Navigating our Perception Box
The Perception Box™️ Framework
We each experience the world through our own Perception Box, a framework to understand our subjective experience of reality shaped by our unique history, beliefs, and experiences. By becoming more aware of the assumptions that influence it, we can broaden what’s possible for ourselves. In moments of challenge, this awareness opens the door to new perspectives and growth.
Join us as we explore ways to thrive as our Perception Box expands.
IN PARTNERSHIP WITH
Medicinal Media Perception Box Playlist
⚠️ Mature ThemesPERCEPTION BOX PROJECT:
Reframing Our Stories
Through documentary, podcasts, articles, illustrations, and animations, this Perception Box project examines reframing and rewriting our stuck stories into unique, exceptional new ones.
After a cancer diagnosis layered on years of medical trauma and personal loss, Lisa Keefauver realized that pursuing constant happiness was an impossible—and harmful—standard. Instead, she turns toward aliveness, embracing the full spectrum of human emotion as a more truthful, healing path.
Written by Lisa Keefauver • Illustrations by Chau Luong
Journal role-playing games offer adults a way to reconnect with imagination, creativity, and a sense of wonder we often lose to daily life. By blending storytelling, escapism, and self-reflection, they become powerful tools for emotional resilience and personal growth.
Written by Summer Tao • Illustrations by Lev Fielding • Managing Editor Jessi Cape
DOCUMENTARY
Produced with a grant by Unlikely Collaborators • Exec Producer/Camera Rob VanAlkemade • Series Producer Erika Paige Barnette • Associate Producer Nahima Shaffer • Gaffer/Camera: Amy Hoang • Sound: Caleb Mose • Series Editor Jae Shim • Creative Director Jennymarie Jemsion • Animations John McCormack and Mevaki • Music by East Forest
⚠️ Mature Themes • What if the stories we tell ourselves could change our lives? Join Lisa Keefauver, MSW, author, grief activist, and podcast host of Grief Is A Sneaky Bitch, as she explores how narrative therapy helps us reclaim our agency, reframe grief, and discover resilience.
From surviving trauma to facing profound loss and navigating her own cancer diagnosis, Lisa shares how language shapes our identity—and how we can rewrite the “stuck stories” that hold us back.
Also featuring Dr. Sunita Puri, Hui-wen Sato, Lisa Paul, Cyndie Spiegel, Colin Campbell, Steph Jagger and Michelle Hord
“We are not the problem. The problem is the problem.”
-Lisa Keefauver, MSW
PERCEPTION BOX PROJECT:
Conquering Shame
How self-awareness, self-expression, and creative therapy can transform self-image and foster healing, as told through powerful stories of recovery.
Unmasking truth and healing through art
Art therapy can offer a unique, liberating path in eating disorder treatment, helping clients express emotions, rebuild self-esteem, and find joy in creation—even when words can’t do justice. For many, like writer Summer Tao, it's not just therapy—it's a way to reconnect with hope.
Written by Summer Tao • Illustrations by Sasha Bakinovskaja
What happens when both parent and teen have ADHD? One mom shares how self-awareness helped heal their home.
Written by Managing Editor Jessi Cape • Illustrations by Annie B. McCall
DOCUMENTARY
Produced with a grant by Unlikely Collaborators • Exec Producer/Camera Rob VanAlkemade • Series Producer Erika Paige Barnette • Associate Producer Nahima Shaffer • Series Editor Jae Shim • UC Editor Yvette Dubin • UC Consultant Gina Gonzales • Creative Director Jennymarie Jemsion
Exploring self-image through art can be terrifying, and rewarding. Artist and mental health advocate Leigh de Vries shares her journey using exposure therapy for self-discovery and healing, while psychologist Dr. Lauren Stutman, a BDD expert who also suffers from it, defines and contextualizes the disorder and treatments.
“Oscar Wilde said, ‘Give a man a mask and he can tell the truth’. I feel like art, in a way, helps us take the mask off. Honesty is all I really have.”
PERCEPTION BOX PROJECT:
Emotional Pain and the Somatic Response
This Perception Box project highlights how emotional pain can be intertwined with the physical and what we can learn from both as we navigate through it.
Getting aquainted with your nervous system
Feeling stuck in fight-or-flight? Your body may be trying to talk to you—here’s how to start listening.
Written by Sonia Chien • Illustrated by Olga Kurkina
A nurse reexamines her migraines and self-blame, and discovers how childhood trauma reshapes the body, brain, and beliefs.
Written by Laura Onstot • Illustrations by Jon McCormack
Managing Editor Jessi Cape
DOCUMENTARYAs children, we held our emotional pain however we had to at the time. As adults, we can revisit that pain, and feel how it has affected our bodies, to move forward with self-compassion. Explained and demonstrated by somatic psychotherapist Gabriela Ucros, LMFT.
Produced with a grant by Unlikely Collaborators • Exec Producer/Camera Rob VanAlkemade • Series Producer Erika Paige Barnette • Associate Producer Nahima Shaffer • Series Editor Jae Shim • Animations by Michael Hadwin and Jon McCormack • Creative Director Jennymarie Jemsion • Music by East Forest