Tiny Buddha

Tag: loss

  • The Grief No One Talks About: How to Heal After Losing a Soulmate Pet

    The Grief No One Talks About: How to Heal After Losing a Soulmate Pet

    “Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unawakened.” ~Anatole France

    When my cat Squiggles died, I didn’t just “lose a pet.” I lost a part of my identity, my greatest source of comfort, and my sense of home.

    Squiggles was the one constant in my life through every milestone, every heartbreak, every version of myself I grew into over the course of two decades. I had her since the moment she was born, and for almost twenty-two years, Squiggles was my constant companion, my emotional support, my soul-kitty.

    But no matter how much I prepared myself, nothing could soften the blow of saying goodbye and being forced to live without her.

    As a therapist, I tried to apply all of the coping mechanisms I’ve learned over the years. But the human in me wanted to reject them all. I was just too deep in my grief.

    So I turned inward. And over the past two years, I’ve been learning how to live with the loss of my soul-kitty. Not get over it. Or try to forget. But live with it.

    Here are five things that helped me cope with life without her.

    1. I validated the pain of my grief.

    I knew the loss of Squiggles was going to be devastating one day, but knowing it didn’t make it easier. What it did do was help me validate just how deeply it hurt.

    I didn’t try to hide how sad I felt. I cried every day for weeks. I canceled plans. I moved slowly. And instead of shaming myself for how awful I felt, I tended to the pain.

    Even though many people out there might think, “She was just a pet,” to me, she was everything.

    There’s a term for this kind of mourning: disenfranchised grief. It’s when your grief isn’t recognized by society in the same way a human loss might be. That doesn’t mean the grief is less real. It just means others may not understand how impactful the loss is.

    The bond I had with Squiggles was deeper than many human relationships. I’ve heard countless people say the death of their pet hurt more than the death of a relative. I believe them. I felt it.

    So I reminded myself daily: This was one of the most significant relationships in my life. I’m allowed to be this heartbroken.

    2. I tried to find balance.

    As a therapist, I’m well-versed in the idea that “the only way out is through.” But when you’re in the middle of overwhelming grief, feeling your feelings can quickly turn into drowning in them.

    So I did it in small doses. I yearned for her. I cried. I talked to her. I allowed myself to remember.

    And I also gave myself permission to take breaks from my grief when I could.

    In the early weeks, I couldn’t imagine feeling anything other than sorrow. But slowly, I started allowing myself to step back from the pain. I gave myself a night out with friends. I practiced guitar. I gardened. I let myself laugh without feeling guilty about it.

    And here’s the truth of taking breaks: It does not mean you’re moving on. It means you’re doing the best you can to survive.

    Joy and grief can live side by side. One doesn’t cancel out the other.

    3. I stopped saying “should.”

    Grief doesn’t follow logic. Or timelines. Or “shoulds.”

    And yet, they still popped up:

    “I should be feeling better by now.”

    “I should get rid of her things.”

    “I should be grateful I had her for so long.”

    At some point, I realized those “shoulds” were self-judgments in disguise. So I started replacing “should” with “could,” or “would like.” Sometimes I just asked, “Who says?”

    Who says I have to move on quickly?

    Who says keeping a box of her things means I’m stuck?

    Who says I’m grieving “too much”?

    Grief is a unique experience for everyone. No one knows how long the acute pain will last. For me, it has been about two years. My grief isn’t as all-consuming, yet I still have days where it hits me like a wave.

    And now, two years later, I cherish those moments when the grief hits. Because it connects me back to Squiggles.

    4. I connected with others who understood.

    One of the most painful things about losing a pet is how isolating it feels. That one being who knows you in and out is no longer there. It feels incredibly lonely.

    Friends didn’t always know what to say. People who had never had a close bond with a pet didn’t understand why I was so shattered.

    Talking to people helped, but only if they really got it. The people who had been through their own soul-pet losses were the ones who I felt most comfortable with. And it helped.

    Eventually, I created an online community where pet lovers could gather after losing a pet. A soft place to land where you don’t have to explain why you’re still crying six months later, or why it hurts more than you expected. People just get it.

    This community has become a huge part of my healing. And I continue to witness the power of connection every time someone shares their story, their pet’s name, or even just their pain.

    5. I used creativity and art to express how I felt.

    In the beginning, the only way I knew how to stay connected to Squiggles was through my sadness. But as time went on, that love started to move through me in different ways.

    I started gardening. Being in nature and witnessing seeds bloom into flowers reminded me of the circle of life and the connectedness of all beings.

    When I really missed Squiggles and didn’t know what to do with myself, I’d express my emotions through poetry. Or draw every detail of her little face, the patterns in her fur, the way her paws tucked under her body. I looked through old photos and let my emotions guide me.

    These small creative acts didn’t fix the grief. But they gave it somewhere to go. They gave me a way to keep loving her and helped me bring new forms of beauty into my life, even in her absence.

    If you’ve lost a soulmate pet, please know that you’re allowed to take all the time in the world that you need to grieve. Our pets are members of our family and a huge part of who we are. The grief you experience is simply the love you have for them, just in a new form now.

  • When Someone You Love Shuts the Door

    When Someone You Love Shuts the Door

    “It is one thing to lose people you love. It is another to lose yourself. That is a greater loss.” ~Donna Goddard

    We didn’t mean to fall into anything romantic. It started as friendship, collaboration, long voice notes about work, life, trauma, and healing. We helped each other solve problems. We gave each other pep talks before difficult meetings. He liked to say I had good instincts; I told him he had grit.

    We shared vulnerabilities like flashlights in the dark—he told me about getting into fights, going to jail, losing jobs because he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. I shared about growing up in a home with yelling, hitting, and silence, and how I used to chase validation in relationships just to feel seen. Somewhere in there, something sparked.

