Tiny Buddha

Tag: divorce

  • When Love Isn’t Enough: How I Found Healing After Emotional Abuse

    When Love Isn’t Enough: How I Found Healing After Emotional Abuse

    “You can’t save someone who isn’t willing to participate in their own rescue.” ~Unknown

    You and I have been doing the work. Talking. Writing. Processing.

    Everything I’m focused on right now—in my healing, in my spirit, in my writing—is love. Becoming love. Living in love. Returning to love.

    And yet, there’s a chapter of my life that continues to whisper to me: Why wasn’t love enough?

    I spent nine years in a relationship that left me anxious, confused, and small. I was always on edge. Walking on eggshells, never knowing whether I’d be met with affection or fury. He could be charming one moment and cruel the next. A Jekyll-and-Hyde personality I came to normalize.

    I stayed longer than I like to admit because I believed, deep down, that my love could heal him. If I just loved harder, more purely, more selflessly, maybe I could soften his edges. Diminish the rage. Make him whole.

    But no matter how hard I tried, it didn’t work.

    He still raged. He still criticized. He still looked at me like I was the problem.

    Eventually, I had to face a truth I never wanted to admit: Love, at least mine alone, wasn’t enough to change him.

    The Lie We’re Told About Love

    So many of us are raised on the idea that love conquers all. That it’s our job to be patient, forgiving, and understanding. That if we just hold space long enough, people will change. Heal. Transform.

    But here’s what I’ve learned the hard way:

    • Love only transforms when both people are willing participants in healing.
    • Love cannot live where there is no safety.
    • It cannot grow in an environment ruled by control or fear.
    • And it cannot thrive when one person is constantly shrinking just to survive.

    The Roadblocks to Leaving

    Leaving was complicated. We didn’t live in a bubble. There were family, friends, colleagues, and the church, each with strong opinions.

    “God hates divorce.” That was the message drilled into me. Sometimes in whispers. Sometimes in shouts.

    In the church, women are told to submit. But submission, to me, always meant a mutual dance. A respectful exchange of give and take, compromise, and safety. Not suppression. Years later, I finally heard the words “submission without suppression,” and something clicked.

    Another moment of clarity came when I heard: God cares more about the human in the relationship than He does about the institution of marriage. That truth was liberating. It helped me accept that even if I wasn’t being physically abused, I was still being harmed in ways that mattered.

    At the time, I thought I was in a crisis of faith. But my soul knew better: it wasn’t faith that was broken. It was people. My spirit whispered that the path forward wasn’t in saving the marriage.

    It was in saving myself.

    The Cost of Leaving

    Leaving wasn’t just about walking away from one man. It meant losing entire circles of connection.

    My ex’s family had been part of my daily rhythm with shared meals, holiday gatherings, and weekend adventures. That familiar pattern disappeared overnight.

    Even friendships I thought were my own slipped away. Some didn’t understand my choice. Others quietly withdrew, perhaps uncomfortable with divorce itself, or perhaps with me choosing a new path. I’ll never know for sure.

    The losses were painful. I had to sit with the ache, mourn the empty spaces, grieve the old circle. But slowly I began to see: some people are only meant to walk with us for a season. Growth means outgrowing certain spaces and opening to new ones.

    Healing came with the release of those no longer meant for me, so I could make room for the ones who were.

    What I Know Now

    It took years—and therapy, journaling, truth-telling, and self-forgiveness—to admit that I wasn’t weak for staying. I was loving. I was loyal. I was trying.

    But the love I gave wasn’t being received. It wasn’t reciprocated. And it wasn’t respected.

    Here’s the radical truth I finally embraced:

    My love was never the problem. It was real. It was whole. It was enough.

    But it could never replace the work someone else refused to do.

    Leaving Comes in Bursts and Choices

    Leaving doesn’t happen all at once. It comes in bursts and choices.

    There was the physical leaving, which involved moving out of our home and subletting a college apartment that no thirty-six-year-old should have to reside in.

    And then came the months of separation and eventually divorce—difficult conversations, compromises, and grief. Along the way, a new friendship was strengthening and shifting.

    From the day I met Jim, I was drawn in by his smile, his laugh, his kindness. Over time, a deep trust and mutual respect developed. As the distance between my ex and me grew, Jim and I grew closer. We came to a crossroads, another choice.

    The New Love I Choose

    When I first left, I clung to the idea of remaining friends with my ex. Coffee together. Kind words. Civility. But I quickly realized two things: first, that wasn’t in his nature. And second, it wasn’t fair to Jim.

    Jim listened patiently as my ex talked about “winning me back.” Then, with kindness and clarity, Jim said, “You need to choose, because I’m not going to stay in limbo while you figure things out.”

    It wasn’t an ultimatum meant to control me. It was a boundary meant to protect his heart. And in that moment, I felt the difference between destructive love and healthy love.

    Healthy love stands firm without hostility. It respects both people. It asks for clarity, not chaos.

    Today, my life looks radically different. I’m in a partnership built on respect, kindness, trust, and healing.
    A relationship where I feel safe, seen, and loved without having to earn it.

    And yet, sometimes I still look back. Not with longing but with tenderness for the woman who stayed.

    The woman who tried. Who hoped. Who believed love could fix what was broken.

    To her, I say:

    You were doing your best with what you knew at the time. It’s okay that you thought love could be enough. It’s okay that you tried. And it’s beautiful that you eventually walked away.

    If You’re There Now

    If you’re in a relationship where love feels like walking on eggshells, where you’re exhausted from trying to be “enough,” hear this:

    • You don’t have to fix anyone.
    • You don’t have to stay to prove your love.
    • You are not the reason they’re angry, critical, or cruel.

    You are allowed to leave in the name of love. Especially the love you owe yourself.

    And if you’re in the messy middle, give yourself grace. Know this: it’s okay to love again and still feel trauma. To still get triggered. To mourn, rage, regret.

    It’s okay to cry, even when you’ve moved on and built a healthier life. Tears are part of release, part of healing, part of love finding its way back to you.

  • My Daughter Needed Me to Choose Better, So I Did

    My Daughter Needed Me to Choose Better, So I Did

    “Children learn more from what you are than what you teach.” ~W.E.B. Du Bois

    I was standing at the service bar, waiting for my drink order to be ready. The scent of steak fat clinging to my apron and infusing itself into my bra, while twenty-something servers around me whined about working on Mother’s Day… yet I was the only mother working that night.

    I’d barely slept because I’d closed the restaurant the night before.

    My nine-year-old daughter had just told me she wished she were dead.

    And here I was, pretending to care about side plates and drink refills when all I wanted was to be home holding her, telling her she mattered. Instead, I snapped—righteous and broken all at once—and stormed out to the alley behind the kitchen where I could cry without making a scene.

    That was the moment I knew: something had to change. Not for me. For her. Because if I stayed in this life, this marriage, this pattern, she would learn it too.

    Up until then, I thought I was protecting her. I fooled myself into thinking that there wasn’t too much harm, because the yelling wasn’t directed at her. That I could absorb the blows. That love was sacrifice. But kids don’t learn from what you say. They learn from what you model. And I was modeling self-betrayal.

    Her stepfather’s cruelty wasn’t new. Neither was the exhaustion I carried in my bones from trying to patch over the cracks with routine and denial. But watching her crumble under the same pressure I had normalized? That shattered something in me that couldn’t be glued back together.

    I married him because I saw a wonderful father for my daughter. I saw him get down to her level and play with her. They would giggle together. Be silly together. Be kids together.

    Well, that was all fine and dandy when she was three, four, five years old, but at some point, she began to outgrow him. While he sat stuck in his trauma, she matured. She was growing to be a strong little lady.

    He didn’t like that. So, when I wasn’t around, he would lash out and treat her like a slave, a whipping boy, but also whined and threw temper tantrums. She had now become the surrogate mother of a petulant child.

    She was nine. She should have been thinking about art projects or bike rides, not death.

    When I confronted my husband about how he spoke to her, it only made things worse. So she begged me never to mention it to him again and informed me that she would no longer confide in me. I hated myself for letting that happen. The very moment I thought I was being strong and standing up for my little girl, I was actually just prolonging her punishment.

    I was staying for stability, for financial security, for some misguided sense of loyalty. Those were the moments that provided her with a blueprint for her own suffering.

    There’s this narrative that mothers must be martyrs. That our suffering is noble, even necessary. But I don’t buy it anymore. Because what good is a self-sacrificing mother if all her child learns is how to silence themselves in order to survive?

    Leaving wasn’t brave. It was survival. I packed us up, found a small apartment, and started over with debt, doubt, and one hell of a broken heart. Not just from the marriage but from the years I’d spent disconnected from myself. My daughter didn’t need a perfect mother. She needed a peaceful one.

    It wasn’t a clean break. I cried in closets and called him at 2 a.m. and hated myself for the longing. I felt like I’d lost my mind. But I was beginning to find my voice. And slowly, she started to smile again. Her shoulders relaxed. We giggled like two girlfriends. We reinvigorated our “‘nuggling” tradition—Saturday nights with a big bowl of popcorn, snuggled up under a blanket together, watching a silly movie. Just the two of us. Just like it used to be. I knew we were going to be okay.

    Healing didn’t come in grand epiphanies or social media-worthy quotes. It came in late-night sobs and morning coffee. In resisting the urge to explain myself to people who would never get it. In learning to sit with discomfort instead of racing to fix it.

    I had to undo decades of believing that silence was safety. That if I didn’t rock the boat, we wouldn’t drown. But we were already drowning. And pretending otherwise was only teaching her how to hold her breath longer.

    I had to unlearn the idea that being needed was the same as being loved. That caretaking and contorting myself for approval was noble.

    I started showing her what boundaries look like. I started apologizing when I got it wrong. I started asking myself what I needed, not just what everyone else wanted from me.

    I also had to let go of the fantasy that he would change. That if I just loved him better, communicated differently, forgave more quickly, then things would improve. That fantasy had a chokehold on me for years. It’s humbling—and liberating—to realize you can love someone and still not be safe with them.

    Sometimes I wanted to go back, not because I believed things would be different, but because being alone with my thoughts was terrifying. I had to rebuild a relationship with myself that I didn’t even know was fractured.

    I started journaling, walking, making playlists that made me cry and heal in the same breath. I was slowly, painfully learning to mother myself.

    I watched her blossom with every ounce of peace we created. She didn’t flinch as much. She stopped asking me if something was wrong when I was having a moment of silence. She acted like a child again. I knew then that the mess I was wading through was already doing its work—not just in me, but in her.

    We learned new rituals. Morning cuddles before school. Singing in the car. Cooking meals together and dancing in the kitchen while things simmered on the stove. It wasn’t just healing. It was joy. Honest, simple, borrowed-from-the-mundane joy.

    I realized I didn’t have to keep waiting to feel safe. I could create it.

    And in every small moment, I chose something different. I chose gentleness. I chose boundaries. I chose to believe that we were worthy of more.

    There were still days I missed the chaos. That part of me that equated drama with passion, unpredictability with depth. But then I’d hear her talking to her stuffed animals in the next room or see her curled up in bed with her cat and remember: calm is not boring. It’s safe. And we deserve safe.

    Eventually, the grief became quieter. The ache dulled. I stopped needing to explain the past to anyone, including myself. And I started dreaming again—not just for her but for me. I wanted her to grow up seeing her mother whole, not just holding it together.

    Because one day, she would hit a wall of her own. She’d sit in a bathroom or an alley or a car, and she’d wonder how she got there. And I wanted her to remember that change is possible. That discomfort isn’t failure. That sometimes, being your own hero means walking away before the fire consumes you.

    Some days, I still think about standing in the doorway of her room, unable to move—but needing to leave—looking at my sweet little girl who just told me she wished she’d never been born. The day I realized that being a mother wasn’t just about protecting my child from harm. It was about protecting her from becoming the kind of woman who thought harm was normal.

    She didn’t need me to be unbreakable. She needed to see me break and still get up. So that’s what I did.

  • Rebuilding Myself After Divorce: How I Found Healing and Hope

    Rebuilding Myself After Divorce: How I Found Healing and Hope

    “The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” ~Rumi

    I never imagined I’d be here at forty-nine—divorced, disoriented, and drowning in an identity crisis. I had met him just before my sixteenth birthday. He was all I knew. We built an entire life together—nearly three decades of marriage, raising children, shared memories, traditions, routines. And then, one day, it all collapsed with five haunting words: “I need some space, Heather.”

    At first, I thought it was a phase. But the space became silence, the silence became separation, and soon after, I was signing divorce papers. The man I had built my entire adult life around was gone—and I was left looking in the mirror, asking, who am I without him?

    I wasn’t just grieving a relationship. I was grieving myself. The version of me that had given everything. The version that bent and adapted and compromised for the sake of “us.” And underneath the heartbreak was a heavy cocktail of blame and resentment—toward him, toward myself, and honestly, toward time.

    I blamed him for blindsiding me, for giving up, for not fighting for us. I resented him for having the freedom to walk away while I was left holding the pieces of a shattered dream. But deeper down, I blamed myself for not seeing the signs. For ignoring the subtle shifts. For losing myself in the process of trying to keep a marriage alive that had slowly stopped breathing.

    The truth is our marriage ended because we grew apart. I had started evolving—becoming more spiritual, more curious, more self-aware. He didn’t come with me. And after years of unspoken tension, emotional distance, and mismatched values, we were no longer on the same path. Still, even with that understanding, it didn’t make the grief easier.

    For months, I was in survival mode—smiling through social events, working, taking care of my responsibilities. Outwardly composed. But inside? I was crumbling. The nights were the hardest. That’s when the questions haunted me:

    What did I do wrong? Why wasn’t I enough? Will anyone ever love me again?

    Then, one quiet afternoon—nothing particularly special about it—I sat in my bedroom, surrounded by silence, sunlight pouring through the window, and I just… stopped. I was exhausted from my own thoughts. There was no dramatic trigger—just an overwhelming stillness that finally gave space for a new question to enter:

    What if this isn’t the end? What if this is the beginning of coming home to myself?

    That was the moment everything shifted. I decided I was no longer going to be the woman waiting to be rescued. I was going to become the woman who rescued herself.

    Heartbreak lives in the body. And mine was screaming.  Tight shoulders, restless sleep, a dull ache in my chest that never left. I had spent so long disassociating from my body—ignoring its cries while tending to everyone else’s needs.

    But healing demanded presence. So, I began walking the dogs daily—feeling my feet on the earth, breathing deeply again. I returned to gentle movement through Pilates. I swapped comfort food for nourishing meals that made me feel alive. Each small act of care was a message to myself: You matter. You’re worth tending to.

    The most toxic place I lived in wasn’t my house post-divorce—it was my own mind. The narrative was cruel: You failed. You’re too old. You’re fat. You’re unlovable. You’ll always be alone.

    But I started catching those thoughts and asking, Would I say this to my daughter or my best friend? Of course not. So why was I saying them to myself?

    I started journaling affirmations: I am enough. I am healing. I am lovable. I am whole. Slowly, my inner critic softened. I began rewriting my story—not as the woman who was left, but as the woman who rose

    The next chapter was the most magical—and the most confronting. When your life revolves around someone else for nearly thirty years, you forget who you are outside of that. I began to remember.

    I remembered I love writing.

    I remembered how healing it is to dance barefoot to music I adore.

    I remembered my curiosity, my dreams, my longing for meaning.

    I began meditating each morning, journaling. and going on solo nature walks. I talked to my guides, my angels. I cried. I created sacred space just for me.

    And slowly… the woman I was before him, and the woman I was becoming after him, started to meet. And they liked each other.

    Healing isn’t a straight line. Some days you feel fierce. Other days, fragile. But both are part of the process.

    Even now—with a wonderful new man in my life—grief still visits me from time to time. Milestones like our children’s weddings or the births of our grandchildren have stirred old emotions I thought I’d already processed. Moments where the “what was” collides with the “what is.”

