is the feeling of being stuck on a hamster wheel of proving.

There’s this unrelenting pressure to stay urgent, distracted, productive. Proving to others, yes—but if I’m unbearably honest, we’re trying to prove to ourselves that we’re enough.

My nervous system is so often on edge, caught in a cycle of not being there for myself enough—not resting enough, not reaching out enough, not building the right kind of structure. Always chasing a version of 'enough' that was never mine to begin with. These 'enoughs' don’t align with the values I want to bring into the world, or with what truly matters to me.

But when I slow down even just a bit, I become increasingly curious:
Do we know what our enough is?

Has it been named, clarified, or felt?

If we don’t know what enough is—how can we feel the enough?

When is enough... enough?
What even is ‘enough’?

Is the ‘enough’ we’re chasing actually important to us?

The attention economy: colonization of the mind

 It’s becoming harder to tell the difference between what we actually need and what the internet insists we should do.

Like taping my mouth shut so I don’t mouth breathe at night. Or doing facial yoga because I’ve been told my smile lines are deepening.

Each effort, well-intentioned, chips away at my energy: time feels tighter to the point where I want to hide in a dark cave, just to escape from all the noise.

Because there’s no actual importance, softness, appreciation of my life energy.

And that’s not even the life I want.

What if we could see that our body is trying its best—working so hard to meet the demands of the culture we live in?

Gentle reminders for you and me

 When we disconnect from our dreams, from presence—that’s a signal that we’re drifting from our body, our vitality, our aliveness.

Starting is enough.
Connecting our mind and body to witness how we react to the instability, unsustainable practices from these uncertain times, is enough. Like paying attention to our breath, we don’t have to change anything.

I believe that our bodies know deep down what doesn't matter to us and what actually matters.

What matters could be being witnessed, cared for, getting recognition or loved by those we hold close.

Maybe what matters is being of service because that is what heals us too.

Living with meaning, with pleasure, or with living dreams!

What if our collective aliveness is already in you—beneath the noise, quietly patiently waiting for you? 

When we confront the truth that we’re not here forever, something softens.

What if you are not existing and came all the way here to be excellent, but simply to connect?
To try.
To show up just as you are.
To bring something that matters to your soul.
To reach for life.

 
And as you find your way through all the noise...
you discover that you’re still enough.

 And that enoughness doesn’t define you either.

from our newsletter, written by Linda Lin, RCC, CCC, RCAT

For a long time, I didn’t believe in the joy and ease of sharing my work.

To be real with you, I’ve been on the verge of stepping away and battling with my ideas and creativity ever since I started Decipher 5 years ago.

Choosing to recommit and act on my ideas again and again: stretching industry barriers around how a therapist ‘should’ show up, facing parts of myself I tend to avoid or reject, like money anxiety and asking for help, adapting to changes in our world, and considering the visibility of Decipher.

 
If you’re anything like me, maybe you’ve noticed how the journey back to our imagination can feel unsupportive and self-betraying at times. Just when we want to begin something new or return to something meaningful, instead of meeting ourselves with softness, we default to harshness. Like why are we getting so hard on ourselves for even trying?

How is it that the very moment we want to access our presence and power, judgement, pressure, control, fear show up?

So in this blog post, our mini research question is:

"Whose imagination are we living in?"

On a personal level, I think of this quote by Audre Lorde: 
 

“In the cause of silence, each of us draws the face

of her own fear — fear of contempt, of censure, or

some judgment, or recognition, of challenge, of

annihilation. But most of all, I think, we fear the

visibility without which we cannot truly live.”

The fear of being seen shows up when we’ve learned to censor ourselves before anyone else gets the chance to. It shows up when the guarded protector part of me is activated. It doesn't pay attention to what actually nourishes me. It's what happens from living under harmful systems designed to cut us off from ourselves.

But facing the soul-crushing parts of the world asks something different of us. It calls us to slow down, to zoom out from the noise, to tune in to what really matters, and to show up with presence.

Those who monopolize resources, also monopolize our imagination

Let's just lay it out. I NEED you to pay attention to where your attention is going. 

We have to get crystal clear and pursue dreaming and building on our imagination. 

 We need to deprogram from the capitalism and the AI-chokehold it has on our psyche, voice and art.

There's a quote by a sociologist, thinker, African American scholar, Dr. Ruha Benjamin in her book Imagination: A Manifesto where she writes, “those who monopolize resources also monopolize imagination”. How is it that we can imagine a world where we can colonize another planet and fly over to get brunch, or design babies based on epigenetics or have AI systems that simulate people who have already passed away, but we can't imagine a world where no child is hungry or where violence is not a thing, where we are rooted in abundance and ease (instead productivity and urgency).

This is a reminder to myself, and to anyone who needs to hear this: 

💙 Let go of the pressure to be polished all the time in our craft. 

💙 Share your thoughts with people, even when they’re messy or unfinished. 

💙 Connect even in virtual spaces where we bring in quirks into our art, random edits, going off-script, with pauses, where something real breaks through instead of reading paragraphs with em dashes everywhere IYKYK. 

💙 There’s something powerful in expressing ideas just from our imagination, not ones from Big Tech!

Every time you share your sensitivities, ideas and imagination, they connect us and humanize us. 

I really want you to know that your perspectives and ideas are worth exploring and it would be such an honour for the world to hear and witness them ❤️

When we show up as we are, we give others permission to do the same too!
 

Somehow from 5 years of fearing visibility, I’m still showing up at Decipher, writing these monthly-ish newsletters, growing a community to co-create visions into existence!

Happy 5 years to this amazing community and everyone who’s stopped by or keeps coming back. I’m really grateful for all of you who make this space feel alive and full of possibility. Here’s to many more years of healing and dreaming together!