    By early May, the friendship shifted. There was a night we were sitting together, talking about emotional sobriety, when I felt it: the weight of his gaze, the stillness between us. We kissed. And then we didn’t stop. I didn’t expect it, but I also didn’t resist it. It felt natural, like picking up a conversation we didn’t realize we’d already started.

    But like many things built on intensity, it became complicated fast.

    He opened up about wanting to explore something sexually that I couldn’t. It may have felt like shame to him, but that wasn’t my intention—I was simply clear: I wouldn’t feel safe there. He was hurt. Said I’d stepped on his vulnerability. And I didn’t respond perfectly. I froze. That’s what I do when I feel pressure or threat. I don’t yell or lash out—I go quiet, retreat inward, try to understand what’s happening before I respond.

    Still, I thought we’d moved past it. I gave him space while traveling, and when we reconnected, he told me he was in love with me. That he accepted my situation. That it was worth it. That he’d be patient.

    So I met him in the middle. I softened. I opened a little more.

    He was a recovering alcoholic—sober for nearly nineteen years. He had wrecked two long-term relationships in the past, he told me. He’d been arrested multiple times, fired for outbursts, and said he was trying to do better now. I believed him. I saw the way he loved his dog training clients, how he was trying to build something on his own terms.

    I shared my own journey—how I’d sought approval in the arms of others when I felt dismissed or invisible in my marriage. How I went to SLAA and learned to sit with my feelings instead of running from them. How I founded a company, Geri-Gadgets, inspired by caring for my mom during her dementia journey. He understood the grief of losing a parent slowly. His mom had dementia too. We bonded over what that does to you—how it softens certain edges while sharpening others.

    We had history, shared values, hard-earned wisdom. That’s why I was so unprepared for how it ended.

    It started with a question. I asked him what I should wear to dinner with his sister and brother-in-law after a meeting we were attending together. He responded by sending me a photo of a woman in a short leather outfit, over-the-knee stiletto boots, and a dominatrix pose.

    I stared at the image, confused. Was it a joke? A test? A dig? Given my past—the abuse, the trauma, the very clear boundaries I’d communicated—I didn’t find it funny. I felt dismissed. Mocked, even. I made a comment about the woman’s body, not because I cared, but because I was triggered. Because I didn’t know how to say, This hurts me.

    That set off a chain reaction.

    We were supposed to be working on something together—a potential hire for his business—but the conversation turned tense. I felt myself shutting down. I needed time to process. I called to talk, to break through the tension with an actual voice, but he wouldn’t answer. He refused to talk to me—until he’d already decided to be done.

    By the time we finally spoke, it was over. He’d already shut the door. The ending didn’t come in one moment—it came in his silence, his refusal to engage when I needed him to. It came when vulnerability met a wall.

    This kind of ending triggers old wounds. The kind that taught me to freeze when someone withdraws love. The kind that makes me overfunction to earn back safety.

    I was the child who was hit and then ignored. My father would scream and slam a strap against my legs, then bury his head in the newspaper and pretend I didn’t exist. Those are the things that shape a nervous system. Those are the stories we carry into adulthood, whether we want to or not.

    In past relationships, I chased. I made excuses. I convinced myself it was my fault. I’d think: If only I were more accommodating… less sensitive… sexier, smarter, cooler… maybe they’d stay. But not this time.

    This time, I sat with the ache. I let it wash over me. I didn’t rush to fix it or fill it. I didn’t reach out. I didn’t beg for clarity or closure. I cried. I journaled. I went to meetings. I talked to trusted friends. I worked. I kept my boundaries intact.

    Because here’s what I’ve learned: I am worth calm. I am worth communication that doesn’t punish. I am worth someone who doesn’t confuse intensity with depth.

    He said I pivoted. But what he saw as inconsistency was actually growth. I was honoring a boundary. I wasn’t trying to wound him—I was trying to protect myself. And yes, sometimes that looks messy. Sometimes healing doesn’t come in a neat package with perfect communication and the right amount of eye contact. Sometimes it means making the best decision you can in real time with the nervous system you have.

    I had let him in. I trusted him with my story, my body, my boundaries. I showed up with care and effort and consistency. But I can’t control how someone receives me. I can only control how I respond when they shut the door.

    And this time, I didn’t run after it. I let it close. Gently, painfully, finally.

    Losing him hurt. But losing myself again would’ve hurt more.

    If you opened yourself up to someone and they rejected you, remember it’s not a reflection of your worth. And sometimes when someone walks away, it’s for the best if them staying would have meant you abandoning yourself.

  • From Loss to Hope: How I Found Joy Again

    From Loss to Hope: How I Found Joy Again

    “Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.” ~Helen Keller

    The phone call arrived like a silent explosion, shattering the ordinary hum of a Tuesday morning. My uncle was gone, suddenly, unexpectedly. Just a few months later, before the raw edges of that loss could even begin to soften, my mom followed. Her passing felt like a cruel echo, ripping open wounds that had barely begun to form scabs.

    I remember those months as a blur of black clothes, hushed voices, and an aching emptiness that permeated every corner of my life. Grief settled over me like a suffocating blanket, heavy and constant. It wasn’t just the pain of losing them; it was the abrupt shift in the landscape of my entire world.

    My cousin, my uncle’s only child, was just twenty-three. He came to live with me, utterly adrift. He knew nothing about managing a household, budgeting, or even basic self-care. In the fog of my own sorrow, I found myself guiding him through the mundane tasks of adulting, a daily lesson in how to simply exist when your world has crumbled.

