Poetry for the soul searching for herself, in all the noise of how to be. Maybe you can pull up a chair, read these words, and just stay for a while, here, in the invitation to just be.

So, as you might imagine, my efforts to create certainty became a coping method. It was one of the ways my nervous system learned to create safety.

This is one example of a theme in my life that’s been weaving itself in and out of my motherhood, with origins in my past. This idea that mess, mistakes, process…

There are moments, big and small, in my life that have me smiling, feeling encouraged by a sense of healing…

Something I have grown to cherish, though, is that my life feels deeply shaped by the privilege to feel and be connected to what moves me.

So I started gathering pieces of other people as reference points. The way they lived, their resolve, their creativity…

In my marriage, I lived in defense for a long time. Disappointment, while uncomfortable, became familiar. I did not realize it was a survival response. I simply thought I had high standards…

It is a kind of oxymoron, a weird, squiggly journey, to start with such an adverse concept of self, only to find that love and wholeheartedness are about coming home to your own body, thoughts, emotions, and process… to own your story.

What If We Started With Compassion? Connection doesn’t begin with control. It begins with empathy. The work of connection is acceptance of…

I remember becoming aware of my own patterns of perfectionism long before I understood them as a survival response. At the time, I still believed I needed to be fixed.

I recognized this voice. It belongs to the part of me that seeks control in order to avoid something. As I stayed with her, I sensed what was behind the bracing. A wounded part that is so very afraid.

For months I’ve been holding myself in this tension, between empathy and the fear of failing them. And then one morning, wisdom whispered something beautiful.

The part of me that feels anxious… she’s allowed to be here. When I feel critical, she’s allowed to be here. When I feel scared, she’s allowed to be here.

But there’s another way of listening. One that doesn’t replace the story, but gently expands the space we’re listening from. A more honest and regulating way.

An ode to my beautiful niece, Evie Grace, whose passing on this day in December 2017 first unearthed my journey with grief.

After a lifetime of hyper-vigilance, it feels almost strange to notice that my default is slowly, gently shifting toward rest, joy, and peace. This journey began the moment…

What I eventually discovered is that self-abandonment never leads to healing or love. When I stopped trying to fix myself and instead practiced presence with my pain…

I often think of resilience like going to the gym and realizing that a certain muscle group has been over-activated. It’s been working incredibly hard to…

Curiosity has become one of the most powerful tools in my healing. Approaching myself with questions instead of judgment softens my inner world and reconnects…

Showing up like this isn’t always easy. It asks for patience, presence, and vulnerability. It means stepping back from my own reactivity, letting go…

I’m learning that my limiting beliefs aren’t just false narratives to override with my mind. They are responses; signals pointing to stories that have been held in my body…

What I didn’t realize at the time was how my response to these sensations shaped their intensity. In trying to oppose them, push them away, or force a different experience…

This old programming runs on an endless search for validation. The belief that I must keep proving, striving, and shaping myself in order to survive…

First, acceptance meets the original wound: the moment or pattern that taught the nervous system it wasn’t safe. When the body feels seen instead of corrected…

I know how this can sound. Talking about happiness as a beauty practice can feel cliché, or even insensitive. I have a relationship with depression, so I understand…

Then the nuance found me and disrupted everything. I realized that despite the initial success, the changes were not sticking in a lasting, meaningful way. I struggled to stay…

The pressure to appease me that I had put on him over the years was not intentional, nor was it a lack of kindness or love on my part. It was my effort to feel safe…

They’re usually pointing me toward a part of myself that got stuck in rejection or shame. A younger part that didn’t feel seen, chosen, or safe. Instead of pushing…

Being self-aware hasn’t always been kind to me. For a long time, it kept me stuck in my head, anxious, intellectualizing, dissociating, ruminating. I would analyze, plan…

For most of my life, I believed that change required pushing harder, being different, being “fixed.” I thought something inside me, or in others…