    But now, instead of meeting that sadness with shame or self-judgment, I greet it with compassion. It’s okay to hold joy in one hand and grief in the other. That’s what healing really looks like.

    If you’re in the middle of your own heartbreak, here’s what I’ve learned that might help:

    Care for your body: Movement, nourishment, rest. Your nervous system needs it.

    Challenge your inner critic: Speak to yourself with the love you gave so freely to others.

    Rediscover your essence: You are more than someone’s partner. You are a soul, a fire, a force.

    Let go with love: Blame binds you to the past. Forgiveness sets you free.

    You are not broken. You are rebuilding. Every tear, every setback, every breakthrough is sculpting a more radiant, wiser version of you.

  • 4 Lessons I Learned from Leaving a Toxic Relationship

    4 Lessons I Learned from Leaving a Toxic Relationship

    “It takes strength and self-love to say goodbye to what no longer serves you.” ~Rumi

    I promised myself at a young age that when I got married, I was not going to get divorced, no matter what! My parents had divorced when I was five, and I knew that I didn’t want to put my kids through what I’d experienced as a child who grew up in a “broken” family. I wanted my kids to know what it was like to live in a house with both their parents present and involved in their lives.

    So, when I found myself seven years into my marriage, sitting in a therapist’s office wondering if my husband and I were going to make it, I had no idea what I would be facing if I had to navigate life, let alone parenthood, without my husband. How does one break free from emotional and verbal abuse without it permanently affecting who they are as a person?!

    All I could think about at the time was my three beautiful girls, who deserved to have happy parents in a happy home living a happy life!

    From the outside, our lives looked that way, but our reality was nothing of the sort. The yelling, the name-calling, the threatening, the withholding, and the verbal and emotional abuse were taking their toll on all of us until one day, after five years of trying to make it work, I had had enough.

    The night I will never forget, almost twelve years into my marriage, we were all sitting at the dinner table, and like every time before, with no warning, a switch flipped, and the yelling began. But this time, I packed up my things and I left. And this would be the last time I would leave; after the three attempts prior, I was lured back with promises that everything would be okay and we would make it work, but this time was different. I didn’t go back.

    Okay, I was out; now what?! Little did I know that leaving would be the easy part. Some of the most trying and challenging times of my life happened after I was able to finally break free. But I didn’t know that learning how to love myself again and believe that I was worthy of good things was going to be the real challenge, especially after what I’d faced.

    The storms that happened once my marriage was over would shake me to my core. One particular time was when my middle daughter, only thirteen at the time, was able to find her way down to Tennessee from central Wisconsin without anyone knowing where she was or if we’d be able to find her.

    My daughter despised me for breaking up her family and wanted to get as far away from me as she possibly could, even if it meant entrusting strangers to drive her in a car for fifteen hours while they made their way to Tennessee. Waking up the next morning after she vanished and reading the “goodbye” note she’d left on her bed, I honestly did not know if I would ever see her again.

    To say I was in panic mode would be an understatement for how I felt during the next twenty-four-plus hours while we—my parents, my friends, my siblings, the police, and even strangers—attempted to find my daughter. I can think of no worse feeling in the world than that of a mother who is on the verge of or has just lost her son or daughter. I wondered, “How can this be happening? Haven’t we already been through enough?”

    Exactly twenty-six hours after my daughter had found her way into that stranger’s vehicle, I received a phone call from a deputy in a county in Tennessee saying they had found her. Thank you, Lord, was all I could think—someone is watching over us!

    I realized then it was time to figure out how to love myself again and heal from my divorce so I could be more present for my daughters.

    Are there things I would have done differently? Absolutely! But you can’t go back and change the past; the only thing you can do is learn from it and do your best not to make the same mistakes going forward.

    The best thing I did for myself was sign up for a subscription that gave me access to hundreds of workout programs I could do from home (since I was the sole provider of my daughters at the time). As I completed the programs, I saw improvements in not only my body but also my frame of mind, which pushed me to want to be better and do better with each one after that—not just for me but for my girls also!

    Being able to push through tough workouts and seeing that I could do hard things that produced positive results helped build my confidence at a time when I needed it most! This newfound confidence boost encouraged me to keep pushing forward, even in the eye of the multitude of storms I was facing, which allowed me to start to heal.

    The workouts were just the beginning for me. Ultimately, they led me on a path that would help me discover how to love myself again.

    When I left my now ex-husband, I had no idea what I would be faced with until I was finally able to break free for good. But now that I have been out and have been able to transform my mind and love my life again, I realize just how incredibly powerful some of these lessons that I’ve learned truly are.

    1. Forgiving is the first step to healing. 

    A lot of people believe that forgiveness means you are condoning someone’s behavior, but that is not at all what you are doing when you forgive. Forgiveness is intentionally letting go of negative feelings, like resentment or anger, toward someone who has done you wrong.

    Choosing to forgive when you’re ready means that you are making a conscious and deliberate choice to release the feeling of resentment and/or vengeance toward the person who has harmed you, regardless of whether or not you believe that person deserves your forgiveness.

    You forgive to allow yourself to move on from the event, which also allows you to fully heal from it.

    2. Mindset matters.

    Your thoughts shape your reality, so if you think you don’t deserve good things, you won’t be able to attract them into your life.

    When in a toxic environment, negativity has a way of clouding your judgment, which makes breaking free more difficult. But once you leave and start focusing on a growth mindset and optimism, everything changes. When you focus on the good, the good gets better. This is the foundation of how I rebuilt my life after breaking free from the toxicity of my marriage.

    3. It’s crucial to listen to your gut.

    Ignoring your intuition leads to situations you regret more times than not. Learning to trust my inner voice, the one that whispers to me when something isn’t right, has been my greatest guide to making better choices.

    4. Positive change starts with self-love.

    Self-love is not just a buzzword. It’s the armor you wear against people who try to break you down. It’s telling yourself that you deserve better, even if you don’t fully believe it yet, and taking action to create better, even if it’s just one tiny step.

    For me, self-love started when I left my abusive ex-husband and then grew when I started taking care of my body. Sometimes even the smallest act of self-care can help us feel more confident in our worth.

    If you’ve been in an abusive relationship too, remember—you can rebuild and thrive in a life you love!

  • Divorce: A Portal to Reclaiming My Authentic Self

    Divorce: A Portal to Reclaiming My Authentic Self

    “The only journey is the one within.” ~Rainer Maria Rilke

    Navigating life after divorce has been the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but divorce also contained the best gifts I have ever received. My whole world was shaken up and rearranged. The shake-up included a loss of career and becoming a mostly solo parent on top of the divorce.

    From the rubble of my old life, I got the chance to build something new, authentic, and fresh. Divorce was a painful portal to powerfully reclaiming myself and my life. Through the rebuilding process, I found strength and clarity in ways I never expected.

    Before my divorce, I felt anxious all the time, trapped in a constant cycle of wondering if I could be happier and if the problem was me, him, or us. I stayed in an agonizing limbo of “not bad enough to leave, not good enough to stay” for about five years.

    My husband at the time would ask, “Why can’t you just be happy with what you have?” The question hit me like a punch to the gut. Why couldn’t I? I was constantly questioning myself and my worth.

    Looking back on it now, I see that was the wrong question. My husband at the time was largely deflecting from the issues I was bringing to him and making it about me being perpetually unhappy as some kind of default. But it was true that I had inner work to do, and it was up to me to figure out what would make me happy.

    I tried everything to fix myself and the marriage—therapy, couples counseling, countless self-help books, and coaching. But the sense of loneliness persisted, especially around parenting, community, and spirituality.

    The key challenges that made my marriage deeply unsatisfying for me were money, sex, emotional connection, and identity. For the first three we didn’t share the same values and there was constant friction. Underneath all of that misalignment in the relationship, though, was the fact that my identity had been swallowed up.

    First in our company, which was his dream, but I worked tirelessly in it, and then in my role as a mom. But who was I, just for myself? That was the better question.

    Eventually, what gave me the strength to leave the marriage was simply giving myself permission to want what I wanted based on knowing who I truly was and believing that whatever was best for me was also best for everyone in my life. I believe all the models of self-help and self-care that I tried contributed to this realization.

    I had to believe that I could stand on my own, which was terrifying. But as I started taking small steps, each step, even the hardest ones, gave me the energy to keep going. I began to rebuild something real, authentic, and new.

    Of course, it’s impossible to distill the five-year-plus journey into easy steps or “hot” tips. But I want to attempt to narrow it down to the six key insights that got me through, in the hopes it can inspire others too.

    These are the six steps I took to use divorce as a portal to reclaim my authentic self.

    1. I gave myself permission to want what I wanted.

    For so long, I didn’t even know what I wanted. It was buried under years of trying to make everything work and thinking about what others wanted. It felt scary and uncomfortable to give myself permission to truly explore my desires, but once I did everything began to shift.

    I admitted to myself that I was ambitious in my own right, that I wanted my own business, and I wasn’t satisfied playing the key supporting role in the family business. I uncovered the secret longing I had for an exciting and equal romantic partnership where I felt seen and valued for the insights, fun, and hard work I bring to my relationships.

    Letting myself know what I wanted, taking those swirling locked-up longings from deep inside and forming them into solid words to be spoken out loud—that was the first step toward reclaiming my identity.

    2. I identified my core values.

    I took time to reflect on what truly mattered to me. Somewhere along the way I had merged values with my husband and his family. I needed to re-evaluate which ones were truly mine. This meant questioning everything from how I approached money to what emotional connection meant to me.

    My core personal values of wholeheartedness and adventurousness weren’t engrained in my career nor were they present in my day to day.  While there was nothing inherently dishonest about my life with my husband, our family wasn’t living in the deepest integrity that I longed for.

    When I was able to let go of the values that no longer represented me, there was room to discover my true values, which I had suppressed.

    3. I worked through old beliefs that were keeping me stuck.

    The old narratives that had kept me stuck in my marriage for so long didn’t go away overnight. It took time to unpack them and let go of the guilt, fear, and limiting beliefs that were holding me back.

    Particularly sticky was the belief that I was responsible for everyone’s feelings and coping abilities, even grown adults older than myself. Even after we separated, I felt responsible for how my ex was coping and the things he was choosing to do. But once I started working through these mental roadblocks, many of them newly emerging from my subconscious, I felt a sense of freedom I hadn’t experienced in years.

    4. I allowed myself dream big—even when it felt impossible.

    At the height of my separation, I was overwhelmed by tough decisions—parenting, finances, and the legal process. It felt ridiculous to even think about my dreams, but doing so gave me momentum. Dreaming big gave me a vision for a brighter future, one where I could live authentically. So my message for you is to allow yourself to dream, even when life feels heavy.

    5. I set boundaries—both internal and external.

    Learning to set boundaries, especially internal ones, helped me protect my energy and focus on rebuilding my life. Whether it was saying “no” to things that drained me or distancing myself from unhealthy dynamics, boundaries were crucial for me to maintain the new connection I had made with my authentic self. The new connection was tender and needed protection.

    6. I took small, empowering actions.

    Dreaming big was the most important step, but taking small actions was the only way to really feel like things were possible and manageable. Every little action created a ripple effect, surprising me with how much I could accomplish when I started small.

    For example, I wanted to become financially free, a multi-layered goal that would take years, so I started with a one-year goal to read six financial literacy books and make a budget. I committed to the small action of reading for five minutes a day and simply recording current expenses on a spreadsheet. I logged my progress in a daily habit tracker.

    For my big dream of finding an equal partner, I knew that I would need to be grounded and confident, so I committed to meditating ten minutes a day. There were other bigger leaps that had to be taken along the way of course, but those small daily habits really changed me. Now I read and meditate easily for hours a day, and I relish the time, but I remember when I first started how hard it felt to do even five minutes.

    —

    It took me years, close to a decade, to reflect on and finally see the steps I took to get to where I am today. I hope it doesn’t take that long for anyone reading this who is navigating divorce. Please use these and apply them to your own situation. I hope they serve as a reminder that even though the journey is hard, there’s immense strength, growth, and rebirth waiting on the other side. Go get it!

  • How My Divorce Was the Portal to My Greatest Dreams

    How My Divorce Was the Portal to My Greatest Dreams

    “The way of love is not a subtle argument. The door there is devastation. Birds make great sky-circles of their freedom. How do they learn it? They fall, and falling, they are given wings.” ~Rumi

    You can create your dream life from devastation.

    I speak from first-hand experience.

    On Thanksgiving Day, my husband knelt before me and said he didn’t think he loved me anymore and didn’t think he wanted to have children. He had flown in that day from our  home in NYC to see me perform in a Christmas musical in Salt Lake City. Both being working actors, we hadn’t seen each other in weeks.

    His unpacked suitcase was sitting in the living room, standing against the wall. And even though we had been trying to get pregnant for the last year and a half, I placed all of my attention on his specific word “think.”

    It wasn’t an absolute!

    He wasn’t coming to me and asking for a divorce, or saying he wanted out; he just didn’t “think” he wanted these things.

    So, even though I felt like the ground was going to swallow me whole, I went into hyperdrive.

    I was willing to do anything to stay in my marriage.

    I finally confessed to my husband that I had an affair too. I had been keeping this secret inside of me for four years and told him I wasn’t in love with this other man, and the affair actually showed me I wanted to stay married to my husband.

    It didn’t matter that my husband’s face darkened when I shared this. I was telling the truth finally and letting him know I wasn’t perfect and I knew how he felt.

    I took my husband’s phone, found the number of the girl he was having an affair with, and told her to stop talking to him. I threatened her, saying I would tell everyone she was a husband stealer.

    It didn’t matter that my husband went into a rage because I had contacted her. I felt justified. I was doing what was necessary.

    The next day, on Black Friday, after my husband slept on the couch, I made him get on a plane back home.

    It didn’t matter that, as working actors, we had spent most of the year away from each other or that I had felt panicked for months that something was wrong. He needed to go home, get his life together, and recommit to our marriage.

    When I arrived home from my theater job weeks later, I immediately found a couples therapist so we could work this out.

    It didn’t matter that my husband spent most of the time avoiding the deeper questions and refused to let his therapist speak to our couples’ therapist. I felt I was doing the right thing. 

    I could make it work.

    I could turn this around.

    So I called his parents and best friend, pleading with them to help convince him to stay. I then crawled under the pull-out couch and refused to come out until my husband said he loved me.

    I stopped eating and locked myself in the bedroom. I canceled all our travel plans for the holidays so we could just be isolated at home together.

    I even told the man I was having an affair with to never contact me again.

    I could do this. Until our final couples therapy session, when instead of answering the question of why he wanted to leave the marriage, he just talked about how amazing his girlfriend was.

    Each comment caused me to curl into the fetal position in agony. I had never felt so invisible in my life. He didn’t seem to see me shrink and break right beside him on the couch.

    Nothing I was doing was working.

    So, when we left the therapy office, I told my husband to go home and pack his bags.

    I then hired our couples therapist as my own and went to the bookstore to buy a book on divorce.

    And the first thing the therapist said to me was, “You must be exhausted.”

    And something within me broke.

    A dam that had been built for years holding my life together. Holding a lot of lies together.

    The lie that we were happy.
    The lie that we both wanted to have children and create a family.
    The lie that we both wanted to grow as a couple.

    And the biggest lie of all—that it was my job alone to make this marriage work.

    We were both such great actors in this marriage. I had always thought he was a better actor than me, but I suddenly realized my talent was far more advanced.

    Sitting on my therapist’s couch, I wept. I wept in the way that I had needed to for years. I acknowledged that I had been the driving force in our marriage.

    I had been the cheerleader, the motivator, and had done everything I could to ignore the fact that I wasn’t happy, and hadn’t been for a long time.

    I allowed the dam to break and the water to flow finally.

    I asked for help.