    Those early days were a testament to moving forward on autopilot. Each step felt like wading through thick mud. There were moments when the weight of it all seemed insurmountable, when the idea of ever feeling lighthearted again felt like a distant, impossible dream. My heart was a constant ache, and laughter felt like a betrayal.

    Then, the losses kept coming. A couple of other beloved family members departed within months, each passing a fresh cut on an already bruised soul. It felt like the universe was testing my capacity for heartbreak, pushing me to the absolute edge of what I believed I could endure. I was convinced that happiness, true, unburdened joy, was simply no longer available to me.

    For a long time, I resided in that broken space. My days were functional, but my spirit felt dormant, like a hibernating animal.

    I went through the motions, caring for my cousin, managing responsibilities, but internally, I was convinced my capacity for joy had been irrevocably damaged. The idea of embracing happiness felt disloyal to the people I had lost.

    One crisp morning, standing by the kitchen window, I noticed the way the light hit the dew on a spiderweb. It was a fleeting, unremarkable moment, yet for a split second, a tiny flicker of something akin to peace, even beauty, stirred within me. It startled me, like catching my own reflection in a darkened room. That flicker was a subtle reminder that even in the deepest shadows, light still existed.

    This wasn’t a sudden epiphany or a miraculous cure. It was a slow, deliberate crawl out of the emotional abyss. I began to understand that healing wasn’t about erasing the pain, but about learning to carry it differently. It was about allowing grief its space while simultaneously creating new space for life to bloom again.

    The first step was simply acknowledging the darkness without letting it consume me.

    I stopped fighting the waves of sadness when they came, allowing them to wash over me, knowing they would eventually recede. This acceptance was pivotal; it transformed my internal struggle from a battle into a painful, but necessary, process.

    I also learned the profound power of small, intentional acts. This wasn’t about grand gestures of self-care. It was about consciously noticing the warmth of a morning cup of coffee, the texture of a soft blanket, the simple comfort of a familiar song. These tiny moments, woven into the fabric of daily life, began to accumulate, like individual threads forming a stronger tapestry.

    Another crucial insight was the importance of letting go of the “shoulds.” There’s no right or wrong way to grieve, and no timeline for healing. I stopped judging my feelings, stopped comparing my progress to an imaginary standard. This liberation from self-imposed pressure created room for genuine recovery, allowing me to be exactly where I was in my journey.

    I started to actively seek out moments of connection. This meant leaning on the friends and remaining family who offered support, even when I felt too exhausted to reciprocate. It was about sharing stories, sometimes tearful, sometimes unexpectedly funny, that honored those we had lost and reminded me that love, even in absence, still binds us.

    Embracing vulnerability became a strength. Allowing myself to be seen in my brokenness, to admit when I was struggling, paradoxically made me feel more grounded. It revealed the immense capacity for compassion that exists in others, and in myself. This openness fostered deeper connections, which became vital anchors in my recovery.

    The concept of “joy” also transformed. It wasn’t about constant euphoria but about finding contentment, peace, and even occasional bursts of laughter amidst the lingering sorrow.

    It became less about an absence of pain and more about a presence of life, in all its complex beauty. I learned that joy is not a betrayal of grief but a testament to the enduring power of the human spirit.

    Ultimately, my journey taught me that resilience isn’t about being tough or never falling. It’s about being tender enough to feel, courageous enough to keep seeking light, and brave enough to get back up, even when every fiber of your being wants to stay down. It’s about collecting the pieces of your broken heart and finding a way to make it beat again, perhaps even stronger and more appreciative of every precious moment.

    I now stand in a place where I truly believe I am stronger and happier than ever before. Not despite the pain, but because of the profound lessons it taught me.

    Every challenging step, every tear shed, every quiet moment of discovery contributed to the person I am today—a little wiser, a little braver, and with a way better story to tell.

    My hope is that anyone facing similar darkness knows that the path back to joy is always possible, and that your story, too, holds immense power and purpose.

  • Coming Out at 50: Love, Loss, and Living My Truth

    Coming Out at 50: Love, Loss, and Living My Truth

    “The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.” ~Carl Jung

    We all had a wild ride during the pandemic, am I right? Mine included falling in love with a woman. At fifty years old.

    That’s not something I expected. But isn’t that how life goes?

    One day you’re baking sourdough and trying not to touch your face, and the next you’re coming out to the world and losing half your family in the process.

    I’d been single for over two decades—twenty-five years of bad dates, some good therapy, and quiet Friday nights. I’d survived abuse, betrayal, and abandonment.

    I’d been struggling to make peace with my solitude. My biggest fear was dying alone in my apartment and not being discovered for days. It felt very possible.

    Trying to accept that this was as good as it gets didn’t leave me in state of letting go but in a state of absolute dread.

    Deep down, I was aching to be seen. To be chosen. To feel at home. To belong to someone. Then I met her. And my life cracked wide open.

    This wasn’t just a late-in-life love story. This was a story about becoming who I really am—about peeling back decades of shame, “am-I-gay?” denial, and internalized homophobia.

    It was about stepping fully into my own skin. And the price of authenticity? For us, it was being shunned.

    Neither of us had explored this path before, so when my now-wife came out to her devoutly Catholic family, they told her she was going to hell.

    They called her an abomination.

    Her mother hung up on her and never called back. That was years ago, and the silence still rings in our home.

    That phone call still makes my stomach knot. It wasn’t even my mother, but I felt it in my bones. I’d been orphaned as a teen, and I knew that kind of cutting loss.

    But this was different. This was intentional. This was betrayal in the name of righteousness.

    There are siblings, in-laws, nieces, and nephews who claim to “support us,” but their actions say otherwise. We’re invited to some events and left out of others. They hide the truth from the kids like we’re shameful secrets.

