Weathering the Storm

Hello Comrades in Care,

A lot has happened since I sent out a proper update. Most notably in my life: my partner and I had a baby! As I begin writing this newsletter, my father is holding my seven week old child, reading to her Always Remember: The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, the Horse and the Storm by Charles Mackesy. This book full of beautifully illustrated pieces of wisdom that I’m getting to overhear from the couch.

I imagine we are all aware of the dark clouds — the storms we are weathering and witnessing others weathering. I wrote out a whole list of just the recent stressors and crises we are facing collectively and thought better of it. You don’t need to start your day (or whenever you read this) with a list of the things that we are trying to weather. You know. Perhaps all too well.

I am interested in the word “weathering.” In this usage, it means enduring and is associated with resilience. Weathering also refers to the gradual process of organic materials wearing down due to chronic exposure to the elements. Public health scholar Dr. Arline Geronimus borrowed the term — with this specific association to exposure-induced wearing — to describe the accelerated physiological wear-and-tear on oppressed people (particularly Black American women) due to chronic stress. I think of this duality of weathering when I imagine us as collectives and individuals weathering storms. We are enduring, yes, as evidenced by my writing this and you opening your email and reading this. We’re still here. And also we are not unscathed by living under and alongside the challenges we face in our lives and communities and as a society. Charles Mackesy is right that the blue sky never leaves. And there are lasting impacts of the dark clouds that pause and pass overhead intermittently throughout our lives.

If you’re new to this newsletter because you took one of my courses or signed up for my substack, welcome. This is the best method I have for letting folks know what I’m doing besides my substack essays/pieces. You also don’t have to stay subscribed. I know we all get a lot of email. You can scroll to the bottom of this email to unsubscribe — I won’t be offended!

In this month’s update, I’m going to opine a bit about the reasons we have to remain hopeful or at least energized in our efforts at meaningful lives and just societies — this includes some reflection on finding wonder and having a baby, before I share professional updates below. Skip around as you see fit.

What is helping you weather the storms these days? For some, recognition of the victories or resistance offers helpful mooring. If this is you, I recommend reading activist and author Ben Greene’s recap of last year, titled Where We Won in 2025. Journalist Erin Reed’s brief analysis of trans politics past, present, and future titled The Case For Hope: Transgender Rights Going Into 2026 is also useful reading. It’s nice when people whose jobs are looking at the state of trans life and politics have an informed take that there are actual reasons to practice radical hope.

And of course, hope for successful resistance isn’t always the center of what drives our capacity to withstand challenges. I think it’s most useful when paired with being present to the things that are still good and wonderful about our lives and this world. That may mean awareness of the sweetness of community connection, intentional tapping into experiences of awe, or regular appreciation for the simple pleasures and joys of the day.

I have found newborn parenting to be incredibly effective at aiding me in the practice of awe at both the extraordinary and the ordinary, at least under our conditions. (Because unlike many parents in the world and our country, my baby is safe from threats of war, has parents with paid leave and access to food and stability, and we have extended family and community support.) In addition to these seven weeks being a dizzying and humbling experience of having to learn a lot, fast, and having to do a lot before we know what we are doing, experiencing life through my child’s emerging awareness has reified and expanded my resilience. Thoreau’s oft-repeated reflection that “every child begins the world again” easily goes viral for good reason. When was the last time you experienced awe at the way the ceiling fan cuts through sunbeams and casts rhythmic shadows on the wall? Even though in my work, I typically guide others toward wonder, I have found it easy to forget about the magic of light or other ordinary experiences, and before my baby reminded and taught me to do so, it had been a long time since I got truly excited about these basic and “mundane” parts of our world. Before long, she’ll be awake enough to her experience that I’ll get to introduce her to the natural world outdoors and the multitudes of wonder contained therein.

And I am in awe watching her learn to have a body and mind — my partner and family and I spend hours watching her and engaging with her and reporting enthusiastically to each other as she develops the ability to smile at us or to track things with her eyes, her growing capacity to recognize faces and sounds (indicating the early formation of memory), her developing gut flora and accompanying farts. And I think about the fact that I and everyone I know, including each of you, were in fact once babies learning to control our eye muscles and digest food and make sense of visual stimuli.

These sources of awe are all components of the “blue sky” that never goes away in Charles Mackesy’s metaphor. Even as we feel exhausted and pained by ours and others’ suffering, the very fact that we have the capacity to experience those feelings is pretty remarkable. And the love and drive for connection and for better worlds in the face of horrors and tragedies is even more remarkable. I’m reminded of a newish song by Mavis Staples, written by Allison Russell and Hozier, called Human Mind:

I find myself gobsmacked that random mutations and the natural selection of evolution could lead to something as incredible as the human mind. I suppose that’s a large part of why I became a psychologist.

Speaking of being a psychologist, I will be returning from parental leave at the end of February. In the meantime, I’m offering a discounted rate for a bundled package of all of my trainings on working with trans people with (understandable) sociopolitical distress. I’m also excited to share that I’ll be returning to Cape Cod Institute this summer to teach a new course focused on this area: therapeutic approaches to sociopolitical stress in trans and nonbinary clients. Scroll down for more details on these offerings, as well as a weekly winter virtual yoga series for stress and trauma clearing by my colleague and friend Yolanda Ramos (LICSW, 200 hour Embodyoga® RYT and Qigong Infused Yoga® Teacher), and links to my recent writing.

Reduced Price on Online Trainings Through End of January 2026

Register Now for In-Person and/or Live Online Course This Summer at Cape Cod Institute

Join me this summer for an interactive course across two half-days at Cape Cod Institute. Registration is now open with both early bird and student pricing.

Course Description: When clients’ distress is so clearly linked to systemic stressors and societal bias, it can be hard for therapists to identify ways to be useful. As such, many therapists have expressed a sense of helplessness and/or overwhelm in working with members of the trans community, as trans and nonbinary people face increasingly apparent sociopolitical hostility. But therapists are not helpless during this era of anti-trans rhetoric and violence. As Dr. Barr will make clear in this two-day training, we have a vital role to play in mitigating sociopolitical distress. With adequate knowledge and skills, mental health clinicians are actually uniquely equipped to support trans and nonbinary clients in living meaningfully amidst sociopolitical hostility. This course was built from Dr. Barr’s careful study of the work of BIPOC psychologists and community leaders who have long facilitated healing and resilience in the face of societal oppression, as well as evidence-based principles of psychotherapy, and his own experience and research in best practices for working with trans and nonbinary people’s sociopolitical stress. With a mix of engaging didactics and interactive opportunities to apply learning, participants will leave this course feeling energized and capable, even in the context of honest reckoning with the severity of the challenges these communities face.

Yolanda Ramos’ Winter Yoga Series for Stress and Trauma Clearing

Recent Writing

I hope to have some time and cognitive/emotional space to properly reflect on parenthood in the coming weeks. I have something cooking in my head about fatherhood and gender and transness, and lots about all the reminders of how truly full of wonder it is to be alive. I know things are scary and challenging and devastating. I also know we can weather this storm together, and take care of each other as we are weathered by the storm.