Regulate: Featuring Psychotherapist Lia Avellino
Healing is not a pinnacle reached, I’ve been healed and then unraveled and healed again.
Lia and I first met when I was a participant in her group therapy circle at The Well, a wellness oasis in the heart of New York City. I was taken with her skill as a facilitator and a therapist and for the first time, understood the magic of group healing. Over time, a friendship grew and I continue to be inspired by Lia’s honesty, vulnerability and wisdom. These qualities lead her in all she does.
This conversation is part of Regulate: A Series on How Women Are Regulating Their Nervous System. It’s an ongoing exploration of what it means to live in a female body in an increasingly overstimulated world.
As we move into 2026, the intention shifts toward regulation, calm, and capacity. That shift asks for awareness, practical tools, and a real willingness to slow down.
Lia Avellino
What do you observe about women and their nervous systems? Where do you see them struggling most?
Women are often need anticipators. Because many of us are socialized to be caregivers and emotional supports for our communities, we scan the room looking for how we can be helpful. This is what makes the fabric of a community oriented society (feminist psychologist talks about how women look at the world as a trampoline, constantly aware of what happens to others when we jump).
The downside is, this keeps many of us hypervigilant, constantly assessing and determining what others think/feel/need, tuning out of our own internal world and need set.
What are the biggest challenges for women when it comes to finding calm or center? Do you feel this is culturally influenced?
Women are doing a lot at home and a lot at work. We’re often doing instead of being.
I believe we live in fear of being because we’d get into contact with just how hungry we are.
Our mental health is something to be worked on, menopause needs to be fixed, we are buying retreats, journals, circles, all to get well--but this helps us tune out of the fact that others aren’t working as hard as we are, our needs are still unmet. How comfortable we feel being often has to do with how safe society/our families of origins allowed us to be when we do nothing at all.
What do you wish women understood about the kind of life that’s possible for them?
There is no flashing neon light that is going to give you permission or say “this is the time.” That women can trust that tending to themselves does not inhibit their ability to be caring to others, it just makes it less automatic to live as if it’s more important to have a relationship than a self (words of Harriet Lerner, PhD).
If you allow yourself to not be needed, you will be confronted by a shit ton of unmet needs. It will hurt, but it will make living in the sensation of aliveness possible for you.
Was there a moment in your own life when you realized your nervous system needed healing? What brought that awareness?
I’ve come to this realization many times--healing is not a pinnacle reached, I’ve been healed and then unraveled and healed again.
I would say having children taught me the width of my window of tolerance--it showed me where I constricted my breath, how quickly I went to irritation, how much grief was underneath my anxiety.
Being a parent also taught me of the necessity of figuring out how to feel more free, not behave free, but feel it.
About Lia
Lia is a licensed relational feminist psychotherapist who specializes in caring for individuals looking to break out of molds that don’t serve them. In her roles as host of Unprocessed the Podcast: Where the therapist takes the couch, Advisor to Head & Heart at THE WELL, and relationship and motherhood columnist for mindbodygreen, Lia supports people in connecting to the wisdom inside themselves, their histories and their communities, in order to find their way. She graduated with distinction from Columbia University and has received awards for innovative research and excellence in the provision of therapeutic care to underserved populations, while managing a national component of President Obama’s initiative to reduce teen pregnancy across the nation. Her writing and commentary has been featured in GLAMOUR magazine, The American Journal of Sexuality Education, Best Life, ABC’s The Tamron Hall Show, Cosmopolitan, Men’s Health, CNBCs MakeIt, Motherly, Oprah Daily and more. Lia lives with her husband and 3 children in Brooklyn, NY.
Thank you for sharing your perspective Lia. Friends, tune in for a special LIVE Substack interview like this coming soon
Want to dive into the Nervous System more?
Regulate- Featuring Vanessa Cornell
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