On Coming Out and Pride by Jamie Zane Brazell

I think that pride is a good antonym for shame. 

If shame tells us we are inherently bad or unlovable then surely pride tells us that we are worthy and we belong. That’s the whole point, isn’t it? 

I came out as bisexual when I was in high school. This was in the 90s and it was common to hear things like, “Female sexuality is fluid.” So when a boy or man came out as bi, it was assumed that he was actually gay and it was just a matter of time before he was fully out about it. But for me it was probably seen as some sort of rebellion, fad, or even a performance act for men. I reject all of those assumptions. 

I did struggle with my own internalized homophobia before I was honest with myself about my attraction to women. It still makes me cringe to think about a situation when I was in love with my best friend, she kissed me in our room one night at field hockey camp, and I immediately went cold, saying, “Your not going to do that again, are you?” If I were magically granted a number of times to go back in time and redo something I did or said, that moment would easily be in my top five. 

Devo & Me, FG since the 90s

FG = our code for F-ing Gay

It felt somehow safer to come out when I moved from Catholic school to public school in 10th grade. Maybe it was falling in platonic love with another bestie who was openly gay in our New Jersey high school in the 90’s. Thinking back on what we were on the heels of - the HIV/AIDS crisis - and in the midst of - Ellen’s “Yep, I’m gay” announcement on the cover of Time magazine. it still wasn’t exactly safe to come out and yet here was Devo - the leader of our flaming little queer club, snapping in the hallways when we saw each other. Theatre kids who defied conventional coolness with our manic-pixie 90s edge. 

Since those precious days, I have come out many, many times. 

I did the thing that a lot of bi women do and I married a heterosexual man. This means I feel compelled to come out to anyone who is new to me - especially since I am the owner of this practice and we wave rainbow flags all year long. They don’t disappear in July like the Halloween decorations do in November. Pride is a daily commitment for us. 

So yes, I married a cis man, but I still get to be queer. It’s uncomfortable for me sometimes when I meet someone new and I’m using the word husband. That’s usually the moment when I feel like I have some explaining to do - because how can I own this incredibly sex-positive, queer-celebrating practice and be in such a hetero-normative looking relationship? There’s a privilege in passing, but it’s not worth the shame of staying closeted and the betrayal I would feel if I pretended as if my identity shifted just because I married someone who would be deemed socially acceptable by people I don’t care about. 

Bi people sometimes feel like we don’t have a place in straight land or in queer land, but I really don’t suffer from that problem because I am surrounded by chosen-family queer community and that makes me feel both seen and safe in the world. I do think it’s not unusual for any queer person to have multiple coming out stories. And it’s also sadly not unusual for queer people - even this far away from my days in the 90s - to grapple with internalized homophobia or to find themselves in unfriendly environments that cause them to remain in the closet until it’s safe to emerge. 

Coming out stories are plural because a queer person doesn’t just come out once, but often they are required to identify themselves over and over again any time they meet someone new, find themselves in an unfamiliar environment, change jobs. And it’s obviously not always safe to be honest about who we are - sometimes even to ourselves in certain circumstance. 

I know that it’s helpful to others when queer people stay visible and show that we are unashamed of who we are. So in honor of the end of Pride month, I just wanted to put it on record that I’m here, still definitely queer, and most certainly not ashamed of it. 

All Things Sex by Ashlyn Hawkins

All Things Sex

Sex is one of the most human things we experience—and somehow also one of the least talked about in honest, grounded ways. For something so central to connection, pleasure, identity, and vulnerability, many of us were given very little language for it beyond silence, shame, or rigid rules.

At its core, sex isn’t just about bodies. It’s about connection, communication, curiosity, and consent. It’s about how we relate to ourselves and to others. And it looks different for everyone.

Consent: More Than a Yes or No

Consent isn’t a one-time checkbox or a legal script. It’s an ongoing, living conversation. It’s about paying attention—to words, body language, energy, and timing. Consent can change. It can be enthusiastic one day and hesitant the next. It can be withdrawn at any point.