    I stopped trying to control my marriage and let it fall apart.

    The waves took me, shooting water up my nostrils and tossing me upside down. My whole body was submerged in the grief that I couldn’t stop.

    I had to accept this was out of my control.

    And then, when I was washed up on the shore, with my face down in the sand, my mouth opened and I took a breath.

    Deeply.

    And an image came forth.

    An image of a family.
    An image of a loving partner holding our child.
    An image of all of us smiling with ease.

    And slowly, with great care, I lifted myself up and wrapped my arms around myself with love.

    A love that had been missing in my marriage.

    And I vowed to heal from my divorce and learn what it meant to be in a healthy relationship where I wasn’t trying to control everything.

    The following year when Halloween arrived, I went to the store and saw a pair of white wings. I borrowed red clothes from some friends and dressed up as something entirely new.

    A phoenix.

    Placing the wings on my back, I felt my shoulders relax.

    I was navigating the single scene for the first time in my life and was practicing something very radical for me.

    Self-compassion.

    Those wings were thrown away a few years later when I moved in with my fiancé, and replaced with red wings I wore the Halloween before we adopted our daughter.

    “The way of love is not a subtle argument. The door there is devastation.”

    That moment of being on your knees, of feeling like your heart is literally tearing apart in your chest, can actually be a portal to the life you have always desired.

    Simply because, when our hearts are broken, we soften.

    We become deeply vulnerable, and our guard comes down.

    We may rail to the heavens shaking our fist and exclaiming, “This is NOT what I want!”

    And in that moment, we can suddenly see what we DO want.

    Because the situation we are in is so painful, there is actually this radical moment of honesty that can arise that wouldn’t have if we were still in the relationship.

    Especially since when we are in relationships, we are usually spending all of our energy on staying in it.

    But when it is slipping through our fingers and there is nothing we can do…then the real magic begins.

    While going through a divorce after fifteen years of marriage was excruciating, it did light the fire within me for what I wanted more than anything, which was to create a family.

    Because of that heartbreak, I gave my full energy to healing from the divorce so I could call in a very different man and marriage that would support a family.

    The truth was, I was not living my dream life in my first marriage. I was just trying to make it work every day, and completely blind to the truth of my relationship.

    Going through heartbreak can help you see the truth.

    And finally learn that you are capable of creating what you most desire.

  • My Husband Left Me for Another Woman: How Forgiveness Set Me Free

    My Husband Left Me for Another Woman: How Forgiveness Set Me Free

    “Allow yourself to be proud of yourself and all the progress you’ve made. Especially the progress no one else can see.” ~Unknown

    I watched my then-four-month-old daughter wiggle around on the floor on her belly, arms flailed out to the side in her pink-footed pajamas, giggling hysterically. Her brother, four years old at the time, was launching himself from our king size bed onto a pile of pillows next to her, over and over. He’d land with a thud and a loud “oof,” cracking himself up,and she would break out in hysterics right with him.

    I heard my voice in the background of the video, light-hearted and sweet, encouraging them both: “Look at you two! Look at you making her laugh. Isn’t he such a great big brother, cutie. Look at you!”

    I didn’t sound like me. I sounded like an actress in a movie playing a part.

    I was playing a part.

    I went down the rabbit hole of watching video after video of my kids when they were just babies, which was housed on an old hard-drive I kept in a drawer hidden away. I hadn’t taken that drive out in a long time.

    Too many memories. A time in my life I try to forget.

    But there it was, beckoning me back. Inviting me to take a painful trip down memory lane, which I now feel was no accident because sometimes we have to look backward to see how far we’ve come.

    My kids are now almost fourteen and ten years old. They still play the same roles as in that old video. My son often doing something idiotic and funny to make his sister laugh out loud. Her looking at him with adoration and love.

    If someone could hear my voice now when I talk to them, though nobody is here anymore to hear it, it would sound light-hearted and sweet, laughing along with the two of them most days when they aren’t driving me crazy. I’m no longer playing a part, but still I secretly guard the story around what happened at that time in our lives that forced me to ever pretend at all.

    I wept watching those videos that night, a profound sadness I hadn’t felt in a long time working its way up the hidden chamber of my soul. Friends who carried me through that period of time will often say, “Oh my God, that was awful. You were a mess.”

    My friend Patrick, who came into my life not long after those videos were taken, said, “Dina, you were not well during that time. I mean, it was painful to watch. You’re a completely different woman today because of what you went through. I think you should talk about it.”

    “No,” I said emphatically. “I don’t need to talk about it. That’s in the past. I’m different now. Why dredge it up?”

    Except we don’t help each other when we don’t share our experiences. We can’t heal or give others hope that they too can heal when we’re not willing to go to the dark places; the ones that may be in the past but have left a scar reminding us of how far we’ve come.

    Scars are just reminders of the wound. They don’t define us.

    So, rewind the video… I had just had my second child, a baby girl I’d longed for. We were the perfect family, parents to a boy and a girl, both of us working glamorous jobs at movie studios in Los Angeles. With a nice house in the burbs. I was wildly in love with my husband at the time. Life was perfect.

    Until it wasn’t. I found out just a few months before my daughter was born that he was having an affair. Some gorgeous blonde at the office. Younger than me, everything I wasn’t. All the cliché things.

    I thought I could hold our perfect life together. Nobody had to know. I didn’t tell my family. I confided only in my closest friends, who became the army who carried me through the unbearable days, talked me through the panic attacks when I was hyperventilating on the floor, then came to sleep at my home and carry on a round-the-clock vigil when he moved out to be with her on my son’s fourth birthday. 

    I felt decimated. I was decimated. Here I was with a new baby only four months old and a four year old. My family lived across the country. My life in pieces. It felt like my heart had stopped beating.

    It was a long road to healing and forgiveness. There are people I know who never get there, who allow the wound to stay open, bleeding; in pain, stuck, and feeling they can’t forgive and move on.

    But I wanted to forgive. I wanted my peace, my power, and my own happiness more than I wanted to be right. I wasn’t  going to let one person take everything away from me or allow one moment in time to define my life and my future happiness. But boy, did I want to stay in my story for a period of time.

    The victim story.

    The scorned wife story.

    The cliché of believing he left because she was younger and prettier than me and that I wasn’t enough. Thinking his leaving meant I would never be enough for anyone.

    That was a bullshit story that wasn’t true, and if anyone is in it now, I promise you that someone leaving you is an invitation to rise up and become everything you already are but don’t know you can be.

    It took years for me to truly move on in a way that felt real. Because I did all the things within the first few years that made me look like I was doing just fine but wasn’t. I dated and had a few relationships. I continued to succeed at work, building my own business, and accepted every social invitation that came my way, all while taking care of two kids.

    I pretended that when I saw him with her, I was doing just fine.

    But I wasn’t. I hated him for what he did to me, and I loathed her. I was jealous, angry, and depressed. I hid my struggles and real feelings behind a fake-it-till-you-make-it confidence I didn’t really feel and filled my days with distractions from morning till night so I would never feel alone.

    It wasn’t until I got honest with myself and really did the work that I started to thrive. My end game was forgiveness. Without it, I was locked in a prison of anger, resentment, and pain. I knew I needed to forgive myself first for not seeing what was right in front of me, my ex for not loving me the way he promised when we exchanged vows, and the other woman who I blamed for the ending of my marriage.

    I found a great therapist, dove deep into my spirituality, worked with sacred plant medicine, and traveled to Costa Rica and Peru, where I took part in ayahuasca ceremonies. It was Mother Ayahuasca, as we call her in the shaman community, who showed me our soul contract together, which was to bring our children into the world, and also showed me his deep pain and regret for hurting me.

    It was through all of the healing modalities I embarked on that I found compassion for the woman he was now with and a forgiveness I didn’t know was possible that set me free.

    Flash forward ten years. My ex and I have a healthy co-parenting relationship. We’re not besties, but we have mutual respect for each other and bring our families together to celebrate the kids’ big milestones, whether it be their birthdays, holidays, dance recitals, or graduation.

    I forgave and made peace with the woman he left me for. She and I stay in touch, although they are no longer together. She loved my kids for four years, and for that I’ll always be grateful to her. I cheer her on from a distance and pray for her happiness and that she finds love again.

    I’m raising my kids solo, having moved them from LA where their dad still lives to the east coast to be closer to our families. It’s hard co-parenting long distance, but when it feels really hard, I remind myself that I’m surrounded by so much love and have a ton of support. There’s not one shred of me that feels not enough or unlovable or that something was done to me.

    It was an invitation to grow. It was a bigger invitation to learn how to forgive.

    We all make mistakes and do things we wish we could go back and undo.

    We’re a messy, sometimes complicated family, just like every other family. Nobody has the perfect life, the perfect family, or the perfect relationship. I have to remind myself every day I scroll through my social media feed and see happy families smiling on the outside, that there is a story behind the smiles we aren’t always privy to.

    My smile is real most days. Other days, there are tears of overwhelm or sadness or just mourning a life I thought I should have. There are also days when I am still angry with him for what he did to my heart and to me. But I am incredibly proud of the life I’ve created for myself and my children. They will never know the progress I’ve made in the last decade, nor will people who didn’t know me back then, but me… I’ll always know.

    We can survive anything if we make the conscious decision to not let that thing take us down. We can not just survive but thrive if we allow forgiveness for ourselves and others who have hurt us to always be our endgame.

  • How I’ve Stopped Letting My Unhealed Parents Define My Worth

    How I’ve Stopped Letting My Unhealed Parents Define My Worth

    “Detachment is not about refusing to feel or not caring or turning away from those you love. Detachment is profoundly honest, grounded firmly in the truth of what is.” ~Sharon Salzberg

    A few months ago, my father informed me that he’d been diagnosed with prostate cancer. Although he seemed optimistic about the treatment, I knew that hearing such news was not easy.

    After a few weeks, I followed up with him. He ignored my message and went silent for a couple of months. Although his slight ghosting was common, it made me feel ignored and dismissed.

    In the meantime, I went to India for a couple of months. A few weeks before I returned, he reached out, saying he needed to talk. Although he wasn’t specific, I knew something was happening and immediately agreed to speak to him.

    It was Sunday afternoon when he called. After I picked up, I immediately asked about his health. He went on to explain the situation and the next steps of the treatment.

    The call took one hour and twenty-six minutes. I learned everything about his health, where he goes hiking, what food he eats after the hike, what time he wakes up, the fun he and his girlfriend have, what his relationships with his students is like, and where he goes dancing every Saturday night.

    The only thing he knew about me was that my trip to India was great. He didn’t ask me what I did there or why I even decided to take such a radical step.

    Right after the call, somewhat discouraged because of his lack of interest, I received a call from my mom.

    Since my parents are divorced, I must divide these calls and often keep them secret in front of each other.

    The call with my mom went pretty much the same way. The only difference was that she repeated things numerous times without realizing it since she is on anti-depressants, often accompanied by alcohol.

    After both calls were over, thoughts of unworthiness started hitting me. At first, I judged myself for expecting my father to care about my life and used his health as a justification for his treatment. Then I realized I always made excuses for my parents. It was the way I coped with their behavior.

    Although talking to them was more of a duty than anything else, I knew not having contact wouldn’t resolve the issue. However, I didn’t know how to deal with these feelings. It felt as if every phone call with them reminded me how unworthy and unimportant I was to them.

    While growing up, my mother struggled with alcohol, and my father abused the entire family. When I began dating, I naturally attracted partners that reflected what I thought of myself: I was unworthy and unlovable.

    Although I wasn’t sure how to handle it, I knew there must have been a solution to this emotional torture.

    Typically, when I ended my calls with my parents, I would reach for thoughts of unworthiness and inadequacy. However, this Sunday, I chose differently. For the first time, I stopped the self-destructive thoughts in their tracks and asked myself the fundamental question that changed everything: How long will I let my unhealed parents define my worth and how lovable I am?

    After sitting in awe for about ten minutes and realizing the healthy step I just took, I asked myself another question: How can I manage these relationships to protect my mental health and, at the same time, maintain a decent relationship with them?

    Here is how I decided to move forward.

    1. Setting boundaries while finding understanding

    I always dreamed of how it would be if my mom didn’t drink. I remember as a fourteen-year-old kneeling by the couch where she lay intoxicated, asking her to please quit drinking. As a child and as an adult, I believed that if she could stop the alcohol abuse, everything would be better. She wasn’t a bad mother but an unhealed mother.

    Today, I understand that this may not be possible. Although watching someone I love destroying themselves almost in front of my eyes is painful, after working through my codependency, I understand that it’s impossible to save those who have no desire to change their life.

    Therefore, emotional distance for me is inevitable. I decided to use the skills I learned as a recovering codependent when appropriate. If I feel guilty that I moved far away, stopped financially supporting my mom since she drinks, or that I am not there to deal with her alcohol issue, I pause. Then, I forgive myself for such thoughts and remind myself that the only power I hold is the power to heal myself.

    If I find myself secretly begging for the love of my father, I reflect on all those loving and close relationships I was able to create with people around me.

    Another self-care remedy I use when feeling sad is a loving-kindness meditation to soothe my heart, or I talk with a close friend.

    2. Accepting and meeting my parents where they are

    Frankly, this has been the hardest thing for me to conquer. For years, the little girl inside me screamed and prayed for my parents to be more present, loving, and caring.

    Because I secretly wished for them to change, I couldn’t accept them for who they were. I wanted my father to be more loving and my mom to be the overly caring woman many other mothers are.

    When I began accepting that the people who caused my wounding couldn’t heal it, I dropped my unrealistic expectations and let go.

    I also realized that instead of healing my wounded inner child, I used her to blame my parents. Therefore, I was stuck in a victim mentality while giving them all the power to define my value.

    Today, I understand that expecting change will only lead to disappointment. Frankly, my parents are entitled to be whoever they choose to be. Although it takes greater mental power and maturity, I try to remind myself that this is what their best looks like while considering their unhealed wounds. This realization allows me to be more accepting and less controlled by their behavior. It allows me not to take things too personally.

    3. Practicing detachment

    Frankly, I felt exuberant when I chose not to allow my parents to define how I felt about myself when we last spoke. It wasn’t anger or arrogance; it was detachment. I remember sitting there with my phone in hand, mentally repeating: “I won’t let you define my worth anymore.” After a couple of weeks of reflecting on this day, I can say that this was the first time I took responsibility for my feelings concerning my parents.

    Although this story doesn’t necessarily have a happy ending, it feels empowering, freeing, and unbelievably healing. Breaking the emotional chains from the two most important people in my life is the healthiest decision I could have made.

    After my first victory in a years-long battle, I feel optimistic that this is the beginning of immense healing. Although I know that thoughts of unworthiness will creep in when interacting with them in the future, now I understand that I hold in my hands the most powerful tool there is—the power of choice.

  • One Missing Ingredient in My Recovery and Why I Relapsed

    One Missing Ingredient in My Recovery and Why I Relapsed

    “The Phoenix must burn to emerge.” ~Janet Fitch

    Many people were shocked when I relapsed after twenty-three years of recovery. After all, I was the model of doing it right. I did everything I was told: went to treatment, followed instructions, prayed for help, and completed the assignments.

    After returning home from treatment, I joined a recovery program and went to therapy. Once again, I followed all the suggestions, which worked when it came to staying sober. I had no desire to drink or do drugs—well, at least for a long while.

    When I went to treatment, I was an emotional wreck. I would have done anything to get rid of the pain. But substances only intensified the pain and prevented healing.

    The worse I felt, the more I needed to medicate those emotions, but it was only causing the ache in my heart to be prolonged, driving me to suicidal thoughts. The moment I stopped using substances, the pain immediately subsided. I’d gone from struggling to get out of bed to engaging in my life fully.

