Blog for
Chris Lauzon - Therapist, LICSW

The image says what many of us feel but rarely slow down enough to name. We live in an age of constant access, news alerts, social feeds, opinion threads, breaking headlines, hot takes, and outrage cycles. None of it is inherently wrong; we are free: to believe, to speak, to vote, to worship, to dissent, and these freedoms matter.

So much of our emotional energy gets spent managing how we are perceived: what they think, how we “come across” to others, whether we said the ‘right’ thing. It’s understandable, we’re wired for connection, but when we orient our inner world around external judgment, we slowly lose touch with ourselves. What you think about yourself matters far more than what they think about you.

I’ve long held the opinion that when someone adds, “just kidding” or “just joking” after a comment, there is often some percentage of truth tucked within it. Not always, of course sometimes humor is just humor, play is just play. But many times, I’d estimate there’s about 40% truth living behind the curtain of the joke. Humor can be a safe doorway, a way to say something honest without risking full vulnerability. But it can also be a mask that bruises others.

Have you ever looked at your relationship and thought, “We’re both here… but I still feel lost”? Like you’re in the same harbor, but somehow you can’t quite see each other clearly? I call this the Relationship Fog. It’s that hazy place where you still care, still want to be close, but communication feels clumsy, misunderstood, or distant, where you’re trying to navigate connection, yet something old and familiar is steering your wheel instead. Let’s talk about it.

When people walk into a therapy room, it’s often in response to something urgent, an emotional crisis, a relationship breakdown, burnout, or a significant drop in their overall functioning. It’s natural. Pain is a powerful motivator. But while we spend so much time focusing on how to tread water when we’re drowning, we often forget that true, sustainable growth happens not during the chaos, but during the calm. Let’s call that calm your baseline.