Real consent is rooted in safety and respect, not pressure or obligation. When consent is clear, sex becomes less about performance and more about presence.

Boundaries Are a Kindness

Boundaries often get a bad reputation, as if they limit intimacy. In reality, boundaries are what make intimacy possible. Knowing your limits—and being able to express them—creates trust. It allows people to relax and show up more fully.

Boundaries aren’t walls; they’re information. They can include physical limits, emotional needs, pacing, aftercare, privacy, and communication preferences. And they can evolve as you learn more about yourself.

Likes, Dislikes, and the Space In Between

You’re allowed to know what you enjoy. You’re also allowed to not know yet.

Sexual preferences aren’t fixed personality traits—they’re shaped by experience, safety, curiosity, and self-trust. Some people have clear likes and dislikes. Others discover them slowly through exploration. Both are normal. What matters isn’t fitting a label, but listening to your body and honoring what feels right for you.

Honesty Builds Safety

Honesty in sex doesn’t mean oversharing or having all the answers. It means being real about your needs, your uncertainty, your desires, and your limits. It means naming things like:

“I’m curious but nervous.”

“I don’t like that, but I might like this.”

“I need to slow down.”

Honesty creates emotional safety, which often leads to deeper physical connection.

Exploration Without Shame

Curiosity is not a flaw—it’s a natural part of being human. For some people, exploration happens within monogamous relationships. For others, it may include ethical non-monogamy, polyamory, kink, or BDSM.

These experiences are not about being reckless or avoidant. When practiced with intention, they’re built on communication, consent, and responsibility. Ethical non-monogamy and polyamory often require a high level of emotional awareness—talking openly about needs, jealousy, time, and care. Love and desire don’t always follow neat rules, and many people find relief in naming that truth.

BDSM, Kink, and Trust

Kink and BDSM are often misunderstood because they challenge mainstream ideas about sex and power. In reality, these dynamics are frequently rooted in deep trust, clear communication, and negotiated consent. Power is not taken—it’s offered.

For some people, kink is playful or erotic. For others, it’s grounding, connective, or even healing. Structure, ritual, and agreed-upon roles can create a sense of safety that allows vulnerability to emerge.

There is nothing inherently unhealthy about consensual kink. Like any sexual expression, what matters is intention, communication, and care.

Sex as Connection

Sex can be playful, tender, intense, awkward, healing, messy, joyful, or all of the above. It can be about pleasure, bonding, expression, stress release, or closeness. Sometimes it’s deeply emotional; sometimes it’s just fun. Sometimes it changes as life changes.

Ashlyn Hawkins, LMFTA

There’s no single way sex is supposed to look. When approached with curiosity, care, and compassion, sex becomes less about getting it “right” and more about relating—to yourself and to others—in honest and meaningful ways.

Your desires, questions, boundaries, and experiences are part of your humanity. They don’t need to be minimized, hidden, or justified. They just need space to be understood.

And that space matters. 

This piece was written by Ashlyn Hawkins, LMFTA. Ashlyn sees couples, polycules, individuals, kinksters, vanillas, queers, straights, and everyone in between for virtual therapy sessions. Ashlyn isn’t afraid of talking about sex with her clients, nor is she afraid of addressing relational conflict.

Ashlyn can take most BCBS, Aetna, Medcost, or Ambetter insurance plans.

To learn more and to reach out to Ashlyn directly, click here.

Attachment Styles: Moving From Types to Cycles to Create Deeper Understanding by Jordan Stonecypher

Attachment theory seems to be everywhere these days—and I’m here for it. As a therapist, it’s my home base for how I like to understand the clients I work with. But the more I dive in, the more I notice something tricky: attachment styles aren’t as fixed as we often like to think.

As someone who’s spent a lot of time studying attachment for both personal and professional reasons, I often catch myself thinking: “Am I anxious? Avoidant? Anxious-avoidant? And honestly… It can get real messy in this well-intentioned brain of mine.