    But going to treatment was only the tip of the iceberg. There was something much deeper underneath my addiction that I wrongly thought a relationship could fix. There was an underlying malaise and sense of shame I couldn’t identify. I knew something was wrong, so I kept searching for answers but couldn’t find the magic formula.

    Without the solution, relapse was inevitable.

    Most recovery programs address a single addiction, but I had many. After two years of sobriety, I stopped smoking but then started compulsive exercising. I didn’t eat right, spent too much, was codependent with needy people, and went from one addictive relationship to the next, never healthy enough to attract someone who could problem solve with me.

    I didn’t realize I was still substituting addictions for love.

    I wanted to make up for my troubled childhood, and I thought getting married and having kids would fix the problem, but after several attempts, it only made me feel more inadequate. Worse, I was a therapist and felt like a hypocrite. It wasn’t like I didn’t work at getting better; self-help was like a part-time job

    I spent decades in different kinds of therapy, not only as a patient but expanding my education in other modalities. I attended dozens of workshops and seminars doing inner-child work. I fully immersed myself in over twenty years of therapy, including psychoanalysis. My toolbox was overflowing, but I still felt disconnected for some reason.

    I didn’t realize those tools weren’t teaching me how to love myself.

    My journey took me on a lifelong spiritual quest. I found a higher power in recovery. I attended various churches and did some mission work in Haiti. I went to Brazil to be healed by John of God (later convicted of multiple cases of sexual abuse), on to a spiritual quest in Peru, on a visit to the Holy Land in Israel, and to Fiji to find my destiny but still felt something was missing.

    I read every spirituality book I could get my hands on and studied A Course in Miracles, but I was still disconnected from myself and others.

    Discouraged, I began to drift further away from all sources of help. I resigned myself to being an unhealed healer.

    I didn’t realize that all the therapy and spirituality were simply another form of addiction for me.

    Relapse began when I got breast cancer and was prescribed opiates after surgery. I got a taste of that forgotten high and made sure I took all the pills, whether I needed them or not. I also forgot how mood-altering substances affected my judgment.

    Instead of facing my fears about being ill and moving forward with my life, I reconciled with my ex-husband. I had little to no regard for how this affected my children. Like a piece of dust suctioned into a vacuum, despite feeling uncomfortable, I allowed my thoughts to suck me back into unhealthy choices—all the while in therapy.

    The next seven years were dark. Another divorce was followed by my former husband’s death, though I was grateful to bring him to our home and care for him until he passed. Then, a fire turned our newly renovated home into a mass of black and burnt-out walls, forcing another relocation for myself and youngest. Soon after, one of my businesses suffered severe damage from another fire resulting in six months of work and restoration.

    Three devastating hurricanes over two years damaged our home and business. One caused the foyer ceiling to cave in, another landed a large tree on our roof, and the third made our yard look like it had been run through a giant blender. One of my businesses was twice flooded and everything had to be thrown away.

    Soon after, our home was ransacked and burglarized. The stress of managing repairs, insurance claims, child-rearing, and working full-time felt like I was repeatedly set on fire and drowned.

    I kept trying to get better but felt emotionally shredded from the struggle. Desperate for support, poor decisions kept me in a whirlwind of insanity—more bad relationships. I was tired of trying, sick of hurting, and anger brewed within me.

    I stopped therapy, recovery meetings, and my spiritual quest, and decided to throw it all away. I went on a rebellious rampage. I’d been married at age sixteen and had a child, and now I was entirely alone. I decided to return to my pre-recovery lifestyle and live it up.

    Looking back, I lived a dual life of selfishness and a thirty-year career of helping others. I was self-will run riot but couldn’t see myself. I’d lived a life of making things happen and simultaneously wondered why my higher power didn’t deliver everything I wanted.

    Spirituality is a tricky thing. It’s so easy to think that God or some higher power is in control, but I believe, with free will, it’s a collaborative effort. Do the footwork and wait… if only I’d waited; impatience was my Achilles heel.

    My party life added a new heap of problems: disappointed children, bad judgment, and wrecked relationships. It didn’t take long to wind up in the same place that took me to treatment twenty-three years earlier, an emotional bottom. But this time, I was ready for the miracle of change.

    I finally found the missing ingredient to a happy life.

    The night was pitch black as I drove around emotionally deranged from grief and substances. After a near accident, I pulled into a parking lot and sobbed uncontrollably. I railed, “Whatever you are out there, why did you abandon me? Why haven’t you helped me? Why don’t you love me?”

    Immediately, a thought shot through my brain like an arrow through a cloud. “It’s not me that doesn’t love you. You don’t love yourself.” And for the first time in my life, I realized two things: I didn’t love myself and didn’t know what loving myself even meant.

    How would I learn to love myself? It never occurred to me that I didn’t. But now, I was armed with the missing ingredient to my happiness, and I intended to figure it out.

    Psychoanalysts are taught the importance of an infant’s basic needs for nurturing and bonding, but I’d never applied any of those concepts to myself. There were some missing parts in my childhood, so I had to learn how to provide for my physical, emotional, and spiritual needs,  as well as get proper nutrition, rest, and activity, in addition to responsibilities, play time, creative and quiet time, gratitude and appreciation, and loss of tolerance for unkind behavior (to and from others), all of which places I started the journey to self-love.

    I let go of what I wanted and focused on doing the next right thing for myself and others. The results were miraculous; peace engulfed me for the first time. By being the love I’d always wanted, I felt loved.

    I was always a doer and thought that spirituality was like getting a degree. Follow the steps, and everything will be okay. Whether or not that’s true, there’s a lot more to staying sober than following a set of directions. It’s important to find a higher power, clean up our act, apologize to those we’ve hurt, and stop using, but that won’t keep us sober if we don’t know how to love ourselves. My higher power became love.

    Correct behavior and self-love are not the same. Loving oneself starts with giving thanks to the sunrise and the sunset, cuddling with your pillow and those you love, acknowledging a universal intelligence and trusting guidance from your conscience, discovering and loving your mission, and nourishing your body, mind, and soul.

    Feed your body with nontoxic food; feed your mind with positive, stimulating information; and feed your soul with nature, good friends, healthy partners, and a higher power (of your own understanding) that inspires and uplifts you.

    If you’ve struggled with staying sober, you probably haven’t learned to love yourself. It’s never too late to start. When I started loving myself like a small child, I lost all substitutes for that godly love, and I finally began to blossom and grow.

    It took decades of failure to discover the missing ingredient to staying sober. I had to learn that love isn’t something I get. Love is an action I give to myself and others.

    Through being the love that I want, I then receive love. There’s a difference between staying sober and recovering. For all like me, who failed to stay sober, learn how to love yourself and then you will recover from the lack of self-love at the root of this tragic disease.

    It’s not enough to just stay sober, and life without happiness makes no sense. You were meant to have a life of love and joy. If you’ve tried everything and something’s still missing, try learning how to love.

  • Finding Home After Divorce: What Brought Me Peace and Healing

    Finding Home After Divorce: What Brought Me Peace and Healing

    “We need to learn how to navigate our minds, both the good and the bad, the light and the dark, so that ultimately, we can create acceptance and open our arms and come home to ourselves.” ~Candy Leigh

    Divorce is so common that my son, at a young age, asked if my husband and I could divorce so he could have “a mom’s and dad’s house too!” And my daughter agreed because then “we could get double presents on holidays!” Given my experience as a child with divorced parents, I assured them, “Guys, divorce is not really that much fun.”

    The truth is there is nothing romantic about divorce for the parents or the children. When a family breaks up it becomes de-stabilizing for everyone. Suddenly, how things were disappears and everything feels tilted. Like being on one of those “tilt-a-whirl” amusement park rides where you just want it to right itself so you can feel better.

    Home doesn’t feel like home anymore in the way one knew it. A mother’s kitchen may have no child at Christmas. A parent’s bedroom looks different with someone missing.

    I remember before my parents divorced, I noticed a sign. Their bed was actually two twin beds pushed together. But in the year before the divorce the beds were separated. Soon, my dad wasn’t around on Sunday mornings to make me bagel and bacon sandwiches, and our house echoed emptiness.

    One’s home is grounding and so important to their inner stability. Divorce is like an earthquake leaving emotional rubble in the living room that a family must heal and recover from.

    My “earthquake” happened when I was fifteen years old. There had been tremors before. My parents sometimes liked each other. But when they didn’t, there was a lot of shrieking in the kitchen and even worse, cold silences where they would walk by one another as if each one didn’t exist—a scary distance that gave me a stomachache.

    My worst fear was that they’d divorce, but I decided if that happened, I could always just kill myself.

    Thankfully, my plan never came to pass. But on that autumn day, after a tearful conversation on our beige sofa when my parents used the terrifying “D” word,  I decided that I would never cry about it again and tell no one. Instead, I got on my bike and pedaled away my pain, my voice lost in spokes of sorrow. I didn’t eat enough for years hoping that swallowing less would lessen the pain.

    The literature points out that living in a home with high conflict is more detrimental than divorce for all parties involved, so no matter how painful it is, separation is often the next right and healthy step.

    Recent findings indicate that better adjustment after divorce correlates with less conflict before and after between the parents. So it’s the detrimental effects of conflict rather than the divorce itself that is an important mediating factor to consider.

    Yet “nice” divorces without conflict and with excellent communication are rare. Most couples will divorce how they were married and bring the dysfunctional communication and marital issues into the divorce process. After deciding to divorce, things may become more stressful for families. But if the marriage doesn’t feel salvageable, separation provides hope for something healthier and happier that staying in an unhappy relationship may not provide.

    Quickly, my father met someone new. And suddenly, I was meeting a lady in a big house that was neat, orderly, and had three teenagers. I was scared they wouldn’t like me. But they were nice to the curly-haired young girl who visited every other weekend.

    My stepmother taught me to make a pie crust being careful the dough was as “soft as a baby’s bottom.” She bought me my first prom dress and called my father “dear,” and no one yelled. She never became my mother, but over the years, I had the security of two women who took care of me. And when she died on a cold Christmas morning thirty years later, I had finally learned to weep.

    There is a strange sense of togetherness in divorce even if a family doesn’t realize it at the time. Parents grieve, don’t feel good enough, and often have guilt because of the children. Children grieve and can have guilt about not being good enough to hold parents together. No one is alone in the sorrow, and that mutual understanding can reduce a family’s disconnection and isolation.

    The importance of home and family is never shattered; it is how to rebuild and find a sense of belonging in the new arrangement that is left standing. Often, that includes new partners, stepbrothers and sisters, or a smaller family of a single parent and child.

    The uncertainty of the future with new family constellations is challenging. Yet tomorrow’s uncertainty is an issue that parents, children, and all of us grapple with throughout life. But with time we adjust, build new homes, and find safety and a sense of security once again.

    The emotional toll on children often includes increased sadness, anger, and depression, as well as increased physical symptoms and academic challenges. But just being aware of these reactions and comforting, normalizing, and giving voice to a child’s experience can be healing.

    We have to encourage everyone not to divorce from their emotions. My parents, at the time of the divorce, thought it would be a good idea for me to see a therapist. He was an old man sitting behind a big desk who asked me a lot of questions that I didn’t want to answer. I think I sat through the whole session but was very clear I’d never go there again!

    It was only with leaving my family for college that I could get help on my own terms. My hunger for my true feelings had finally become more important than remaining hungry for food, which was how I had coped for years.

    I walked into my therapist’s office, and she smiled and said, “Take a seat.” I finally had found true nurturance in a safe space where I could share my anger, sadness, and grief. It was that deep home inside all of us which is the tender place of truth.

    The timeline for healing is different for everyone and every family. But it comes with grieving and an acceptance of the loss—like a death we never forget but learn to live with, and it becomes part of us and our life story.

    Divorce may not be what we planned for, that fairy tale of happily ever after. And we can easily be hard on ourselves or hurt ourselves with destructive behaviors instead of facing our pain. But learning how to grieve, care for, and love ourselves through the difficult times brings a sense of peace and healing to the home inside. And that home isn’t defined by a mom’s or a dad’s house.

  • How Grieving My Parents’ Divorce (20 Years Later) Changed Me for the Better

    How Grieving My Parents’ Divorce (20 Years Later) Changed Me for the Better

    “There are years that ask questions and years that answer.” ~Zora Neale Hurston

    At the age of thirteen, my childhood as I knew it came to an end. My parents sat my brother and me down at the kitchen table and told us they were getting a divorce. In that moment, I could acutely feel the pain of losing the only family unit I knew.

    Although my teenage self was devastated by this news, it would take another twenty years for me to realize the full extent of what I had lost. And to acknowledge that I had never fully grieved this loss.

    While divorce is so common in the United States, it is not a benign experience for children or adolescents. In fact, divorce is even considered a type of adverse childhood experience, or childhood trauma, that can have long-term behavioral, health, and income consequences. Children of divorced families have an increased risk of developing psychological disorders, attaining lower levels of education, and experiencing relationship difficulties.

    However, not all divorce is equal and will impact children in the same way. And if the children still feel loved, protected, and supported by the parents following the divorce, this can act as a buffer against long-term harm.

    But in many cases following a divorce, parents are not in an emotional or financial state to continue meeting the children’s needs at the same level as prior to the divorce. In these circumstances, children are less likely to receive the emotional support needed to properly grieve—which is what I personally experienced.

    After receiving news that my parents were planning to divorce, I did begin the grieving process. I was in denial that they would actually go through with it. Then I felt anger that they were uprooting my entire world. And then after the anger settled, I remember pleading with them for weeks to stay together. But I think I got stuck somewhere in the stage of depression, never being able to fully reach acceptance.

    Then, twenty years later, after a series of stressful life events, I realized how much the divorce of my parents still impacted me—and how I still had grieving to do. So, at thirty-two years old, I faced a childhood head-on that I had spent my entire adult life attempting to avoid. And I gave myself everything that the thirteen-year-old me had needed twenty years ago but had never received.

    I gained social support through my husband, friends, and therapist. I showed myself compassion. And after two decades, I finally gave myself permission to grieve the childhood and family of origin that I never had and never will.

    I believe the reason that divorce can be so harmful for children is because there is a prevalent belief that children are resilient and they’ll always bounce back. When provided the right support and care, this may be true. However, children don’t have the emotional maturity to manage their emotions on their own when experiencing such an intense loss. This is particularly true when the divorce precipitates or is accompanied by other types of adverse childhood experiences.

    Since divorce can oftentimes lead to intense upheaval and disruption in the family structure, this makes children more susceptible to other types of trauma. Financial difficulties, abuse from stepparents, or a parent suddenly becoming absent can all amplify an already distressing situation for a child. And since children are programmed to rely on their parents for survival, what may seem like a mildly stressful incident for an adult could feel life-threatening for a child.

    I never fully grieved and accepted my parents’ divorce because I lacked the social support I needed to do so. And since the breakdown of the family also led to a breakdown in parenting, I was focused on survival, not grieving. However, it took me many years to realize that my parents were also focused on survival, which can take precedence over ensuring your children are prepared for adulthood. 

    I know my parents did the best they could with the tools they had at the time. But it has been difficult to understand why a parent wouldn’t do everything in their power to shield their child from trauma.

    I was not old enough to understand that it was mental illness and substance abuse that caused a parent’s partner to go into violent rages. My parents had to pretend everything was normal for their own survival—all while neglecting to consider the long-term impacts of trauma during such formative, developmental years.

    To avoid the instability and chaos of the post-divorce homes, from the age of fourteen, I bounced around living from friend’s house to friend’s house. And by the age of sixteen, I had left school and was working nearly full-time in restaurants.

    I didn’t have any plans for my life, but working gave me a sense of safety and an alternate identity. No one had to know that I was a teenager from a broken home living in a trailer park. They only cared that I came in on time and did the job.

    Looking back, it’s clear that my desire to leave school and work was very much a means to gain some control over my chaotic and troubled home life. I felt as though I had to support and protect myself because I had no one to fall back on. And this has been a consistent feeling throughout my life.