    We show up, smile, make small talk, and leave. No one asks how we’re doing. No one mentions our wedding. We invited them.

    And you know what? I’m angry.

    I’m angry because they get to pretend they’re not part of the harm.

    I’m angry because they preach love and acceptance, but it only extends to the people who fit their mold.

    I’m angry because my wife, the kindest human I know, cries in the dark sometimes and says, “Maybe I shouldn’t have told them.”

    But I’m also angry because we did the brave thing. And bravery shouldn’t cost this much, but it often does.

    We tried to find ways to “pass.” To live a half-truth.

    We discussed keeping things quiet “for the sake of the kids.” But ultimately, we knew any ruse would fall apart. Four kids have big mouths. And love deserves the light.

    We wanted to be models of integrity—for ourselves and for them. So we came out. Fully. And paid the price.

    It’s hard to explain what it feels like to be ghosted by an entire family. It’s grief, yes, but also rage. Deep, blistering rage. It’s the disorienting sense that you are both too much and not enough at the same time. And it brings up everything.

    All the old stories from my childhood: that I had to earn love. That I wasn’t lovable unless I was perfect. That my voice didn’t matter. That taking up space was dangerous.

    Those lies were hardwired into my nervous system. But this new rejection? It cracked them wide open. And inside that crack, I found a painful truth:

    Living authentically can cost you people you thought would never leave. But living inauthentically costs you yourself.

    So, here’s what I’ve learned, for anyone navigating the heartbreak of being rejected for who you love or who you are:

    1. Grieve it.

    Don’t skip over the pain. Feel it. Let it rage. You’re allowed to be hurt. You’re allowed to be furious. You’re allowed to be human.

    Journaling helps. Venting to supportive friends helps. Finding people who get it helps.

    Fear can strip people of their humanity. Fight fear.

    2. Build your chosen family.

    Find your people. The ones who cheer for you, hold you, and text you dumb memes when you’re sad. They are real. They count.

    Thankfully, my siblings were accepting ‘enough.’ They don’t hate. They may not be fully comfortable, but they have never excluded us.

    And my Irish wife has plenty of cousins, aunts, and uncles who have heard our story and have shown up to support us and champion us.

    Our existing circle of friends never batted an eye or skipped a beat in giving us love and support.

    3. Stop performing.

    Even if it feels safer. Even if it wins you approval. It’s exhausting and soul-crushing. You’re not here to be palatable; you’re here to be whole.

    My four stepchildren have adjusted well because we have owned our truth while staying gracious.

    The kids can spend time with their grandma and relatives no matter what they think about us.

    It’s their relationship to develop and foster on their own, and eventually the kids will come to their own conclusions.

    We will continue to model that love is love.

    4. Give your inner child the love she missed.

    Your inner child deserved unconditional acceptance. They still do. Speak to them gently. Show them they’re safe now.

    This took effort for me. And for my wife. It’s been a process of grieving and letting go—of rebuilding our lives and identities.

    Rejection has been a theme in my life, and it hit hard. Especially when I have always longed for family.

    But I realize my family is within the walls of my own home, and there is plenty for anyone else I allow to enter it.

    5. Hold the boundary.

    You don’t have to chase people who can’t see your worth. You don’t have to explain your humanity. You are not too much. They are simply not ready.

    We continue to reach out to my wife’s siblings because they and their children will be around a lot longer than their mother will (their dad died three years ago). They live a mile away.

    And even though they say they are “Switzerland,” and I say they are complicit, I do know they try in their own ways to walk a middle line.

    Sometimes, I’m struck by sadness as this feels like we have lost something, and, other times, I’m open to the ways they show up without needing to judge or quantify it.

    The truth is, I still have days where the sadness grabs me unexpectedly—at weddings, holidays, or when I see how tender my wife is with our kids and wonder how anyone could deny her love.

    But mostly, I feel proud.

    I did something really f***ing brave.

    I stopped asking for permission to exist.

    I didn’t do it at twenty. I didn’t even do it at forty. I did it at fifty. And that’s okay. That counts.

    If you’re out there thinking you’ve missed your chance, or that it’s too late to start over—I promise you, it’s not. You don’t need a pandemic either.

    You’re not too late.

    You’re right on time.

  • The Child I Lost and the Inner Child I’m Now Learning to Love

    The Child I Lost and the Inner Child I’m Now Learning to Love

    “Our sorrows and wounds are healed only when we touch them with compassion.” ~Jack Kornfield

    Her absence lingers in the stillness of early mornings, in the moments between tasks, in the hush of evening when the day exhales. I’ve gotten good at moving. At staying busy. At producing. But sometimes, especially lately, the quiet catches me—and I fall in.

    Grief doesn’t always roar. Sometimes it’s a whisper, one you barely hear until it’s grown into a wind that bends your bones.

    It’s been nearly three years since my daughter passed. People told me time would help. That the firsts—first holidays, first birthday without her—would be the hardest. And maybe that was true.

    But what no one prepared me for was how her absence would echo into the years that followed. How grief would evolve, shape-shift, and sometimes grow heavier—not lighter—with time. How her loss would uncover older wounds. Ones that predate her birth. Wounds that go back to a little girl who never quite felt safe enough to just be.

    I’d like to say I’ve spent the past few years healing. Meditating. Journaling. Growing. And I did—sort of. Inconsistently. Mostly as a checkmark, doing what a healthy, mindful person is supposed to do, but without much feeling. I went through the motions, hoping healing would somehow catch up.

    What I found instead was a voice I hadn’t truly listened to in years—my inner child, angry and waiting. While this year’s whirlwind pace pulled me further away, the truth is, I began losing touch with her long before.