Here’s the pickle: I notice myself trying to identify my own—or others’—attachment styles, only to realize that behaviors shift depending on the context of the situation and who is involved. One second, I might notice anxious tendencies; the next, avoidant behaviors. Trying to neatly categorize these experiences into ‘what am I’  feels frustratingly impossible- causing me to spiral into overthinking, and then I throw the baby out with the bathwater altogether. Not helpful.

Why is it so hard to get a clear answer about attachment styles? I came to this conclusion for myself, and maybe you relate too: when we have a mindset of  fitting people into boxes (a lot of time because that is what feels safest for us), we lose the complexity and nuance of relationships and the human condition that actually describes us most authentically.

So what may be a more helpful way to think about it? These are two ways of thinking that have started to guide my understanding of attachment styles without losing my mind:

1. A category will never capture the whole human experience. Attachment styles, personality types, or diagnoses can describe part of a person, but they don’t define the entirety of someone’s lived experience.

2. Focus on cycles, patterns, and processes. Instead of asking, “What type am I?” I ask, “What patterns am I noticing in myself, in others, and in the human experience?”

So what does this look like in practice? Let’s take romantic conflict as an example. A common pattern in attachment is the pursuer-withdrawer cycle: one partner expresses needs anxiously (the pursuer), and the other withdraws or disengages to avoid the conflict (the withdrawer). Instead of labeling one partner “anxious” and the other “avoidant” to be a fact forever, I focus on the cycle itself, and I hold space for that either partner can switch too depending on the situation or if they are in a cycle with someone else. 

By focusing on cycles rather than types, we create space for nuance and flexibility while still being able to understand ourselves and others: I can be the pursuer in one conflict and the withdrawer in another, and that’s good information for me to notice. When we can identify the pattern, we can work to create a more secure dynamic. This cycle-focused perspective emphasizes context, fluidity, and choice. It frees us from rigid types and allows us to respond to the moment rather than being boxed in by past patterns or labels- this is where we can fully express our authentic selves without the constraints of a ‘type’. 

If you’re thinking, “Wait,—you just used attachment types to describe cycles, but you’re telling me not to use types?”—lol yes, friend. Let’s clarify: attachment types help us understand tendencies, while cycles help us understand relational dynamics. For example, I may have a dominant anxious attachment style shaped by my childhood- It informs my worldview and many of my relationship tendencies—at times. But I’ve also been the avoidant partner in certain situations. My style doesn’t define me, but the cycle I find myself caught in with another person is good information, and understanding attachment styles is an important part of that. If anything, understanding that I can be one style in one situation and another in another situation helps me notice patterns within myself where I can choose how to respond. By shifting from a “type mentality” to a “cycle mentality,” we can see relationships—and ourselves—with more flexibility, nuance, and compassion.

So if you are like me and have struggled with attachment theory, overthinking your “type,” or feeling boxed in by labels—you’re not alone. I see you as the well-intentioned, “I just want to understand” person you are.

As an alternative way of thinking about attachment, I invite you to notice the patterns in your interactions, pay attention to cycles you find yourself in  rather than trying to pin down a permanent type, and give yourself permission to shift roles, respond differently, and engage with relationships more authentically. This is not about perfect behavior or fixed labels—it’s about understanding yourself and others in context, moment by moment. In that space, we find freedom and choice in how we connect with others and ourselves.

If you’re interested in learning more about your attachment patterns and cycles, feel free to reach out!

Jordan Stonecypher, LCMHCA sees individuals and couples in our practice and she only just got started with us so she has availability for new clients!

Disclaimer: I’m a therapist by training, but much of this reflection comes from my own experiences and curiosity about the human condition. I share it in the spirit of conversation, not authority—and I’d love to hear your thoughts or perspectives.

Learn more about Jordan and contact her through her profile here.

Introducing Lauren Miller - Our Trauma-Focused Somatic Practitioner - by Jamie Brazell

The words “trauma-informed care” get thrown around a lot in the therapy world and sometimes it’s hard to know exactly what that means. There isn’t a standard definition - as far as I have seen - and so it’s hard to know what to expect when someone claims to offer this approach. 