    When I began the process of grieving my parents’ divorce as an adult, I realized how many of my beliefs about the world and myself were connected to the aftermath of this traumatic experience.

    My early years instilled beliefs in me that the world is not a safe place—and that I’m not worthy of safety or protection. And it was through the process of grieving that I realized that the thirteen-year-old girl that feared for her safety was still inside me wanting to be heard and comforted.

    I wanted to tell her that she had nothing to fear. But that wouldn’t be the truth. Because the decade following the divorce would be filled with intense distress and tumult. And she would be expected to endure challenges beyond her years.

    While I couldn’t tell her that she would have nothing to fear, I could tell her that she would get through it with courage. And she would become an adult with the ability to love, and a devotion to the health and preservation of her own marriage. And that she would put herself through college and grad school and have a professional career and travel the world.

    I could tell her that some stressful life experiences in her early thirties would open up wounds that she had kept closed for decades. But that she would be strong enough to constructively deal with her past and accept the loss of a childhood cut too short. And that through this journey, she would learn to forgive and show compassion—to herself and to others.

    Grieving my parents’ divorce changed me. I’m no longer waiting for the other shoe to drop. And I’m no longer blaming myself for a truncated childhood. I’m also learning that the world is not as scary and unpredictable as I’ve spent my entire adult life thinking it was.

    I’ve discovered that while there was a point in my young life when I experienced hardships that exceeded my ability to cope, I now have all the tools I need inside of me. And I know that it is possible to reach a point in life where you are no longer focused on surviving but rather on thriving.

  • How I Reframed Letting Go So I Could Move on from My Painful Past

    How I Reframed Letting Go So I Could Move on from My Painful Past

    We are truly free when we let go of the thought that the past could or should have been any different than it was. This is so hard.

    The challenge is born from our desperate need to validate our feelings and experiences. It often feels like we are invalidating ourselves if we let go of the thought that the past should have been different. We have been through hell, experienced things most people don’t know about, and it initially feels so devastating to think of just letting it go like it never happened. Where is the justice in that?

    I know; I have been there. Honestly, I still have moments where I pick up this thought and carry it around for a while because it just feels like the right thing to do. To honor myself and my experiences, I have to stay connected to the injustice of the choices that others have made—choices that dramatically impacted my life and created immense amounts of pain.

    After almost nineteen years of marriage, my husband, my high school sweetheart, told me that he was gay and had never been attracted to me.

    I promise; I know pain. I spent weeks wrestling with myself, trying to think of all the things that could have happened, or maybe should have happened, to avoid the situation that was causing me so much pain.

    Things like wishing I had paid attention to the red flags when we were dating, listening to my therapists over the years when they tried to get me to work on the issues between my husband and me, wishing I had never met him or he had been honest with me (which would have been the best for both of us, as I’m sure the lying hurt him as well). So many things I wish I could change. It seemed insurmountable at times.

    For months I didn’t even want to consider accepting my reality. This felt like the most invalidating thing I could do. The rejection I experienced over the course of my marriage is not something I would wish on anyone.

    Was I surprised when my ex-husband told me he was gay? This is hard to answer. I knew something was wrong. I knew I felt crazy and invisible and ugly. The number of nights I went to bed in tears over being invisible to the man I married was too many to count.

    Now that I finally get to live in truth, how do I move forward? There is a twenty-year mountain of grief I am stuck carrying. I personally find this reality the worst: other people’s choices can cut us to the core. Others can hurt us, and the only way to live a healthy, fulfilling life is to be connected to other people.

    I can’t tell you the countless nights this reality has kept me awake. I want more than anything to live on an island all by myself. For years I convinced myself I could be fully self-sufficient. I will earn my own money and take care of my own needs. I don’t want anything to do with being close enough to people for them to lie, cheat, and hurt me again. I wish this worked. I wish there were a way, but I am here to tell you there is not.

    You can go that route; believe me, I have tried. It only brings more emptiness and pain. The truth is, we are hardwired for connection. We are mammals. We have to have others to survive. Those who are thriving have deep, meaningful, loving relationships. They feel the greatest highs and the pain of the deepest lows when someone breaks trust. This is the human experience. Unfortunately, some of us have experienced deeper levels of pain, but what I know for sure is that we are all capable of healing.

    I have had to reframe what letting go means. It will never mean that my ex-husband’s choices were okay. I will never say the pain was worth it or not that bad. Living in a catfished relationship for twenty years will never be okay. There will always be days I feel the pain and grieve the past. Thankfully, those days are getting further apart, but they definitely still happen.

    Letting go is feeling the grief of my reality so I can accept what I cannot change. I cannot change his lies. I cannot change my choices to believe them. I cannot change that I abandoned myself and my needs for the sake of him and our kids. I cannot change any of that.

    I can feel the deep, tormenting pain and grieve that pain until it stops tormenting me. When I allow myself to feel, to sit in those feelings for as long as I need to, I validate myself. I am not waiting on the day when he or anyone else validates my experience.

    No one will ever know the true depth of our pain. The days we sat in our closets and wept or cried ourselves quietly to sleep. We can validate that for ourselves, though. We can share our stories so others know they are not alone in their pain.

    I know many of you reading this know my pain. Your story might be different, but your pain is not. If you feel stuck in moving forward, please know that the greatest gift you can give yourself is to fully feel all your feelings. “Go there,” as they say.

    You don’t need to do it alone. Allow a therapist, mentor, or trusted friend to sit with you while you feel the depths of all your feelings. There is freedom on the other side. I promise. It is not perfect; my grief is not forever gone, but I am free. I am free of his choices, and I am free to create a life I didn’t know I could dream for myself while I was still tied in his web.

    The work is scary, hard, and only for the courageous and brave. There are so many people who are here to cheer you on and stand beside you while you do the work. Be brave and start the journey of letting go. You are worth it.

    —

    I recently heard someone say that compassion is the intersection of love and suffering. I feel like I carried suffering around for so long, and I know that my ex has too. My ability to truly let go and be free came when I was able to also see my ex’s suffering and lovingly let him go.

    I met him with compassion. It wasn’t easy. Compassion didn’t come quickly, and some days it is still hard. We were both raised in a culture that valued being good and loyal over happy and seen.

    Our tragic story is the product of valuing rules and goodness over love, happiness, and self expression. I know we are not the first generation to suffer from this mindset, but I pray we are the last.

  • How Releasing Control Opened Me Up to a Limitless Life

    How Releasing Control Opened Me Up to a Limitless Life

    “What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.” ~Richard Bach

    I have always wanted to create a family.

    As a child, I lovingly cared for my dolls and fell head over heels for my college boyfriend. Kneeling before me with a ring, he said, “I want you to be the mother of our children.” I swooned as we walked down the aisle at the tender age of twenty-two, convinced I was set for life. I had the husband, and I would have the family.

    I entered into our marriage with the expectation and security of certainty. We had vowed to be together for life, so I believed that was the truth.

    But I had another love besides my husband.

    I was in love with performing.

    After a childhood of classes in the arts, I was accepted into the BFA Musical Theater Program’s inaugural year at Penn State University. I soaked every minute up and graduated with summer work already booked and the plan to move to New York City with my new husband and dive into my career.

    Creating a family could wait. Broadway was calling.

    Except I found myself hitting a ceiling. Despite working consistently as a professional, Broadway eluded me. With the exception of two Broadway shows that closed before I would have joined them, I would choke when I was invited back for a second or third audition, and never make it any further.

    I was a true triple threat, strong in my singing, dancing, and acting, but I didn’t know how to deal with the loud and critical voice in my head. When I needed to deliver my best at these big moments, the critic would become deafening and my voice would crack or I would spontaneously “forget” which leg to step forward on while I was dancing. In those moments, it was as if all my training went out the window.

    Over time I was losing confidence. I literally worked at every level except Broadway. I worked off-Broadway, regionally, did national tours and commercials, and kept auditioning in hopes my break would come.

    And then I found myself at the age of thirty-seven staring into my husband’s eyes as he told me, “I don’t think I love you anymore. I don’t think I want to be married anymore. I don’t think I want to have children.”

    The security and certainty I had clung to in my twenties evaporated in smoke. I lost my marriage and the ability to create the family I had desired for the last fifteen years.

    In the face of my divorce, I felt a great urgency arise. It fueled me to heal emotionally, spiritually, and mentally from my heartbreak and to seek the right support to guide me as a single woman. I worked with love coaches and therapists and joined women’s groups to help me make sense of how to find a life partner.

    And then four and a half years later, I went on a first date with a kind blue-eyed man who took me to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens and gently opened an umbrella over my head as rain began to fall. In all the dates I had been on, I had never felt like this before, and we quickly fell in love.

    Before I became exclusive with him, I asked how he felt about creating a family and was thrilled when he shared that was his biggest desire as well. We were married a year and a half later and began to try naturally to get pregnant.

    Creating a family was now. There was no more waiting. I had the husband and the security. Certainty had returned to my life again.

    Except after a year of trying, nothing had happened. So, we entered into IVF as I had frozen my eggs after my divorce for this very reason. We followed all the steps, and I was convinced this was going to work. With the number of fertilized eggs, I imagined we had two tries and I was completely open to twins. But on the day of the transfer, only one egg was ready, and the other three became unusable.

    The pressure was unmanageable. I was experiencing migraine headaches from the synthetic hormones and was terrified it wouldn’t work. Which it didn’t.

    I vowed I was done with the drugs and our family was either going to happen through natural causes or through adoption.

    A year later, I found myself staring at a positive pregnancy test.

    My husband and I were giddy beyond belief, and began to read children stories to the growing life inside me.

    Creating a family was now. There was no more waiting.

    Except just before my eleventh week, I stared at an ultrasound with no heartbeat. The white light that had fluttered with such ferocity at seven weeks was now a static white dot.

    While we went back to trying, my heart was broken. Nothing was happening, so we entered into the process of adoption.

    Within two months we were matched with a birth mother, and I wept when we got the call. The birth mother had just entered her second trimester, so we had several months to wait.

    Now we could prepare! I dived into podcasts, books, and workshops, learning everything I could about adoption, about being a trauma-informed parent, and what products felt most aligned with our values. I created a registry, and we both planned to take time off work.

    Everything was set.

    Creating our family was now. There was no more waiting.

    And then a month before the baby’s due date, the birth mother changed her mind. In adoption, they call this a disruption, and that is exactly how it felt.

    I found myself reliving every pillar of my journey. Choosing Broadway over family. The divorce. The failed IVF. The miscarriage. And now the disruption. I wasn’t just mourning the recent loss; I was mourning decades of a desire that had burned in my womb.

    I thought it was the end of the world. End of certainty.

    I found myself feeling completely disoriented. I had planned maternity leave from my business and set up an elaborate schedule for my approaching book launch all around the adoption. I had a nursery filled with a stroller, changing table, clothes, and a glider. I had thought of everything.

    I had planned it all out, because I wanted to believe it was going to happen. I wanted to believe there was no more waiting. I wanted to believe in certainty.

    I pulled an Oracle card from Alana Fairchild that read, “This comes with special guidance for you. More love is rushing towards you like a great cosmic tsunami. You will struggle with this blessing to the extent that you will attempt to hold onto what has been. So don’t. Let go. You’ll perhaps get some water up your nose, but nothing will come to you that you cannot handle. Instead, you’ll have no idea what is going on. Oh, how the tsunami will deliver you into your divine destiny!”

    So I did something new. I surrendered. I surrendered all my plans.

    I started coaching my clients again. We went back to being active again with the adoption agency. I started my book marketing tasks again.

    But none of this had any certainty or definitive timeline. After decades of knowing the exact day and time things were going to happen, I embraced not knowing.

    I embraced waiting. Because it seemed there was nothing else to do.

    It felt like a part of me was dying, the part that had planned my family with such ferocity and certainty.

    In my grief, I turned to the Oracle deck’s guidebook and saw Robert Brach’s quote. As soon as I read it, I began to weep in resonance.

    How I had strived to stay the caterpillar.

    The caterpillar of certainty. The caterpillar of timelines. The caterpillar of planning.

    But the caterpillar couldn’t transform with these values. It needed to be washed up on the waves of love, and finally enter the cocoon to grow into a sacred butterfly.

    Robert’s words speak to that profound moment when we recognize that the way we’ve been living our life doesn’t work anymore. If we want to grow, we have to let go of our clinging, specifically our clinging to certainty.

    Because the truth is, our greatest power comes in the acceptance of not knowing.

    If you “don’t know” then you are actually opening yourself to a limitless life, one that is led by divine timing, instead of what your ego wants to believe is “right.”

    What if experiencing the same thing over and over is actually a divine tap on the shoulder to try something new?

    What if being disoriented and not knowing when your desire will arrive is the softly spun silk surrounding your most vital soul?

    For me, the tsunami washed me up on the shore with sacred wisdom. No longer holding onto a timeline was actually a deep relief. Going through the cycle of trying to control every aspect of creating my family had been so taxing and exhausting.

    I had formed a castle of certainty with bricks and stones, only to discover it was actually made of sand. And when the waves crashed through, I saw it was never meant to last. It was always meant to wash away.

    Now I’m opening to something far more powerful than certainty. I’m opening to trust.

    I don’t know when my family will come. I have no idea how my desire is going to manifest. Perhaps my life has actually been working out beautifully, creating a divine path I may not have “planned” but one that has sparked a vital inner transformation.

    One that has opened me to the possibility of my life unfolding in a new direction. And with that, I can let go of crawling on the ground in vain as the caterpillar. Now I can just open my wings and fly.

    Now I can simply receive.

  • 5 Ways to Start Healing from the Grief of Betrayal and Domestic Abuse

    5 Ways to Start Healing from the Grief of Betrayal and Domestic Abuse

    “If your heart hurts a little after letting go of someone or something, that’s okay. It just means that your feelings were genuine. No one likes ends. And no one likes pain. But sometimes we have to put things that were once good to an end after they turn toxic to our well-being. Not every new beginning is meant to last forever. And not every person who walks into your life is meant to stay.” ~Najwa Zebian

    It’s hard to describe what betrayal feels like. Unless you’ve experienced it, I mean, in which case you’ll know. You’ll know that moment—the punch to the gut, which in my case, even though I was standing in an empty room all on my own, literally knocked me to the floor. I’d seen something, you see.

    Proof that my partner had been cheating.

    It was a beautiful day, the sun was shining. I think I’d been listening to music, probably something upbeat in the hope it would squash the worry that something wasn’t quite right. Maybe (most likely, knowing me) dancing, to carry some of the nervous energy away. Scrolling on social media, distracting myself with other people’s realities, to stop me thinking about my own.

    And then something—something—made me look. A pull. An inexplicable urge. And so, of course, I did.

    There it was. What I’d known in my gut, but had been told repeatedly couldn’t be true. Labelled as “over-reacting,” “seeing things that aren’t there,” “being too sensitive.” What I now know to be gaslighting, that abuse isn’t always physical (even though in my case it was that too). Tangible evidence for all to see.

    And so here I was, in a heap. Collapsed to the ground like a house of cards that had been caught by a gush of air. But it wasn’t air that had taken my legs from underneath me. It was the end of a relationship.

    To this day, I don’t know how long I was lying there. I can picture it in my head even all these years later.  Like a boat that’s adrift. Wind knocked out of my sails. Listless.

    The night drew in, and with it came this incredible wave of noise. Like I was sitting in a busy café, and someone had turned the music up to try and compensate, but you couldn’t make anything out. Except no one could hear this noise, because it was all happening in my head. Thoughts about “what if?” and “if only,” ironically contributing to the din.

    I wanted a hand to reach out from the darkness and give me the answers. To say “It’s going to be fine.” But it wasn’t fine. It was painful. Distressing. Desperate.

