Leah M. Smith, LCSW - Leah Quiets Chaos

03/31/2026

A lot of us were taught:
push through, stay strong, don’t stop.

And maybe that worked…until it didn’t.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) offers something different:

You don’t have to get rid of anxiety, burnout, or hard thoughts to start building a life that feels like yours.

You can:
• feel it
• make room for it
• and still choose what matters

It’s not about becoming a different person.
It’s about coming back to yourself-on purpose.

03/30/2026

Values…boundaries…self care…they’re all buzzwords but they’re also the basics. Often, as a recovering perfectionist, my rigidity leads me away from these basics instead of to them. In “rebellion” against perfect I find my way back to the basics-the stuff that matters. ⭐️

03/22/2026

If you’ve ever sat in therapy like:

“Do I say this or do I just nod and pretend that helped…”

👀

You can say it.

Actually-please say it.

Therapy works way better when you’re not editing yourself to protect your therapist’s feelings.

We’re trained for this. Promise.
🤍 Love, a therapist and recovering people pleaser who’s been there

03/16/2026

You too or naw? How do you recalibrate or regularly fill your cup?

03/09/2026

Stay much! 💜

Every time I want to apologize for being too much I remember when the Mad Hatter tells Alice you lost your muchness, you used to be much muchier.

And that hits different when you've spent your whole life being told to calm down, tone it down, don't feel so deeply, don't love so hard, don't care so much.

People made you believe your intensity was a problem until you actually started shrinking yourself to fit their comfort zone.

But here's the truth nobody tells you, the people who told you that you were too much were simply not enough.

Your fire wasn't the problem, their inability to handle it was.
And somewhere along the way you started apologizing for the very thing that makes you powerful.

You stopped being loud, stopped being passionate, stopped being unapologetically you because someone made you feel like your fullness was a burden.

But you were never too much, you were just in rooms that were too small.

So take your muchness back, every single piece of it, and stop apologizing for being a whole entire storm in a world full of people who are barely a breeze.

03/05/2026

03/01/2026

In case you wondered what era I come from and the vibe over here…this song is my kids’ “jam” and I felt very old telling them it was THE hot hit at the club “back in the day” recently. 😜 Therapists…they’re just like us 😆 LOL

01/25/2026

Your first thought isn't really yours.

It's your parents. Your environment. Every experience that shaped you before you had a say in it.

The angry reaction. The jealous impulse. The insecure assumption. That's just programming running on autopilot.

You didn't choose it. You're not responsible for it.

But the second thought? That one's on you.

That's the moment where you decide whether to follow the impulse or override it. React or respond. Be the person you were conditioned to be or the person you're trying to become.

Most people never realize there's a gap there. Stimulus happens, reaction follows, and they assume that's just "who they are."

It's not. It's just who they were trained to be.

The gap between the first thought and the second is small. Maybe a few seconds. But that's where everything gets decided. That's where you're actually built.

You can't control what shows up in your head. You can control what you do next.

—

I write a weekly newsletter where I unpack these ideas.

→ newsletter.scottdclary.com

01/24/2026

If you’re the one who “shows up”, “gets things done”, and “keeps it moving” while quietly running on fumes…you’re not dramatic. You’re tired.

A lot of capable people don’t realize how heavy things are until they finally pause long enough to notice.

Therapy isn’t about falling apart.
Sometimes it’s just a place to stop holding it all together.

🌿

01/24/2026

When you’re used to carrying a lot, exhaustion can feel like a personal failure.
It isn’t.

Burnout is often a signal, not a weakness, that something needs to change, soften, or be shared.

You don’t have to figure that out alone. 🤍

Leah

01/22/2026

You don’t lose yourself when you rest.
It can just feel that way when achievement has been holding your identity together.

If you’re a high achiever and slowing down feels unsettling,
that doesn’t mean something is wrong with you.

It means you’re untangling who you are
from what you’ve been trained to produce.

🤍

01/18/2026

You don’t always fall apart.
Sometimes you just stop feeling like yourself.
That still counts.