Jólabókaflóð: My Gift to You

It's pretty common that I end up talking about books with my clients. They often borrow from me and bring their own to add to the "library" in the office, which I then lend out to others. Often, they stride into the office, finding me cross-legged and engrossed in something new or old that I can't get enough of. Today was no different, and I shared that this past weekend, I learned about an Icelandic tradition called Jólabókaflóð, the Christmas Book Flood. On Christmas Eve, families exchange books and then spend the evening reading. It’s simple, intentional, and quiet. No performance. No urgency. Just presence and reflection.

I have a reading family, so this is a tradition I plan to begin at home. But it also stirred something deeper. Each Christmas, I give clients a small, consistent gift; nothing extravagant, always the same for everyone (before those of you finger wag at "unethical"), as a way of saying thank you for the trust it takes to show up and do this work. In past years, it’s been treats or notebooks/pens. This year, as I learned about Jólabókaflóð, I realized what I hope this becomes moving forward.

Next year, I want that gift to be a book. A shared tradition. A pause at the end of the year that honors reflection rather than productivity.

As I sat with that idea, I found myself returning to the book I read this past Spring and that stayed with me most this year: East of Eden. Not because it offers easy hope, but because it understands people the way therapy eventually teaches you to understand them; layered, conflicted, responsible, wounded, capable of choice.

Rather than speak about themes in the abstract, I want to share what I learned through the characters, and how those lessons mirror what my clients taught me this year.

The Characters and the People I See Every Day

Adam Trask taught me about passivity. About how avoiding pain can quietly become a way of abandoning responsibility, not through cruelty, but through absence. Adam isn’t malicious. He’s immobilized. I see this in clients who aren’t doing anything “wrong,” yet feel disconnected from their own agency. Waiting. Numb. Hoping life will decide for them. This year reminded me how often growth begins not with insight, but with the willingness to engage, imperfectly, rather than withdraw.

Cal Trask represents something many clients carry silently: deep shame and the fear of being fundamentally wrong. Cal wants to do good, but believes something in him is already broken. He is burdened not only by his behavior but by what he believes his nature to be. This year reinforced how often suffering is less about what someone has done and more about an inherited belief that love must be earned and can be revoked. Therapy becomes the work of separating identity from history.

Aron Trask reflects moral fragility, the desire for purity, certainty, and goodness without complexity. Aron wants a world that fits neatly into ideals. I see this in clients who break when reality intrudes on what they thought life, relationships, or even faith would be. This year taught me again that values and morality must be strong enough to survive disappointment, ambiguity, and grief. Innocence that cannot bear the truth is not resilience.

Samuel Hamilton taught me something quieter, but no less important. He reminds me that wisdom doesn’t have to announce itself. Samuel works hard, loves his family imperfectly, tells the truth without cruelty, and shows up for others without needing to fix them. People trust him not because he has answers for everything, but because he is steady. I clung to his character, and my clients reinforced why I clung so deeply to him; it's how much people need that kind of presence. Not someone rushing toward solutions or offering platitudes, but someone grounded enough to hold reality as it is. Samuel doesn’t avoid hardship, and he doesn’t dramatize it either. He accepts limits, carries responsibility, and continues forward anyway. There is something deeply stabilizing about that posture. It reminds us that goodness can be lived quietly and that character is built through consistency, not performance.

Lee, more than anyone, captures what therapy aims for at its best. He holds truth with humility, but he also says what he sees. When change is needed, he names it. Not to dominate or shame, but because clarity matters. Lee does not confuse kindness with silence. He understands that truth withheld out of comfort helps no one.

What also struck me this year is that Lee himself desired change. He saved his money. He planned a different life. He imagined something beyond service. And yet, when the moment came, he was called back, not out of obligation or coercion, but out of discernment. He recognized where he was most needed, and he chose to stay.

That choice matters. It reminds us that growth does not always mean escape. Sometimes maturity looks like remaining: eyes open, voice intact, agency preserved. Lee’s return is not a failure of independence; it is a conscious recommitment to responsibility. He does not lose himself in service. He offers himself. This year, my clients reminded me how often people confuse speaking truth with being unkind, or commitment with self-erasure. Lee models a different path: one where honesty and loyalty coexist, where change is named even when the relationship is preserved, and where vocation is chosen rather than imposed. That balance: truth without cruelty, service without disappearance, is rare. And it is worth leaning into.

And then there is Kate (Cathy Ames) — the hardest character to hold, and perhaps the most important to approach carefully.

Before she became what the world feared, there were traumas that were never named or tended to: rape, betrayal, violence, and a home burned down. Unidentified trauma has a way of pummeling a person into an identity rather than remaining an experience that can be integrated. When pain is hidden, denied, or never witnessed, it does not disappear. It hardens.

This year, my clients reminded me how critical it is to name what happened before it becomes who someone believes they are. Trauma does not excuse harm. But unexamined trauma can quietly shape lives in devastating ways. My prayer, personally and professionally, is that people do not mistake survival adaptations for destiny. That suffering is brought into the light early enough to be worked through, rather than carried forward as character.

What I find particularly striking about Kate is how her inner pain/trauma/corruption eventually manifests outwardly. As she grows more isolated, more hardened, more cut off from truth and relationship, her body begins to fail. Steinbeck isn’t offering a simplistic equation of illness as punishment. He is pointing to something we see clinically and humanly all the time: what is unacknowledged internally does not remain contained forever. Years of vigilance, manipulation, and emotional severance take a toll. When a person lives in a constant state of control and distrust, the nervous system never rests. The body eventually bears what the psyche refuses to face.

Kate is not a character to emulate. She is a warning. And warnings, when taken seriously, can still serve life.

What my clients taught me this year echoes what Steinbeck understood so well: people are not reducible to their worst moments, nor healed by pretending those moments didn’t happen. Healing is not erasure. It is integration. Strength is not the absence of scars, but the wisdom that comes from understanding them.

What Remains

So this tradition feels right. A book. A pause. A moment of reflection at the close of the year. This year, I didn’t have a book to place in your hands. But this reflection is my gift instead: offered with gratitude for the trust you place in the work, and with hope for what the next year may hold.