    And then, something. A message. A friend. He had no idea what was going on; I hadn’t told a soul. But he knew. At least, he sensed it. So he had messaged me and gently reminded me that I have a right to be here.

    I look back on this moment in my life now as if it was another person. I’m still me, of course, but different, like we all are when we go through grief. Because grief doesn’t just belong to death. We experience it for anything that mattered to us that’s no longer there.

    A divorce.

    A redundancy.

    Even a child leaving for college.

    Endings mean we go through this process; not in stages, but a journey that takes as long as it takes.

    Here are a few insights and tips that might help if you’re on this journey now.

    1. Grieving is a unique experience.

    It’s raw at first; it can be messy, but it does look different to everyone. Some people feel rage, others feel numb. I felt completely lost for a while. There is no right way to mourn a loss; we just find our own way, hopefully with the support of others who get it. Even then, people need to resist the urge to cheer us up or “silver line” what’s happened.

    We don’t always need to find the “upside” of pain or be told “at least you can always get remarried” (sigh). What helped me that night was the generosity of a friend, a simple act of kindness in the willingness to just hold space with me.

    But of course my journey to recovery didn’t end there. Allowing myself to be open to the idea that I didn’t need “fixing”—that I just needed to go at my own pace, finding healthy ways to cope—was hugely beneficial.

    2. Feel what you feel.

    Sometimes we numb out with booze, food, or mindless scrolling so that we don’t have to feel the pain we’re enduring, and I get it; grief can be gnarly. But the reality is, whether we give our feelings a name or not, they’re there anyway. Sure, we can push them down for a while, but if we keep putting pain on top of pain, eventually it rises up and grabs us metaphorically by the throat.

    Give yourself permission to sit with your emotions when you can, or with someone else if it helps.

    3. Reach out.

    I am so grateful in my case that someone reached in, but in the weeks that followed I went in search of people and services that I knew would be able to help. I got in touch with a therapist to sit with my grief and found a mindfulness teacher—a Buddhist monk as it happens. He trained me to be still with the painful thoughts of rejection and abandonment I was having, and the trauma I had been through.

    I also found agencies who could offer practical help with housing and finances, as I literally had nowhere to go, having been isolated from friends and work, what I know now to be a common sign in these cases.

    If you or someone you know has been affected by domestic abuse or are suffering with difficult thoughts, find what services are available in your local area.

    4. Share what you know.

    I do not see what happened to me as a “lesson.” I didn’t need to experience trauma in order to be a “better” person; I was good enough before all this happened actually.

    Having said that, I did find meaning in these moments. I decided to use what happened to me to help others; I became accredited to work with victims of crime and now volunteer my time in a women’s refuge. I also work as an independent advisor to police authorities to help raise awareness of what helps (and what doesn’t), as well as writing and supporting people in other ways.  When you’re ready, you could use the benefit of your experience to help others too.

    5. Take care of yourself.

    I cannot emphasize enough how important it is that when you’re going through a difficult time, your needs matter too. You’re not saying “me first” to the people in your life; you’re just saying “me included.”

    For me, this meant making sure I was eating, getting enough sleep, and yes, even dancing round my kitchen—it all helps.

    I’ve always believed self-care is in the little things, like changing your bedding, putting out clean towels, and getting fresh air. But it can be other things, like spending time in nature, chatting with a friend, or learning new ways to cope healthily with what life throws at you.

    It doesn’t have to be expensive; in fact, restorative acts of self-care don’t have to cost a penny. I love taking myself off somewhere to enjoy a cup of tea and reading a book. You’re allowed to have and do nice things that can help lift your spirits. Give yourself permission to say no and make sure your tribe includes people that help you rise, not bring you down.

    —

    We deal with endings all the time in life, and some might seem inconsequential, but that doesn’t mean we have to forget or pretend they didn’t happen. We can honor our experiences in helpful ways; we might just need to figure out how to do that for a while.

    Allow yourself time and space to discover what helps you best. This might mean taking time out or just taking a deep breath, revisiting your values to understand what really matters to you, setting new boundaries, or distancing yourself from those who don’t help. As Elizabeth Gilbert once so beautifully said, “We can love everybody, but some we must love from a safe distance.”

  • How My Narcissist Ex Was a Catalyst to My Healing and Self-Love

    How My Narcissist Ex Was a Catalyst to My Healing and Self-Love

    “It’s okay to let go of those who couldn’t love you. Those who didn’t know how to. Those who failed to even try. It’s okay to outgrow them, because that means you filled the empty space in you with self-love instead. You’re outgrowing them because you’re growing into you. And that’s more than okay, that’s something to celebrate.” ~Angelica Moone

    I thought I had married the love of my life. I had never felt a connection so strong before. I was sure he was my soul mate, and I thoroughly believed he was my twin flame—my one and only.

    I can’t even begin to tell you the horror that started to unfold after we got married. The accusations that my beloved other started to hurtle at me. That I didn’t care about him and I didn’t love him enough. He was convinced I was having affairs behind his back, and conspiring against him, and was clearly out to take his money.

    I was not just perplexed by this, I was shattered. How could he not see that I loved him unwaveringly, without question, and that I never even considered having eyes for anyone else? And trying to take his money? That was incredibly bizarre because I discovered, contrary to his initial proclamations, that he hardly had any.

    Yet I didn’t care. I loved him. I tried to love him, and I was convinced that my love would be enough—that he would know that I loved him, and we would soon return to the comfort and the knowing that our love for each other was real, safe, and forever.

    No matter how much I tried to love him, things were spiraling out of control. I couldn’t be five minutes late from the supermarket without suffering his wrath. Life outside of “us” was getting smaller and smaller.

    If I looked out the window, I was thinking the wrong thing or looking at something the wrong way. If I didn’t take his hand when we were together, I was advertising that I was single. Visiting friends or family or working outside of the property became as possible as flying to the moon.

    Eventually it happened: I stopped trying to love us back to unity and fought back. Initially to try to stop the despair that he didn’t trust me, then for my literal sanity, freedom, and autonomy. Without these things I was losing my soul.

    None of it worked. As my attachment to him became more panicked and devastated and I was losing control of my reactions, his abuse accelerated, and then I realized I was coming close to losing my life.

    I had complicated post-traumatic stress disorder. I shook. I sweat. I couldn’t eat. I could barely sleep. Everything and everyone I cared about was turning away from me.

    I had married a narcissist. I didn’t realize it at first, because back then, fifteen years ago, not many people were talking about narcissism.

    I had always believed that narcissists were arrogant people who were “up on themselves.” I had no idea that they were people who presented in our lives offering the love, total acceptance, validation, and “life” that we thought we had wanted our entire life. I had no idea that someone like this could enter my life and they would feel so right to fall in love with.

    The day that the word “narcissist” popped into my head, and I googled it, I nearly fell off my chair. I was ticking every point that was so “him” off a list of traits and behaviors. I was in shock.

    Entitled—tick. Can’t take personal responsibility for wrongdoings—tick. Has hair-trigger reactions to things that most adults don’t get bent out of shape about—tick. Argues in circles in ways that make your head spin—tick. Pathologically lies while looking you straight in the eye—tick … and on and on the list went. I needed to get to the punch line: Could a person like this be fixed? Could they get well from this disease?

    I searched high and low; I turned over every possibility and read all the research I could find. The answer was a flat “no.” Then, believing there is always a solution, I was determined to heal him, to fix our marriage, to return to the dream of the “one and only” that I just knew he must have been.

    It didn’t turn out well. In fact, it turned out terribly. Now I was experiencing things I never believed I could or would: Mental and emotional abuse that had me curled up in a corner. Physical abuse that had me fearing for my life. Financial abuse that was ripping my life to shreds. At times, for self-preservation, I had to escape. Eventually, I left him and relocated.

    But I wasn’t getting better away from him. I was totally unprepared for feeling so haunted. By the fact that he was in the home I had bought, seeing other women and seemingly having a great life while I was so empty, devastated, and traumatized that it hurt to breathe, it hurt to live, and I thought that I was going to die.

    I returned to him countless times. Either because he would contact me and promise to change, or I missed him so much I couldn’t function.

    Every time I returned, it got worse. The makeup periods were briefer, and the explosions more damaging and horrifying. Then, I broke. I had a complete psychotic and adrenal breakdown. I was told I would never heal from it and would need three anti-psychotics to be able to function, but I would never be the same again. I was told I now had permanent brain and nervous system damage.

    Of course, he didn’t care. He did what he had always done when I needed him—he discarded me. It was then that I decided to die. So, I started trying to formulate how to do this in the kindest way for my family and son.

    However, my soul had a different idea for me. A voice in my head kept insisting, “No, there is another way.” I thought it was just my madness speaking. I argued with it, but it wouldn’t let up. In desperation I walked into my bathroom, fell on the mat, put my hands in the air, and shrieked, “Help me, I can’t do this anymore!”

    In that moment the most incredible thing happened. It was like my head parted and the blinding truth entered me. I had never known such clarity in my entire life. Maybe you have to be “out of your mind” to really know the truth?

    The voice in my head told me that my husband was a catalyst. He was never meant to grant me my “self” and my “life”; rather he had come into my life to show me the parts of myself that were unhealed, that I hadn’t healed yet, to generate my true self and true life.

    A whirl of incidents and truths flashed into my mind. The ways I was so hard on myself and was always needing more, saying to myself, “Melanie, I can’t even like you (let alone love you) if you don’t get your to-do list all done, if you don’t lose ten pounds, if you don’t look like this or that … “ and how he had treated me the same—as not good enough, right, or acceptable.

    How I had always kept busy rather than “be” with myself, care, validate, and love myself. How I had terminally self-avoided and self-abandoned my inner being, and how I had yelled at him, “You don’t even know who I really am!” yet had never taken the time to have a real relationship with myself.

    On and on, the realizations came hard and fast. And I knew, he hadn’t treated me how I had treated him; he had treated me how I had really felt about and treated myself.

    I knew that if I let go of him, healed, and came home to my inner self, I would recover. I would save my sanity, life, and soul. I knew I could heal, get better, and do better. I knew that finally my life and love could be real and work.

    I knew this because in this divine intervention experience, I had been thrust into a vision in the future where I was healed and whole, and I had felt it for real. I saw who I was. I saw what I had and most importantly, I felt who I had become.

    He wasn’t the healer of my wounds; he was the messenger of them instead.

    I let go. I turned inward. I healed.

    This I now know at the highest level of truth: A twin flame, as the nemesis who reflects back to us our unhealed parts in intensely painful ways, offers the greatest love of all—the returning home to ourselves. From there my life has blossomed, from this true relationship with myself, life, and others in ways that I could never have previously imagined.

    I am love. I am self-acceptance. I am free.

  • How to Get Comfortable Being Alone and Get the Most Out of Solitude

    How to Get Comfortable Being Alone and Get the Most Out of Solitude

    “The act of sitting down is an act of revolution. By sitting down, you stop that state of being: losing yourself, not being yourself. And when you sit down, you connect to yourself. And you don’t need an iPhone or a computer to do that. You just need to sit down mindfully and breathe in mindfully.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

    The day my ex-wife moved out was also the day when our dog moved out and when I was laid off from my bankrupt ex-company. It felt like everything around me had suddenly died. Many of our common friends and loved ones distanced themselves from me, and I felt abandoned.

    As I took my first few steps through the rubble, I felt the full force of this new solitude that was now forced upon me. And it wasn’t going anywhere soon.

    I immediately lost my appetite and my desire to cook. I started taking irresponsibly long hot showers and baths till my skin burned. I decluttered. I threw away pictures and memorabilia, love notes and cutlery, teabags and cushion covers. I stopped vacuuming.

    But I continued running. I started reading. I read anything that looked like it held a secret to end my suffering.

    I lost interest in my job. I’d wake up every morning with dread, sometimes not sleeping entire nights.

    I kept running. I got faster and stronger. I also got injured and had to stop. The darkness stayed even as the days started to get longer. While I lived abroad, the second wave of covid had just hit back home. One of my best friends from childhood died. Also a cousin. A friend lost his father and never saw the body. My dad got very sick and almost died. I sank further.

    But I kept meditating in solitude. Every time the void of existence hit me with boredom, anxiety, and restlessness, something deep within forced me to continue sitting through it. It started feeling familiar. And I slowly started to come back to life. My sense of taste returned. I started cooking again. I started having friends over.

    Still, some days I would collapse on the floor and cry till I got thirsty. Then I’d hydrate and go back to my laptop to run the next zoom meeting, smiling through it.

    I realized what a shell of a person I was now that my ex-wife had left me. At the same time, I continued to befriend the solitude and get comfortable with my aching heart—to sit with it, have a conversation with it, and see what it had to say and what it had learned.

    I was starting to get to know myself from a brand new perspective. It was almost like getting to know this new person who had been living in the basement all these years and I had no idea! And this person sure was interesting!

    The solitude soaked in all my tears so I could laugh again with people. It became my duvet in the winters, my picnic blanket in the summer. The solitude and I would often do karaoke at 7:00 on a Sunday morning till the neighbors started complaining. We went on bike trips together, dipped in cold lakes, went to eat at buffets, and sat through boring dates.

    It became my best friend when there was no one around. It taught me to write, to read, to think, to philosophize, to know what’s good for me, to love everyone unconditionally, and to be kind.

    It showed me things as they truly are and caught me when I was being judgmental. It took away my anger and my desperation. It carried my dreams and filled me with hope.

    Solitude has the power to teach us about ourselves. It is the gym where we must go to train.

    A century ago, people would look forward to solitary periods of relaxation on their porch after a long day of work. But today, we devote most of our conscious time to the pursuit of feeling connected with other people, either offline or online. A simple notification instantly pulls us away from the present moment. We are constantly everywhere but here and now. But our true self lives in the here and now, though we seem to spend less and less time with it.

    In the raw moments of loneliness that succeed a breakup or a bereavement, when we have nowhere to run, we encounter our true self. Like I did. And it was scary. It felt like sitting in the corner of a dungeon with a chain locked around my ankle as a stranger towered over me. I wanted to run away, but there was nowhere good enough to run to. I went scuba diving in the tropics, but my broken, ghost-of-a-self found me under water too.

    The key to cultivating fearlessness in these moments is getting to know yourself through solitude. It means deliberately taking time out to sit alone so you feel comfortable with yourself, connected to yourself, and at peace with yourself.

    To practice solitude, try this.

    1. Think of your favorite meditative activity.

    Ideally, it should involve interaction with physical objects, not digital ones. And definitely not a phone or something with a screen. It should be mundane and not involve rational thinking. This provides the ideal setting for your true self to emerge. An example is doing the dishes, focusing on your breath, or just sitting out in the garden, hearing and seeing what’s around you.

    2. Set aside a fixed time during the day.

    This is especially important if you are just starting out, because a strict regime is helpful to cultivate a habit. A good time is early in the morning. A recent study showed that early morning is the ideal time for alpha wave activity in the brain, which is associated with restful attentiveness. But depending on your schedule or your routine, any other time of the day is good enough to start with. Start with ten minutes and slowly make your way up to an hour. There’s no right or wrong duration, but the more the better.

    3. Start with an intention.

    Make a decision to consciously choose solitude. Embrace it like it’s your best friend. Know that it is good for you, that it is the right thing for you. That there is nothing better you’d rather do right now, and no one more important to talk to than yourself.

    Most importantly, don’t get too serious. Develop a sense of joy, a sense of humor about the whole thing.

    Sometimes it all may seem impossible, especially when painful memories and a sense of loss come back with profound pain. It may feel hopeless as the thoughts and feelings overwhelm you. But believe that those thoughts and feelings are like a movie playing in your head. They do not define your reality in the present moment. Do not let them consume you.

    Believe you are the mountain in the storm. And when the thoughts and feelings eventually pass, which they will, come back to your practice. Develop almost a blind devotion to it in the beginning, because it may take many sittings to feel the first signs of solidity and bliss coming back.