    She waited, quietly at first. But ignored long enough, she began to stir. Her protest wasn’t loud. It was physical—tight shoulders, shallow breath, scattered thoughts, restless sleep. A kind of anxious disconnection I kept trying to “fix” by doing more.

    I filled my days with obligations and outward-focused energy, thinking productivity might shield me from the ache.

    But the ache never left.

    It just got smarter—showing up in my body, in my distracted mind, in the invisible wall between me and the world.

    Until the day I finally stopped. I don’t know if I was too tired to keep running or if my grief finally had its way with me. But I paused long enough to pull a card from my self-healing oracle deck. It read:

    “Hear and know me.”

    I stared at the words and wept.

    This was her. The little girl in me. The one who had waited through years of striving and performing and perfecting. The one who wasn’t sure she was lovable unless she earned it. The one who held not just my pain but my joy, too. My tenderness. My creativity. My curiosity.

    She never left. She just waited—watching, hurting, hoping I’d remember.

    For so long, I thought healing meant fixing. Erasing. Becoming “better” so I wouldn’t have to feel the ache anymore.

    But she reminded me that healing is less about removing pain and more about returning to myself.

    I’m still learning how to be with her. I don’t always know what she needs. But I’m listening now.

    Sometimes, she just wants to color or lie on the grass. Sometimes she wants to cry. Sometimes she wants pancakes for dinner. And sometimes, she wants nothing more than to be told she’s safe. That I see her. That I won’t leave again.

    These small, ordinary acts feel like re-parenting. I’m learning how to mother myself, even as I continue grieving my daughter. It’s a strange thing—to give the care I long to give her, to the parts of me that were once just as small, just as tender, just as in need.

    I’ve spoken so much about the loss of my daughter. The space she once filled echoes every day. But what also lingers is her way of being—her authenticity. She was always exactly who she was in each moment. No apologies. No shrinking.

    In my own journey of trying to fit in, of not wanting to be different, I let go of parts of myself just to be accepted.

    She, on the other hand, stood out—fearlessly. The world called her special needs. I just called her Lily.

    Her authenticity reminded me of something I had lost in myself. And now, authenticity is what my inner child has been waiting for—for so, so long.

    Sometimes I wonder if the universe gave me Lily not just to teach her but to be taught by her. Maybe our children don’t just inherit from us—we inherit from them, too.

    Her gift, her legacy, wasn’t just love. It was truth. The kind of truth that comes from living as you are.

    Maybe her lesson for me is the one I’m just now beginning to accept: that being fully myself is the most sacred way I can honor her.

    It’s not easy. The adult in me wants a checklist, a result, a clean timeline. But she reminds me: healing isn’t a destination. It’s a relationship.

    It’s a relationship with the past—yes—but also with the present moment. With the part of me that still flinches under pressure. With the softness I once thought I had to abandon in order to survive.

    I’m learning that my softness was never the problem. It was the silence that followed when no one responded to it.

    She is the key. The key to my own heart.

    It doesn’t always come in waves.

    Sometimes it’s a flicker, a breath, a quiet knowing that I’m still here—and that they are, too.

    My daughter, in the memories that move like wind through my life. And my inner child, in the softness I’m learning to reclaim. In the space where grief and love hold hands, we all meet.

    Maybe that’s the lesson she’s been shouting all along: that we can’t truly love others if we abandon ourselves. That within our own hearts—tender, bruised, still beating—lies the key to beginning again.

    We can’t mother our lost children the way we once did.

    But maybe, in their absence, we can begin to mother the small, forgotten parts of ourselves—with the same love, the same patience, the same fierce devotion.

    Maybe that’s how we honor them—not by moving on, but by moving inward.

  • I Lost My Father—and the Illusion of My Mother

    I Lost My Father—and the Illusion of My Mother

    “Sometimes letting things go is an act of far greater power than defending or hanging on.” ~Eckhart Tolle

    In July 2023, my father died in a tragic accident. We were devastated—my sisters, my mother, and I. Or so I thought.

    What followed in the months after his death forced me to confront the truth of my mother’s emotional disconnection, a truth I had sensed but never fully allowed myself to see. In losing my father, I also lost the illusion of the mother I thought I had.

    A Sudden Exit

    By September, just two months after my father’s death, my mother packed up and left the home we had just helped her settle into. She moved from Florida to Alabama to be with a man she had secretly loved for years—her high school crush. A man she had long referred to as her “co-author.” I will call him Roy.

    He had been a nightly fixture in her life for a while. She would stay on the phone with him late into the evening, even while my dad slept in the next room. She always claimed it didn’t bother my father. But looking back, I wonder if he just swallowed the discomfort, like so many other things.

    Let’s take a step back. In 2022, my sister and I bought a home for our parents to retire in comfortably. We thought we were giving them a safe and loving space to grow old together. But before my father even passed away, my mother had already planned her escape. The house we bought wasn’t her sanctuary. It was a stopover.

    She didn’t ask us for help moving. She didn’t even warn us. She bought new luggage, made quiet arrangements, and disappeared. We were suddenly bombarded with text messages filled with excitement: stories of her “new life,” her “adventures,” and her rediscovered love. She glowed with freedom while the rest of us were still gasping for air.

    A New Life, A New Name

    By January—six months after my father died—she was married to Roy. She changed her last name. She discarded decades of shared identity with my father like she was shedding an old coat. She left behind his ashes. She left the framed photos that we had prepared for his memorial. It was as if he had never existed.

    But it wasn’t just him she left behind. She also abandoned her daughters. Her grandchildren. Her great-grandchildren. A family many would cherish, tossed aside like clutter.

    Her new story was one of long-suffering redemption. She recast herself as the woman who had endured a marriage with a difficult man and had finally, after decades, found joy. The truth? She had slowly detached from the rest of us for years—investing more time in writing projects and Facebook groups aligned with Roy’s interests, and less in her own family.