Talk therapy is only one modality for working on trauma or attachment wounds. The mental health world is learning so much about the nervous system and ways in which we can regulate ourselves through somatic practice. This is one reason why we are so grateful to have Lauren Miller on our team. Lauren (they/them) is here to help us get beyond the words and to make peace with ourselves from within our own bodies. 

Lauren is an incredibly wise, honest, and empathetic human. They have a ton of experience with helping individuals navigate a healing journey in their body. Sessions with Lauren are individualized and directive, moving at a pace that honors each client’s unique process. Lauren offers a focus on practical solutions to nuanced concerns --such as being able to discern the neurophysiology of a panic attack versus an anxiety attack and provide tools that are tailored to specifically support how the activation shows up in a client's specific body and mind. 

I love that Lauren is approachable, extremely knowledgeable, creative, and funny. I feel at ease around them. They are attuned to the importance of boundary setting in a thoughtful, intentional, and kind way. It makes me feel safe in their presence. I also very quickly got the sense that they are the sort of person who can hold all kinds of hard things about the human condition without running away. I see Lauren as a brave, steady support system. They have the capacity to facilitate an experience that I would unquestionably consider a very trauma-informed approach. 

When asking Lauren more about their work, they shared:

““One of my favorite practices with clients is to get curious about what is working, even in the murkiness of deep suffering, to find places of respite, resource, boundary, backbone or just more desired ways of being for them. From here we delve in to highlight and create personalized internal resources that are somatic, but have ties to other resources, like thought, emotion, visualization, gesture. All of us have some grace within even our most maladaptive coping. 

I’ve been in private practice for 8 years and previously worked in various levels of clinical care, including contributing to a treatment team. I have a deep respect for what is offered in those settings and a strong commitment to what can be offered when we honor the client’s vision and somatic experience first. 

I have also mentored a number of somatic practitioners and I get a lot of joy from this kind of work as well. 

The feedback that I get from clients is that I am deeply attuned and hold a lot of faith in their process. They have said that often I help them find softness in places of rigidity or backbone and clarity in places of confusion and collapse. The most consistent feedback that I get is how helpful a really nuanced praxis of consent is and how this builds the shape of being able to find tools, resource, and insight outside of sessions. 

I view myself as a practitioner, so I have a set skills and various forms of knowledge that I bring to session. I never think I know better than clients about their own life and I am deeply sensitive to power dynamics.””

— Lauren Miller

Learn more about Lauren in their own words here and reach out directly by email or by clicking a button on their profile to schedule a phone consultation to see what they may offer you. Lauren will be offering TRE groups in addition to individualized sessions. Lauren is also experienced as an Herbalist and is well-versed on holistic care that can be integrated in your work with them. 

They cannot take insurance, but they can see clients from anywhere in the whole world over telehealth. For those who can come in person, Lauren will be at our Asheville office on Zillicoa Street. 

Welcoming Andrea Siegel, LCSWA to our Therapy Team! by Caroline Wilson

Andrea Siegel, LCSWA

It is my great pleasure to introduce Andrea Siegel, Ph.D., LCSW-A, to the community as she joins us at Out of the Woods! She comes to us with a wide variety of experiences as a clinician, and just some of her clinical interests include life transitions, guilt, shame, and moral injury, and working with erotically marginalized individuals. Andrea’s primary therapeutic specialization is in supporting clients with spirituality, which covers a vast spectrum of desires, goals, and concerns, grounding the therapeutic work in an honoring of a client’s spiritual path.

Andrea reached out to us while contemplating a move back to Western North Carolina, and we were eager to bring her to our team. When I spoke with Andrea in an initial interview, I was so profoundly and genuinely excited by her clinical interests and philosophical approach to the work that it was difficult for me to remain on task. Andrea incorporates her rich lived experiences and background of providing intensive caregiving to loved ones, integrative health and chaplaincy, and international studies into her approach as a clinician. She has a discerning eye and open-hearted vision toward the possibilities of what a therapy can bring to her clients, and has a curiosity and creativity that is readily apparent in how she talks about clinical work. 

