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 that happiness is not something we can command or manufacture on demand.

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 consistent when life brought unexpected detours, detours that carried grief…

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 that part away or trying to think my way out of it, I turn toward her.

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, and process endlessly, thinking it was helping me, yet healing and connection always felt out of reach. It was like learning all the theory about how to solve a problem, only to feel…

For most of my life, I believed that change required pushing harder, being different, being “fixed.” I thought something inside me, or in others, needed correction in order to feel whole or connected. That relentless striving left me exhausted, frustrated, and stuck in cycles of shame and judgment.