    Her new husband had also just lost his spouse, only days after my dad died. The narrative practically wrote itself: two grieving souls who found each other through fate. But those of us watching from the outside knew the foundation had been laid long before the funerals.

    The Pain of Rewriting the Past

    Eventually, my sisters and I had to step away. We had asked for space to grieve our father—kindly, repeatedly. But every boundary was met with denial, deflection, or emotional manipulation. There was no recognition of our pain, only excitement about her “next chapter.”

    Sometimes I wrestle with the urge to correct her version of events. In her telling, she’s the eternal victim: a woman finally liberated, only to be judged by ungrateful daughters who refused to be happy for her. But I’ve learned that arguing with someone’s internal mythology rarely leads to healing. It only deepens the divide.

    So, I let go. Not of the truth, but of the need for her to see it.

    I grieved deeply—not only for my father, but for the mother I thought I had. I began to wonder: Had she ever wanted children? Had she ever truly been emotionally available? Was it all performative?

    Those are hard questions to ask. But once I allowed myself to see her clearly—not as the mother I hoped she was, but as the woman she actually is—I began to feel something surprising: relief. And eventually, acceptance. Accepting that a parent is incapable of giving you the love you needed is one of the hardest emotional tasks we face. But it’s also one of the most liberating.

    Breaking the Cycle

    There were red flags in childhood. My mom wasn’t nurturing. She often complained of pain, stayed stuck on the couch, irritable and disconnected from the rest of the family. I walked on eggshells around her. I can’t recall warm, playful memories. That emotional void quietly shaped me in ways I didn’t fully understand until recently.

    I developed an attachment style that drew me to avoidant relationships, repeating old patterns. I didn’t know how to ask for what I needed because I had never learned to recognize my needs in the first place.

    Through therapy, reflection, and support, I began to break the cycle. But it required giving up the fantasy. It required grieving not just the loss of my parents, but the loss of the childhood I wished I had. This is not a story of blaming parents, but rather one of gaining a deeper understanding of my mother to better understand myself.

    I want to be clear: I have compassion for my mother. She grew up with mental illness in her home. She wasn’t nurtured either. She didn’t learn how to attune, connect, or show up. She may have done the best she could with what she had.

    But compassion doesn’t mean ignoring harm. I can hold both truths: her pain was real, and so is the pain she inflicted.

    The Freedom of Letting Go

    I’ve stopped hoping for an apology. I’ve stopped trying to explain myself. And I’ve stopped trying to earn her love.

    Instead, I’m investing in the relationships that nourish me. I’m giving myself the emotional safety I never had. I’m allowing myself to feel it all—the grief, the clarity, the compassion, the peace. Letting go of a parent doesn’t make you cold-hearted. It means you’ve decided to stop betraying yourself.

    Because here’s the truth I’ve come to accept: we can love our parents and still recognize that the relationship isn’t healthy. We can give grace for their pain without sacrificing our own healing. And in some cases, we can—and must—walk away.

    There is freedom in seeing our parents as they really are—not as idealized figures, but as complex, flawed humans. When we hold onto illusions, we gaslight ourselves. We call ourselves too sensitive or too needy when in reality, we’re responding to unmet needs that have been there all along.

    To me, that doesn’t mean sitting in resentment about what you didn’t get from your parents; it means figuring out how to provide that for yourself as an adult. If we don’t examine those early wounds, we carry them forward. We struggle to trust. We tolerate toxic dynamics. We confuse love with emotional labor.

    Understanding where it all began leads to healthy change. We can choose different relationships. We can choose ourselves.

    And that, I’ve learned, is where healing begins.

  • Healing Through Grief: How I Found Myself in the Metaphors of Loss and Love

    Healing Through Grief: How I Found Myself in the Metaphors of Loss and Love

    “When the soul wishes to experience something, she throws an image of the experience out before her and enters into her own image.” ~Meister Eckhart

    For most of my life, something in me felt off—misaligned, too much, not enough. I moved through the world trying to fix a thing I couldn’t name.

    Then, a beautiful chapter emerged where I no longer questioned myself. I met my husband—and through his love, I experienced the life-changing magic of being seen. His presence felt like sunlight. I softened. I bloomed. For the first time, I felt safe.

    Losing him to young-onset colorectal cancer was like watching that sunlight disappear. With his last breath, the safety I had finally found evaporated. And in the long, aching months that followed, I began to reflect on all the environments I’d moved through—childhood, adolescence, adulthood, relationships—as gardens. And myself as a plant, either nurtured or wilting depending on the conditions and my individual constitution.

    His absence clarified the kind of care I had—and hadn’t—known.

    I was never defective. I am a being with specific needs for thriving—just the right light, language, and nourishment required for blooming.

    When I look back, I can see that while my basic needs—shelter and food—were met, I didn’t understand what it meant to feel emotionally safe or deeply seen. I cycled through endless loops of What’s wrong with me?—never realizing I wasn’t broken. I was just trying. Surviving.

    Presence. Attunement. Emotional safety.

    These aren’t things you can name as missing when you’ve never known them. Not because anyone was overtly cruel but because no one had ever been taught to ask, What kind of care does this particular being require?

    Humans don’t come with cue cards. No tags that say, “partial sun, low stimulation, daily emotional attunement.” We enter this world as mysteries.

    My mom carries a sixth sense with her plants. As if she can smell it, she knows when they need water or tending without even looking at them. She is attuned to her garden in ways I only experienced years later with my husband.

    After he died, I longed for the kind of care we cultivated together—the way he could sense what I was feeling without looking at my face. The way my heart used to sing when he looked at me. The way he listened.