    If you are finding it tough to start by yourself, go to a local yoga or meditation class and work on your basic form. Then come back and try it again.

    4. Start enjoying your company whenever the opportunity arises.

    As you start building a regiment for solitude, you will start to appreciate moments to yourself. While you wait for your friend at the subway before you head to that party together. While you wait for your favorite burger to arrive after deciding to eat out by yourself.

    Think of those fleeting minutes as a gift, as an opportunity to see if you can appreciate the world around you. Wait before you flip out your phone or put on your music. Can you see how solid and calm you feel now, compared to before? How rich the world around you is? Give yourself a high-five for putting in all those hours of solitude practice.

    And if by chance that solitude is forced upon you by a tragedy or unforeseen event, even better! Because when your heart is broken it’s the most open, and ripe for new wisdom and the richness of the world to take root. Acclaimed author and Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön says, “To stay with that shakiness—to stay with a broken heart, with a rumbling stomach, with the feeling of hopelessness and wanting to get revenge—that is the path of true awakening,”

    Be deliberate. Be disciplined. And you will soon get to know the most interesting person you have ever met! One who will always be with you, no matter what else you lose.

  • How I Found Peace and Self-Love After a Toxic Relationship

    How I Found Peace and Self-Love After a Toxic Relationship

    “Bravery is leaving a toxic relationship and knowing that you deserve better.” ~Unknown

    When my marriage ended, it left a huge void that I desperately needed to fill, and quickly.

    Along with my divorce came the unbearable feelings of rejection and being unlovable. To avoid these feelings, fill the void, and distract myself, I turned to dating. And it turns out, it was much too soon.

    What seemed like a harmless distraction soon became what I needed to feel wanted and loved. This was a way to avoid doing the harder work of learning to love myself instead of needing outside validation to feel good about myself.

    The online dating scene was a complete circus that I didn’t know how to navigate with all of my wounding. I ended up falling for a guy—let’s call him Steve.

    Steve seemed nice enough when I met him. He was quiet and seemed like he may have been a little too passive for me, but he was really into me, so I kept coming back for more. It was nice to feel wanted again.

    We had some things in common, and he was handsome and sweet. We had fun together, and he was always texting me to say hello and chat—again, that made me feel wanted.

    Eventually, Steve grew more distant. When I brought it up, it only seemed to get worse. But at this point, I was addicted to the feeling of being with someone again. I was addicted to feeling wanted and loved, so leaving wasn’t an option I was willing to entertain.

    The unconscious programming in my brain that would do anything to avoid rejection kicked in. I began to justify everything that should have been a red flag. I found myself constantly doing whatever I thought I needed to do to keep Steve from rejecting me, but it never seemed to be enough. I became unconsciously obsessed with being who I thought I needed to be to win his love and approval.

    Steve and I had both been through divorces and were both dealing with mental health issues. The relationship became very codependent, and I began putting my own needs aside to be his caretaker. He would never return the favor unless it was convenient for him, so I would just try harder to get him to want to return the favor.

    It never worked.

    As each day went by, I was becoming less and less of myself to be loved and accepted by someone who would never be able to give me what I wanted or needed. He just wasn’t capable of it. There was no possible way that I would ever be enough for him.

    He ended up breaking up with me, but shortly after we resumed our relationship on a casual basis. Deep down, I didn’t feel this was showing myself respect, but I allowed it to happen because again, I was trying to be who he wanted me to be—a casual friend-with-benefits.

    Our relationship eventually started to get more serious again, and it seemed we were headed back to exclusive relationship status when I found out he was dating other women behind my back. I’m so thankful I found out about this because it was the singular event that made me stop and get intentional about respecting myself.

    I realized how completely I had lost myself in this dysfunctional, codependent, and toxic relationship, where my only concern was avoiding feelings of rejection and being unlovable. It was the last straw for me, and I decided I was done tolerating it. I was done abandoning myself to get something he was never going to give me.

    I cut off all contact with Steve that day.

    You’d think that it would be easy to leave a relationship that is toxic. I mean, who wants toxicity? But the truth is, it isn’t easy.

    Why do we get into these tricky situations in the first place?

    My divorce had left me in so much pain, feeling rejected and unloved, that I was willing to do anything to avoid those feelings. Instead of being discerning and heeding the red flags that were, in hindsight, obvious, I jumped in and continued the pattern of proving that I was worthy of love.

    When you’re always trying to feel loved and accepted, you’ll ask yourself questions like, “Who do you need me to be to love me?” You’ll shape-shift to fit someone else’s needs and abandon your own. You may over-give, or shower your partner with gifts and affection, all in an effort to win their love so you can feel loved.

    The end result is similar to being rejected because you end up feeling alone—except this time it’s because you’ve abandoned yourself and your truth.

    You lose yourself, which, in the end, can be just as lonely as feeling rejected and unloved. That’s how it was for me. I spent so much time trying to prove my worth that I lost sight of who I was and what I deserved.

    I didn’t realize at the time that I needed to come home to myself first and love and accept myself before anyone else could ever give that to me.

    It turned out that leaving that relationship was an act of self-love and the beginning of finding peace.

    Was it easy? No. There were so many feelings that came up for me when I left the relationship. There was embarrassment that I had chosen him over myself so many times. There was the loneliness and pain that go along with the end of any relationship. And, of course, there was fear that I would never find that love and acceptance that I craved so desperately.

    So how did I do it? How did I find inner peace after leaving that toxic relationship?

    What it really came down to was finding peace within myself.

    When there is a void of some sort, we naturally want to try to fill it with something else. But when you try to fill the void with something external, it never works.

    If I had kept looking to fill that void with things outside of myself after my relationship ended, I would have likely bounced from one toxic relationship to another until I learned to turn inward and fill myself up from the inside.

    So how do you turn inward? Part of the reason you’ve gotten into a toxic relationship in the first place is that you don’t know how to do that.

    The act of leaving the relationship was the first step for me. It was a huge step. The feeling you get when you decide you’re no longer going to pretend you’re someone you’re not in order to gain someone’s love is empowering, and gives you a little boost of confidence that you’ve got your own back.

    It’s an act of love toward yourself.

    At the time, I didn’t think of it as an act of love, but in unpacking it later, I can see that it was. It was the first step in rebuilding my relationship with myself.

    The next part of the process for me was to reconnect with myself.

    We tend to get our identities tangled up with our partners’, and it’s easy to forget who we are without our relationships. That happened to me after seventeen years of marriage, and bouncing right into an unhealthy relationship didn’t help. I spent so much time worrying about who I was being and if I was good enough to be loved that I totally lost sight of my true self.

    Reconnecting with myself meant spending a lot of time with myself. I had become great at staying busy to avoid loneliness, but I knew I needed to learn how to sit with the discomfort of being alone in order to heal.

    I spent a lot of time connecting with nature. I started taking myself out on solo dinner dates and I went to movies by myself. And when the loneliness didn’t feel good, I sat with it while I cried tears of sadness, learning how to show myself compassion for what I was feeling instead of pushing the feelings away.

    For someone who has spent a lot of time avoiding rejection, being alone can be difficult. But it’s a necessary part of reconnecting with your truth, and you will learn, like I did, that it’s really not that bad. It’s actually refreshing and beautiful to have time with yourself.

    I also reconnected with my support system. When I was in the relationship with Steve, I didn’t make my friends and family as much of a priority as I once had. In my quest for feeling loved, I became so focused on the relationship that I not only abandoned myself but also some of the most important people in my life. I made some questionable choices when I was being who I thought I needed to be for him, and after leaving the relationship, it was time for me to reconnect with my true support system.

    But the most important thing I did to find peace after this toxic relationship was to learn to love myself.

    I started with a list of all of the reasons I didn’t deserve to be treated the way Steve had treated me, written with dry-erase marker on my bathroom mirror. Every time I looked in the mirror, I was reminded of why I deserved more. I also kept a list of all the things I wanted to believe about myself. I wrote a new list each day and eventually, one by one, I started to believe the things on that list.

    I made the decision not to date for a while so I could focus on strengthening my confidence in who I am without someone else. Through therapy and working with a life coach, I learned that my self-love issues were rooted in perfectionism, so I worked to lower the expectations I had for myself to a more realistic level.

    I learned that I was much happier when I was just focusing on enjoying the moment being an average human. In fact, I adopted the idea that we are all just average human beings. We all have unique gifts and talents, and there is no need to compete with one another to be exceptional. Average is a fine place to be, and I found embracing this attitude helped me navigate life with more compassion toward myself and others.

    The most important step I took toward self-love was learning how to surrender and accept the present moment as it is. If I was feeling a lack of self-love, I learned to sit with it and send love to the part of me that was feeling that way. I learned to not get hung up on the what-ifs and to appreciate who I am being in this very moment, which is all I know I have for certain.

    The journey to loving yourself is the most important one you will ever make. Self-love is a work in progress, of course, but knowing where you’re headed helps to know who you are, know your worth, and remind you to always choose yourself unapologetically.

    While the relationship with Steve was traumatic in many ways, I am grateful for it because I learned and grew so much from it. Needing to heal from the codependency and toxicity of the relationship created a beautiful space in which I was able to ground myself and find peace in knowing that no matter what, I always have my own back and I will always choose myself.

    It’s a serene feeling and I wish this for you too.

  • The Surprising Lesson I Learned About Why People Leave Us

    The Surprising Lesson I Learned About Why People Leave Us

    “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” ~Lao Tzu

    While this Lao Tzu quote may sound familiar, I recently learned there is a second portion of that quote that often gets omitted.

    “When the student is truly ready…the teacher will disappear.”

    The first part of this quote was a healing anchor for me as I went through what I call a thirteen, or a divine storm.

    In one year’s time, I went through a devastating divorce, was robbed, got in two car accidents, and lost a dear friend to a heart attack. I felt like I was watching everything in my life burn to ash, including my deepest desire of having a family, and found myself on my knees doing something I had never done before: asking for help.

    I realized the way I had been living my life wasn’t working anymore and I needed to learn, so I became the student and opened my palms to the sky asking for guidance.

    So many teachers came. I found a therapist who helped me heal from my divorce, I found spiritual guidance after being lost, I met other divorcees, and found meditation, which was a loving balm to my broken heart. I was ready, so the teachers appeared.

    Each teacher that came forward instilled in me the importance and effectiveness of the right support, and as I faced all the challenges of building a new life, I continued to seek help. What I learned allowed me to find my life partner, one who desired creating a family as much as I did.

    As my life transformed and I opened my heart to love again, I thought the first part of this quote was the full lesson.

    Until recently, when I encountered the second part on a quote website.

    Staring at the words on my screen, my whole body stopped. Tears fell down my face as I realized all these years I’ve spoken about the teachers that arrived in the face of my divorce, but hadn’t really spoken about the teachers that left.

    Specifically, the biggest teacher, my ex. For the purpose of this post, we will call him Jon.

    When Jon dropped the bomb on Thanksgiving Day of 2012, and said he didn’t love me anymore, I honestly thought I could stop it. I thought I could save the marriage. But nothing worked. Not couple’s counseling, not locking myself in the bedroom and refusing to eat, or crawling under the hide-a-bed he was sleeping on in the living room, pleading for him to stay.

    Jon’s refusal to work on the marriage left me with something I hadn’t spent real time with in my thirty-seven years. His refusal left me with myself.

    And the truth was, I had been lying to everyone around me for years. I had been in an on and off again affair and swayed violently between immense shame for my actions and complete confusion as to why I kept going back to a man I didn’t really love.

    I didn’t understand what I was doing or why.

    I would cover up the shame and confusion with overdrinking, lots of TV, and listening to constant music. I would cry in the shower, so afraid I would be found out. I was convinced my friends and family would all stop loving me.

    But something had been alive for a long time. In fact, it was alive when Jon and I were engaged in college.

    I was a musical theater major, and in my last year of school, when I was planning my wedding, I threw myself at two men I was in shows with. Nothing happened with the first guy, but with the second, we kissed, and I immediately felt ashamed and appalled. What was I doing?

    So I told Jon, and he asked me a powerful question, “Do you want to postpone the wedding?” I told him no. I told him I loved him. I apologized and promised this would never happen again.

    So the wedding went forward, except a week before I walked down the aisle, I felt scared again and asked my mom if this was a good idea. She thought it was just nerves and talked me back into getting married.

    Our first year of marriage was both exciting and tumultuous. We were both actors, and very passionate, and many times would have escalating fights filling our small Queens apartment with our voices. My parents came to visit, and my mother pulled me aside, concerned about how we were speaking to each other.

    I told her this was what actual communication was like, not just staying silent like she did with my father.

    So the yelling continued, as did all the excitement of our careers, and we spent a lot of time apart as we worked at different theaters. Even though I thought we were on the same page about having a family eventually, the years went on and on.

    Until my thirty-sixth birthday, when I finally got off the pill. I was terrified. I never thought I would wait this long to have a family, and as the months went on and my period continued to come, I heard again and again how scared Jon was too. Nothing I said would make any difference, and the fights were getting uglier and uglier.

    I felt so alone.

    And a panic was rising in me. A panic that he didn’t want to have a family. That I was married to a man who didn’t want to be a father.

    Then he kneeled in front of me a year later and confirmed my panic. Turns out, everything I felt was actually true.

    “When the student is truly ready…the teacher disappears.”

    Jon was my teacher for nineteen years. I met him when I was eighteen, wide eyed and madly in love. But now it was time. Time for me to learn what it looked and felt like to be with a partner who shared my deepest desire.

    Time to learn what a healthy relationship is, and what healthy and loving communication sounds like.

    Time to learn how to honor my instincts and process strong emotions, and especially my anger at being in my late thirties with no children.

    He didn’t need to be there anymore, because I was finally waking up and ready to learn the lesson he was in my life to teach me.

    He could leave, and actually had to leave in order for me to grow.

    Lao Tzu was speaking to one of the most profound teachings we have, that change is constant. People come in and out of our lives for different purposes, and our deepest suffering arises when we try to control every outcome. We try to control our relationships, our friendships, and the people we believe have to always be there.

    But what if each teacher is here for the time needed, and when they leave, it’s actually a reflection of what you are ready for?

    What if people leaving, relationships ending, is actually a reflection of your readiness for transformation?

    What if your heartbreak of any kind, romantic or personal, is a moment of sacred alchemy?

    Take a moment today to honor the teachers who have left. Perhaps write in your journal around this question: What did you learn when they were gone?

    For me, I sat down on the floor and cried. I felt a great wave of relief recognizing Jon left because I was ready.

    And I would not have known otherwise.

    You are so much stronger than you know, and your greatest learning comes when you claim the wisdom of those teachers who have left.

  • Mindfulness, Creativity, and Nature: A Healing Trifecta for Lasting Peace

    Mindfulness, Creativity, and Nature: A Healing Trifecta for Lasting Peace

    “It is the marriage of the soul with nature that gives birth to imagination.” ~Henry David Thoreau

    Before my accident, before we had kids, after we divorced, after my father died from Covid, before the pandemic…

    We tend to divide our lives into the before and afters that define our world, whether personally or on a grand scale. These divisions offer context, providing a kind of roadmap that supports us in reflecting on the beauty and darkness, the decisions we made, and who we might be if certain things had never occurred.

    I have always believed that the only reason to look back is to learn. Still, I can’t help but wonder: What if, when my marriage ended, I already had mindfulness skills in place? What if I had known the infinite ways nature could soothe my soul? Would my life have been different if I had consciously known that creativity was the safest place to process my emotions?

    Perhaps I would not have been paralyzed in grief and sorrow. Maybe my children would have been spared a terrible custody battle. I suppose there is a chance I would not have gone bankrupt. I wonder if I would have ever gotten divorced at all.

    Here’s the biggest question: Would I change any of it now?

    Not a chance.

    As difficult as it all was, I learned that every tool I needed to survive and thrive was right in front of me, and always will be.

