The Moment Everything Changed

As a therapist, I often talk with clients about being present during difficult moments. Last week, I found myself living that lesson in real time, standing in my living room, watching flames crawl across the mountains in front of our home. We had one hour. Sixty minutes to decide what was essential for my husband, our two young children, and myself.

What do you take when you have 60 minutes to leave your home—unsure if you’ll ever return?

Parenting in Crisis: What I Told My Kids

In that moment, I felt two parts of myself operating simultaneously: the surge of adrenaline telling me to move quickly and the deliberate, practiced part of my mind that knows children need (age-appropriate) information to feel safe. Even as I was processing our own situation, I found myself carefully choosing words, sharing what I knew (“There is a fire. We need to leave our house for safety.”) and honestly acknowledging what I didn’t (“I’m not sure when we can come back.”).

Teaching presence in crisis is one thing. Living it—while packing your children's comfort items with smoke on the horizon—is something else entirely.

The Power of ‘Good-Enough’ Coping

Safety comes first—both physical and emotional. In a crisis, we toss out perfection and lean into good-enough moments of connection, clear communication, and the courage to be honest about uncertainty while remaining calm.

Why Feeling Your Emotions Matters

During times of crisis, there’s often pressure to ‘stay positive’ or focus only on gratitude for what we still have. But as someone trained in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), I know there’s profound wisdom in letting ourselves feel the full range of emotions.

While my home was spared, I feel heartbreaking sadness for the losses in my community—losses that hit close to home. I’m not willing to brush it aside. My sadness is proof of what I love, of what matters most.

Turning Pain Into Purpose: Values-Based Action

When we let ourselves feel difficult emotions, they can guide us toward meaningful action. My sadness about our community’s losses isn’t paralyzing me—it’s moving me toward expressions of care and connection. Checking in on neighbors, offering support to those more directly impacted, and holding space for others’ experiences aren’t just coping mechanisms. They’re tangible expressions of what I value most: community, compassion, and honesty.

This is what we mean in ACT when we talk about values-based action. It’s not about pushing away sadness or trying to ‘fix’ the situation. It’s about letting our emotions inform how we show up for ourselves and others.

Holding Space for Others—And Ourselves

As I write this away from home, I’m holding multiple truths:

I can be both a therapist who understands the psychology of crisis and a person feeling displaced.
I can hold space for my clients’ struggles while processing my own.
I can find resilience not despite uncertainty, but because of how I stay connected to what matters most.

If there’s one thing this experience has taught me, it’s that professional knowledge doesn’t make us immune to human experiences—nor should it. By allowing ourselves to be both vulnerable and present, we often find deeper connections with our communities and ourselves.

I hope this normalizes that it’s okay to feel deeply, to need support, and to find your own way through uncertain times.

After all, it’s in these moments of shared humanity that we often find our greatest resilience—not despite our struggles, but because of how they connect us to what matters most.

A Therapist’s Experience of Crisis: What the LA Fires Taught Me About Resilie