    My relationship with my mother has been tenuous at best in adulthood. But after my husband passed, I saw her try—in the ways she knew how. Fixing. Filling space. Masking the pain with doing. On our occasional phone calls, she’d talk about her plants: who was dry, who needed new soil, who was ready for a bigger pot. No performance. No expectation. Just attention.

    I recognized in those moments that she couldn’t offer me the kind of gaze she gave her plants—and for the first time, I understood why. Her care was real. She’d just never encountered a plant like me before.

    Before I met my husband, I’d already been living in survival mode for years—self-medicating in the wake of emotional upheaval and familial crisis, eroding what little trust I had in myself. His love opened something in me I hadn’t known was possible: safety. And after he died, I had to learn what safety meant in my body at this stage of my journey.

    Most of us are raised in environments shaped by inherited urgency, unexamined patterns, and a generational lack of curiosity. There is no fault here, but there is consequence.

    The body, in its wisdom, keeps score. It holds unmet needs and unspoken truths like a second skin.

    And it’s often when we encounter a metaphor—one that mirrors our inner experience—that something in us exhales.

    That metaphor becomes a form of attunement. Not a solution, but a shift. A felt sense that maybe nothing is wrong—only unrecognized. It doesn’t fix the past, but through meaning-making, the body is able to rest. To breathe.

    We speak of regulation like it’s a technique. Breathe like this. Move like that. But often, the truest form of regulation is recognition.

    Something outside of us that echoes what lives within. A melody in our favorite song. A story. A metaphor that reminds us: You are not alone in this shape.

    And in that moment, the body softens. The charge lifts. We are seen.

    This is why metaphor matters. Not just as art, but as medicine. As orientation. As survival.

    When we are mirrored—by a song, a painting, a stretch of sky that looks exactly how grief feels—we are granted a kind of coherence. Our experience, once scattered or silenced, is gathered into form. And form is something we can hold.

    Often, it’s not the literal circumstances that make us feel safe. It’s the resonance. The reassurance that someone, somewhere, has known a similar ache.

    Even if the path is different, the terrain feels familiar. And that familiarity becomes a nervous system offering—a tether back to self when the ground feels too far away.

    The metaphors that make us human are often subtle. Soldiers of our intuition: they arrive as gut feelings, patterns, images, or melodies we keep returning to. The ocean. The desert. A cracked shell. A single tree that blooms late every season.

    They take root in us slowly. And then one day, without even realizing it, we see ourselves reflected back in the world—and a sense of belonging begins to ripple through our internal landscape.

    Viktor Frankl once wrote that “those who have a why to live can bear almost any how.” He understood what trauma researchers like Bessel van der Kolk and Gabor Maté have continued to illuminate: that suffering, when given meaning, becomes bearable.

    Not erased or justified but metabolized. Held. Breathed into.

    Meaning doesn’t change what happened. It changes how what happened lives in us.

    This is where metaphor becomes more than language. It becomes a vessel—for pain to move through. A frame sturdy enough to hold the unnamable.

    Frankl found this truth in a concentration camp. Van der Kolk found it in bodies that refused to forget. Maté found it in the tender ache beneath addiction and illness.

    I found it in my mom’s garden.

    And I keep finding it—in metaphors that arrive like lifelines when I don’t know how to explain what I’m feeling.

    These metaphors don’t heal the wound, but they give it form. And form allows grief to become something we can live beside, something we can integrate instead of suppressing.

    Metaphor isn’t something we create in isolation. It’s something we receive—through dreams, through symbols, through the quiet choreography of the natural world.

    A bird showing up at your window. Song lyrics that name exactly what you needed to hear. The shape of a tree that mirrors your own posture in grief.

    These aren’t just coincidences. They are collaborations. The world, whispering back: I see you. I’m in this with you. In that echo, we find compassion—for the pain, for the path, for ourselves.

    We like to think of ourselves as the authors of our stories, but more often, we’re co-writing them with something larger. With the landscape. With our ancestors. With the energy of what’s unresolved and aching to be tended.

    Metaphors arrive from this conversation—between the inner and outer, the seen and unseen. They root us in the relational fabric of existence.

    This is what it means to be human. Not just to feel, but to recognize. To witness ourselves mirrored in a leaf, a line of poetry, a stranger’s eyes. To belong—not because we fit a mold, but because something in the world has shaped itself to meet us exactly where we are.

    —

    Perhaps the more honest question isn’t “What’s wrong with me?”

    It’s “What shaped me?”
    “What conditions was I sprouted within?”
    “And what have I learned about the kind of soil, sunlight, and care that allow me to bloom?”

    What symbols found me along the way?

    We are beings of pattern and story.

    Metaphor is how the soul speaks back.

    And meaning is the thread that carries us home.

  • A Transracial Adoption Story of Love and Resilience

    A Transracial Adoption Story of Love and Resilience

    “Make it a great day that ends with a smile in your heart.”

    Growing up, I always heard my father speak variations of these words. They’ve always sort of been ingrained in my head, but now more than ever are forever planted. He lived by them. He breathed them. And in doing so, he instilled them in me so naturally.

    They weren’t just encouragement—they were a way of life, his life, and how he chose to show up each day. He was naturally positive, uplifting, and, without exaggeration, the best human I’ve ever known.

    From a very early age, I understood that how you show up is a choice. But, along with that too, every day is a second chance, which were both powerful lessons that have shaped my resilient nature.

    Whether it’s in moments of challenge or joy, I believe the responsibility for your mindset and actions is completely in your hands. You choose how to respond to situations, people, and yourself. 