Andrea incorporates different cognitive behavioral approaches and Internal Family Systems Therapy into her work. I especially love what she wrote herself on her profile: “Whatever your life experiences, political affiliations, gender identities, or relationship structures, you are warmly welcome here.”

“Warmly welcome here” truly describes Andrea. If you’d like to read more about Andrea, please go here. 

Welcoming Alexa Bonsey, LCSWA to our Therapy Team! by Caroline Wilson

Alexa Bonsey, LCSWA

We are excited to be welcoming Alexa Bonsey, LCSWA, to our team at Out of the Woods Therapy! Alexa joins us having most recently worked with survivors of intimate partner violence, domestic violence, and those with complex trauma histories.

In the process of interviewing and hiring Alexa, Jamie and I had the great privilege of speaking with some of Alexa’s former supervisors. It was clear from these conversations that Alexa has a rare and special gift for connection, and sees potential for healing, integration, and resiliency in those she treats. Alexa has a deliberate, heartfelt energy that was apparent to me even in our initial meeting, and that has only deepened since she has joined the practice and started to build her caseload. She is also very funny and I wouldn’t doubt that spark comes across in her therapeutic rapport!

She has a multi-faceted approach to therapy and integrates somatic and polyvagal theories; attachment theory and parts work; and relational psychodynamic psychotherapy in her style. Alexa will be treating individual adults and adolescent clients in-person at our newest office on Clayton St. She is currently paneled with most BCBS plans and also accepts private pay.

We are truly lucky to have her at our practice.

To hear more about Alexa in her own words and to connect with her, please go here.

Meet Jenna Swanson, LCMHCA, LCASA! (by Caroline Wilson)

We are excited to announce that Jenna Swanson, LCMHCA, LCASA, will be joining us at Out of the Woods Therapy! When we announced that we were hiring new psychotherapists, Jenna was the first person we heard from, and the enthusiasm and passion she expressed continues to shine through.

Jenna comes to us with many years of varied experience in the field of mental health and recovery. She has experience working with a wide spectrum of concerns and populations, and is excited to offer individual and relational psychotherapy to adults here at Out of the Woods.

Jenna is eager to bring opportunities to help her clients build holistic awareness through physical movement and art, including dance. When Jamie and I spoke with Jenna individually about her ambitions as a psychotherapist, we were both so impressed and touched by her creative spirit, which has us delighted for the possibilities of what Jenna will bring to the practice and her clients. In addition to her verve, Jenna has a gentleness to her, a way of deeply considering herself and others, that makes me excited for her future clients. She understands that pleasure is part and parcel to healing, and that is a value we very much hold at Out of the Woods. 

Jenna will be offering EMDR in addition to somatically informed talk and art therapy. Jenna is currently awaiting to be paneled with BCBS, but in the meantime is taking private pay clients. Please join us in welcoming Jenna to Out of the Woods Therapy–we are lucky to have her!

Learn more about Jenna in her own words, send her an email, or send her an appointment request here.

Introducing our newest therapist, Jay Massy, LCMHCA (by Caroline Wilson)

It is our pleasure to welcome Jay Massey, LCMHCA, to the team at Out of the Woods Therapy! Jay comes to us with a background of diverse experiences in the field, including wilderness therapy, residential treatment, the Veterans Affairs, and not-for-profit therapeutic programming. Jay is excited to be at Out of the Woods and is looking forward to supporting people with recovery from sexual violence, PTSD, substance abuse and addiction, and values and identity development. One of the things most striking to me about Jay is his clear grasp on the importance of balancing humility and knowledge as a therapist–he says his intention is to walk beside his clients, which is a strong value here at Out of the Woods Therapy. 

Jay is in the process of becoming paneled with BCBS and Friday insurance, and currently takes private pay. Jay will be seeing individual adults and couples (but has rich experience working with adolescents and may see them again in the near future!).

I can testify to Jay being thoughtful, curious, warm, and funny–all skills that make the kinds of clinicians we are proud to have serving our community at Out of the Woods. Please join me in welcoming Jay!

To learn more about Jay in his own words, reach him by email, or send an a request for a consultation, please click here.