Mirel Goldstein, MS, MA, LPC is an award-winning, licensed therapist with 20+ years of clinical experience and is a published author.
What if your “overreaction” makes perfect sense?
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When Old Wounds Speak Loudly Ever had one of those moments where your reaction felt way bigger than the situation called for? Maybe someone didn’t text back fast enough. Maybe your partner seemed distracted. Maybe a friend canceled plans. And suddenly—before you even understand why—you feel panicked, angry, ashamed, or completely unglued. We often call these moments “overreactions”. But I don’t love that word. Because what I’ve seen again and again—in the therapy room and in life—is this: Sometimes your overreaction is really an old wound saying: “Please don’t leave me.” It’s the child part of you that learned to scan for danger. The part that felt abandoned, unseen, or not enough. The part that still lives in your body and nervous system, even if you’re decades older now. And when something in the present echoes that past pain, it doesn’t just tap you on the shoulder. It roars. It hijacks your emotional response, trying desperately to protect you from reliving something unbearable. In therapy, we learn to listen to that voice instead of shaming it. We learn to get curious instead of self-critical. To ask: What is this feeling protecting me from? What memory or fear is being stirred? What part of me needs reassurance right now, not rejection? When we can do that—when we pause to listen instead of pushing the feeling away—we begin to heal the wound instead of reenacting it. It’s powerful work. Sometimes painful. But always worth it. You are not too much. Your emotions are not the problem. They are messengers—longing to be understood, not silenced. Warmly, Mirel What if the most vulnerable thing isn’t needing love—but offering it? https://goldsteintherapy.com/why-giving-love-can-feel-harder-than-receiving-it/ |
Goldstein Therapy
Mirel Goldstein, MS, MA, LPC is an award-winning, licensed therapist with 20+ years of clinical experience and is a published author.
When Your Defenses Become Your Personality Sometimes the traits we learned early in life to survive — being “nice,” “strong,” “funny,” “independent” — become the very things people love and expect from us. We get praised for them. Rewarded for them. Identified with them. But what if they aren’t just natural parts of who we are? What if once upon a time these traits were defenses — ways to cope, adapt, and stay safe in a world that didn’t always give us what we needed or meet us where we were...
Here are some links to my recent blog posts for those of you who haven't seen them posted elsewhere (the newsletter content in contrast to my blog posts is exclusive for you subscribers!) Whose Desire are You Carrying: https://goldsteintherapy.com/whose-desire-are-you-carrying/ How Therapy Can Detoxify Shame: https://goldsteintherapy.com/how-therapy-can-detoxify-shame/ Why Giving Love Can Feel Harder Than Receiving It:...
Let’s talk about something that doesn’t get said enough:When closeness feels too scary, we don’t push people away to be mean. We do it to survive. To feel safe. To stay in control. We tell ourselves we’re “independent,” or that we “don’t need anyone,” but beneath all that distance? There’s often a much younger part of us saying: “Please don’t hurt me like that again.” Because sometimes, connection hasn’t felt safe. Maybe love came with conditions. Maybe it disappeared when you needed it most....