    My journey led me to a path of sharing what I am most passionate about: helping others find their way, through what I called a “spiritual toolbox”—a personal supply of healthy actions and practices to choose from or combine when things become difficult.

    Your spiritual toolbox can hold things like creativity and gratitude practices, exercise, meditation, time in nature, and journaling; a hug, the love of a pet, a hot bath, and even an occasional glass of wine. It’s wonderful to open in the moment, and it’s even better to use as preventative medicine (the toolbox, not the wine).

    My “aha” spiritual-toolbox moment came when I accidently discovered the transformative power of combining three tools specifically, as a trifecta. These were: creativity, meditation, and time in nature. 

    This trifecta insight divided my life into two parts: asleep and awakened.

    The first part is quite literal: at age nineteen, I fell asleep while driving and didn’t walk for nearly a year afterward. My accident was the synopsis and ending of a carefree childhood and adolescence, where I suffered no hardship that would have “awakened” me to anything beyond plans for the next evening.

    However, while I physically woke up pinned under the tire of my car, I also woke up spiritually: I was alive, and my two best friends who were with me, were uninjured. I was officially “awake” on infinite levels, primarily to the deepest sense of gratitude. And, while I metaphorically “went to sleep” later in other areas of my life, the trifecta was always there to support my awakenings.

    From the time I could crawl, my preference was to do it outside. My imagination was my best friend, and my mother could more easily find me digging mud from the creek behind our house rather than playing next door. I made togas from my curtains, spoke in my own language, and told everyone I was “Elizabeth from another land.”

    Obviously, I had no way of knowing about the robust and ever-growing body of research indicating that artmaking and creativity have been shown to increase positive emotions, decrease depression and anxiety, reduce stress, and even boost the immune system. That art therapy could boost the memory of Alzheimer’s patients, or reduce the side-effects of chemotherapy.

    I didn’t know that indulging creatively literally creates a “cascade of endorphins, serotonin and dopamine, the brain chemicals that affect our well-being,” increasing feelings of joy and contentment.

    I hadn’t yet wrapped my head around the fact that everyone is creative, and the benefits have nothing to do with artistic skill. I simply knew that I was happiest when I was being creative, and that artmaking could pull me out of almost any funk.

    I was intuitively awakened to creativity.

    Then, at age forty, my marriage collapsed. I collapsed with it, down a slippery and medicated slope, into what was later diagnosed as “brief psychosis disorder.” I struggled with insomnia, bankruptcy, a custody battle, losing my home, and losing my business, all at once. 

    And, while I am a believer in whatever prescribed medications are necessary and helpful, mine were not properly prescribed, so my body and mind simply gave up.

    Thankfully, I had recently awakened to meditation.

    You can quote me that meditation and mindfulness are the most powerful tools you will ever discover on your path to well-being, in every single aspect of your life. The research on this topic goes back thousands of years.

    But here’s where it gets interesting: The brain responds to meditation and mindfulness in a similar way to how it responds to creativity—in both cases, external stimuli is blocked out, and the front of our brain, the prefrontal cortex, quiets down. The pre-frontal cortex, AKA the “gatekeeper,” is like a control center, and is very much involved in emotional regulation, decision making, planning and attention, and self-monitoring.

    In other words, dialing back the “gatekeeper” can free us up from planning, worry, projecting, and ruminating. Who wouldn’t feel happier as a result? 

    Armed with the foundations for my spiritual toolbox, I soldiered on, raising two boys on my own, supporting myself in various marketing and PR endeavors, discovering my inner advocate through non-profit work, writing two books, and facilitating creativity retreats. My love for the outdoors had evolved, and my first choice of exercise was hiking.

    I did not know that studies had linked time outside to reduced anxiety and depression, or even that nature inspired creativity. I had no context for nature therapy, where nature is literally characterized as a therapeutic environment.

    I hadn’t read the Time Magazine research about how spending time in nature can lower levels of cortisol, improve heart health, promote cancer-fighting cells, help with depression and anxiety, inspire awe, and increase overall well-being. All I knew was that for me, outside was better than inside.

    I had awakened to the healing powers of nature.

    I began meditating outside, tuning into the natural world. I practiced walking meditation and was awestruck by the beauty and felt sense of connectedness. I was present in a way I had never experienced.

    Before long, I began gathering materials from nature and making art with them. I realized that I was more at peace than I had ever been—and there was a definite “carry-over” of calm, peace, and joy into my overall functioning. 

    I can’t recall if I was on top of a rock in Nevada or in a California canyon, but then came the moment: It was the trifecta of nature, creativity, and mindfulness that was changing my life. When I used these tools together, my depression lifted and my fears dissolved. For the first time in a long time, I experienced hope.

    Slowly but surely, my spirit began to heal. I had a safe, accessible, and powerful way to safely process my experience, build resilience, and move forward, joyfully.

    Since that time, I have awakened to many other tools that go inside my spiritual toolbox. For now, as an emerging art therapist, meditation junkie, and nature lover, it is my honor to awaken you to simple practices that support you in the most powerful trifecta I know.

    Creating Peace on Earth

    The peace sign is a powerful symbol that is universally recognized. It connects us, consciously and unconsciously, in something positive. It’s also simple to make, right outside, on the earth, implementing the spiritual toolbox trifecta of creativity, mindfulness, and nature. Here’s how:

    Head outside alone or with a friend or loved one. Kids will also enjoy this practice!

    Breathe deeply and move more slowly than you normally would, taking in the sights, sounds, and sensations of nature. Pause and let this experience sink in.

    Let objects in nature call you: Begin gathering stones, branches, leaves, or wildflowers. Observe how each object looks, feels, and smells as you touch it with your hands. If you are with someone, share your observations with them.

    Find the right spot and create your peace symbol. This could be in your own yard or in a public place, like a park or beach, where other people can see and enjoy it.

    Have fun, indulge, and witness. No one is looking! Sink into your experiences and senses for this brief time. Take a few long, deep breaths, feeling and smelling the earth.

    Reflect on the peace symbol. What does it mean to you? What memories or sensations arise in your body as you reflect on this powerful symbol?

    Set an intention to bring forward any feelings of peace and wellness that you have experienced in this practice.

    Be patient and honor your journey. Wellness and healing are lifelong endeavors. Stepping into intentional self-care is an act of compassion, for yourself and the world.

    Be grateful. By creating “peace on earth,” you are implementing the healing trifecta while sharing a powerful message that others might see and experience on their own nature walk. You are also awakening to peace, within yourself.

  • How I Healed My Low Self-Worth After Infidelity and Divorce

    How I Healed My Low Self-Worth After Infidelity and Divorce

    “It’s okay to let go of those who couldn’t love you. Those who didn’t know how to. Those who failed to even try. It’s okay to outgrow them, because that means you filled the empty space in you with self-love instead. You’re outgrowing them because you’re growing into you. And that’s more than okay, that’s something to celebrate.” ~Angelica Moone

    Once upon a time, I met and fell in love with the man of my dreams. He was the most romantic, loving, amazing person I had ever met and for some reason, he wanted to be with me.

    I was a nobody. I was the little girl who had lost her mommy and had control issues. I was the princess needing to be rescued by a prince. And I was rescued, whisked away to a whole other state, and loved and adored by this wonderful man whom I eventually married.

    We were together for almost nine years. But my history of eating disorders caused a disconnect. I obsessed over food, exercise, and the slightest interference in my perfectly planned day. We no longer could talk with each other. We no longer could connect on a physical, spiritual, or emotional level.

    Two days after Christmas, he told me he didn’t love me. He filed for divorce in early 2021.

    I admit, the facts remain foggy about when husband’s affair started, but the emotional truth is this: I felt raw, exposed, ripped apart from the inside. My heart broke into pieces and then those pieces broke into more pieces.

    Each time he left the house, I knew where he was going and who he was with. A pickaxe constantly chiseled away at the hole in my chest, making the constant ache and longing for the return of my former life, my husband, greater and greater.

    I wanted him next to me, in our bed. I wanted to feel his weight while he slept, see his silhouette in the darkness. Hear his breath and occasional snoring. I thought I would run out of salt from the tears I shed, but they kept coming, night after night, day after day.

    I blamed myself for all of it: losing my husband, my house, my dog. It was because of me that my marriage failed. I was unlovable and unworthy of love. Broken. That is why my husband didn’t love me enough to want to work through our problems.

    If I had only gotten help sooner, then we would have stayed together. If I wouldn’t have been so obsessive over exercise and what I ate, then he wouldn’t have stopped loving me. If I would have loved him perfectly, then he wouldn’t have found the love he needed with another woman. 

    Good and bad memories of him haunted me in my dreams. Harsh words I said, unloving things I did, waited for me in my bed and pounced when I tried to sleep. Wherever I went, the constant flood of tears threatened to destroy me.

    When he filed for divorce, I made up my mind. I refused to allow the eating disorder to take any more of my life away.

    I realized I couldn’t blame myself entirely for the end of my relationship. For the first time in fifteen years, I threw all of my energy into my healing process instead of achieving the perfect body.

    I needed to heal for me. I needed to take real control of my past and learn from my mistakes so I wouldn’t make them again. I had experienced other life-changing trauma, and knew I finally needed to work through it. But I didn’t know where I should begin in the healing process. This is what helped me:

    1. Gratitude and Prayer

    I am reminded every day that there is always something to be grateful for. The light of the sun after the darkness. The gentle rain that falls after a long dry spell. The changing leaves on the trees. A functioning mind and body. People in your life who love you unconditionally.

    I still experienced all of these things, and I still had people who loved me in my life, even though they were hundreds of miles away. I vocalized my gratitude for even the smallest things out loud each day.

    At night, I wrote down at least three things that I was grateful for that day: I am grateful that I rose from my bed free of pain in my body. I am grateful for the ability to make my bed. I am grateful for my job.

    When you express gratitude for even insignificant things, you begin to see the good in your life, and not dwell on what is going wrong.

    I have always been a spiritual person, believing in a connection with a higher power. Each night, I prayed for my family. Then for my friends. And eventually for myself, something I’d never done before because I didn’t feel worthy.

    I wanted the gnawing ache in my stomach gone, and my broken heart to mend. Blaming and berating myself all my life had not worked, so what did I have to lose. What I had to gain was a stronger and more confident self.

    2. Counseling and Self-Love

    I sought a counselor. It helped to relay my story to someone who could help. By telling someone my story from the beginning, I was released from its power. It didn’t own me anymore.

    But I still had a long way to go.

    The energy around my husband was cold and uncomfortable. I knew he felt it too. He avoided me. When we did encounter each other, he looked at me with disdain and disgust. I went straight to my default thoughts; he must think I’m ugly. It put me in another downward spiral of self-loathing, but not for long.

    I was determined to get better, to stop struggling with low-self-worth and lack of self-compassion.

    Counseling helped put things in a new perspective. In one of our sessions, she told me something I will never forget: There was nothing you could have done differently. He was going to leave anyway. To know that I hadn’t failed at my relationship and it wasn’t all my fault was a huge relief.

    My counselor introduced self-love activities, which sounded so counter-intuitive. I couldn’t wrap my head around it. Despite the awkwardness of looking at myself in the mirror and giving myself positive compliments full of compassion, I did it. The more I practiced compassion toward myself, the more I began to see my intrinsic worth.

    I began with the simple phrase: I love you.

    That turned into: I deserve love.

    I kept saying these every day, wherever I was. My thinking changed my reality. I began to truly believe I was worthy of love.

    3. Acceptance and Forgiveness

    Even though I spoke with a counselor regularly, I still rode on a rollercoaster from hell. While I still lived at the house, my husband had told me he was going on a fishing trip a few hours away. Every fiber of my being told me he was lying.

    The Monday he returned, I searched the room he slept in and found the receipt for a hotel room for two people only twenty minutes away. I confronted him and he denied anything was going on. I couldn’t mention the receipt because I was ashamed for trying to find proof.

    I said horrible things to him that night, not because of what he had done, but because he was lying. After being together for almost nine years, how could he still ignore my feelings? How could he continue to lie? His behavior made it perfectly clear that our marriage was over, he had someone else, and he had nothing else to lose. Why not admit it?

    I felt as though he never loved me at all. The tension between us worsened and I felt like a stranger in the home I had lived in for six years.

    I wanted him to hurt like I did, to understand my pain, my devastation, to empathize with me in some way. He had never experienced a devastating loss of a parent like I had as a child. He had never experienced abandonment of people who are supposed to love all of you, the imperfect parts too. He could not begin to understand the pain and grief I experienced. He had no idea how it festers inside like a dormant volcano for years, then spews out in forms of self-harm.

    Despite my mistakes in our relationship and my feelings of unworthiness, I knew I didn’t deserve his lies. The next morning, I promised myself that I would stop trying to find proof of his affair. It wasn’t worth the pain. I knew the truth and if he wanted to continue to lie, that was his choice. I also stopped berating myself for what I had said.

    I knew I could never go back in time and redo everything. I couldn’t take anything back. I had to learn from it all and move forward. I had loved this man, and a part of me still did. It was at that moment I forgave my husband for what he had done. I just couldn’t forgive myself yet.

    4. Meditation and Breathing

    I tried meditation on my own, but I was in the same boat as so many other people who say they can’t meditate because their mind wanders. I didn’t have the patience to meditate, but I still tried.

    I sat down on the floor, closed my eyes, and began thinking of all the things I wasn’t supposed to think about. I tried hard to stay focused on the present moment, like I had read so many times. I needed help.

    I found a Meetup group about mindfulness and the healing process. I learned tactics for finding awareness and my own inner peace, like repeating a mantra over and over, “I am here. I am love. I am enough. I am okay.” I learned about the power of breathing and the breath cycles: inhale for four seconds, hold for seven, exhale for eight.

    With practice, I was able to retrain my brain to stay in the present and not dwell in the past or worry in the future. Meditation helps to change the mind’s thoughts, too.

    With meditation came awareness and acceptance of my emotions. When the sadness came, I let it. I crumbled to the floor and allowed my tears to fall for as long as needed and eventually, I rose from the floor and moved forward, telling myself that it’s okay to feel whatever it is you feel.

    When loneliness threatened to debilitate me, I let it in, sensing it poke and pry at every vulnerable part of me. But then it eventually went away too. I learned that emotions are like unwanted guests: they are annoying when they are around, but they will eventually leave.

    Over the next few months, I could feel a shift within me. I felt empowered. I felt more confident.

    5. Writing

    Writing is in my soul. It helps to put things in a new perspective. Since I was a child, I wrote my thoughts down to help process what happened to me. I can see the events anew with some distance and perspective.

    I kept a notebook and carried it with me wherever I went. When I felt overwhelmed by my thoughts, I wrote them down. It served as a kind of brain dump for all the streaming thoughts in my head.

    Writing is tangible proof and a reminder that the only constant thing in life is change. Our viewpoint on life never looks the same when we look back on it from the rearview mirror.

    I am a work in progress. I am healing. I am growing. I am learning. I am rising stronger every day. Even if one person cannot see my value, my worth, and my intrinsic goodness, I have countless others who can and who have shown me that I am worthy of love.

    Love is what humans truly crave when they futilely use money to buy new gadgets, clothes, or make fancy renovations to their homes. But at the end of the day, humans thrive and prosper on love. No amount of money or material wealth can replace the desire to feel loved and be loved in return. The most important love of all is that for yourself.

    I still question myself and my value. But I am getting better at recognizing those thoughts and shutting them down sooner, then replacing them with more compassionate ones.

    I have learned that mental illness is not something to be ashamed of or kept secret.

    Mental health is okay to talk about. It is okay to ask for help. Don’t hold it in no matter what you assume other people will think. You are worthy of finding peace and healing. You deserve to be the best version of yourself. Accept yourself so you can forgive yourself. Choose to love yourself first and everything else will fall into place.