    Life, though, doesn’t have to be a series of irreversible moments; instead, each new day offers a clean slate. Whether you learn from the past or are trapped by it is a choice. And even when you face setbacks or make mistakes, you have the opportunity to reset and approach things differently the next day—you just have to do it. This belief in daily renewal is a cornerstone of resilience and gives me hope and motivation to keep moving forward, even when things seem tough.

    My story began in a small Ohio town many years ago, with a phone call that changed two families’ lives forever.

    I’m a biracial female (white and Black) who was placed for adoption and came home to a white family that loved me deeply. It was considered a transracial, open adoption thirty-nine years ago. From the moment my new family laid eyes on me, I was theirs and so deeply loved. I completed their family of five, being the only girl, the only adopted child, and the youngest.

    But life doesn’t always unfold predictably.

    When I was just eight months old, my adoptive mother passed away from liver cancer, leaving my father to raise three young children on his own for many years to come. His profound loss was immense, but he didn’t let grief define him. Instead, he poured every ounce of love into me and my brothers, ensuring we never felt a void he couldn’t fill. He not only surrounded us with his love but also made sure we were supported by the love of our community.

    All three of us share a different relationship with our dad, but the depth of our bond that he and I shared was immense. He was my rock, my greatest cheerleader, the person who saw my potential long before I recognized it in myself. He taught me resilience in the face of adversity and instilled a belief in myself that has carried me through even the most uncertain times. I am who I am because of him.

    For as long as I can remember, I’ve identified as Black because of the color of my skin, though I’ve always known that I am also half white. Understanding my identity, however, has always been a challenge—and I believe it’s a struggle that many transracial adoptees can relate to.

    Raised in a small, predominantly white town until fifth grade, I was often the only person of color in my circle. This made it difficult to understand where I fit in. The complexities of identity are immense when you find yourself in situations like this, and being biracial adds an extra layer of nuance. It becomes especially important to understand and embrace all sides of who you are. But how do you do that?

    I remember seeing Ebony Magazine around the house, something that might seem small to some, but for me, it was powerful. I would just flip through it as a little girl and look at the pictures, but it showed me people who looked like me.

    I also had a big sister through Big Brothers Big Sisters for several years, and there was never a moment when we shied away from discussing race or my adoption story. My dad, too, was always committed to understanding and supporting me—he continually read and educated himself on raising biracial children, even into my adult years.

    Being white, he was intentional about ensuring I never felt alone in my experiences. How he did this, as a white man himself, is truly special. He understood his privileges and my disadvantages, yet he made it his mission to learn everything he could about raising a biracial child in a world where kids—and adults, in my case—could be cruel.

    He could rarely (if ever) relate to the nuances of my reality, but he made it his life’s work to make sure I knew my worth in every possible way. That’s what made him so unbelievably special.

    When I came home in tears because classmates questioned why I “acted white, but I was Black,” he reassured me that I didn’t need to fit anyone’s definition of who I was “supposed to be.”

    After remarrying my wonderful stepmom and moving to a more diverse town, he was excited when I chose to attend a more culturally diverse high school. But when I struggled because of kids poking fun of my hair not being done or ignorant remarks from strangers, he stood by me with unwavering support, ensuring the trauma I faced was addressed head-on and talked through, because it was all part of my story.

    By the time I reached adulthood, I still often grappled with the complexities of my identity. But these words echoed in my mind: “It’s not meant for them to understand” and “Sometimes, there’s no reasoning with people like that.”

    These simple truths have continued to free me in times when I struggle to let go of things that don’t serve me. I didn’t need to explain myself to people who weren’t willing to listen. I only needed to be true to myself. And even today, I sometimes forget that in the moment, but I always come back to it when those moments happen.

    At thirty-eight, I was forced, for the first time, to truly find my own path and face things head-on. In May of 2024, my father passed away suddenly.

    Grief is heavy and unpredictable, and I find myself reaching for the phone to call him, only to remember he’s not physically here anymore. His voice, his lessons, and his love and zest for a better, more fulfilling life live in me now.

    One of the things that my dad and I shared was a love for the Tiny Buddha blogs. This was the only publication we ever read together consistently. It seemed only fitting to me, in the wake of his passing, to submit this post on the anniversary of his death. Through the blogs, we learned about resilience, about finding yourself when you’re lost, and about facing life’s challenges with the absolute best intention.

    My father was always the messenger of these lessons. He would say, “Life is tough, but it doesn’t have to break you.” Facing challenges, and even trauma, is essential to growth. Trauma doesn’t always have to stem from family—it can come from anyone and anything in your formative years and beyond. But what matters is how you choose to process and overcome it.

    Life is unpredictable. It will challenge you, stretch you, and break you down when you least expect it. But within those moments, there is also love, resilience, and the opportunity to define your own path and start anew. My father taught me that. He would always say, “Tomorrow is a new day.” And in his absence, I am choosing to live by the words he gifted me:

    Make it a great day that ends with a smile in your heart.

    Because no matter what life throws our way, we have the power to choose how we respond. We have the power to create joy, to uplift others, to choose to see the glass half full, and to find meaning even in the hardest moments.

    That is the legacy he left me. And that is the lesson I hope to pass on.

  • Walking My Mother Home: On Aging, Love, and Letting Go

    Walking My Mother Home: On Aging, Love, and Letting Go

    “To love someone deeply is to learn the art of holding on and letting go—sometimes at the very same time.” ~Unknown

    Nothing has softened me—or challenged me—like caring for my ninety-six-year-old mother as she slowly withdraws from the world. I thought I was strong, but this is a different kind of strength—one rooted in surrender, not control.

    She once moved with rhythm and faith—attending Kingdom Hall for over sixty years, sharp in mind and dressed with dignity. She’s a fine and good Christian woman, often compared to Julie Andrews for her beauty and radiant grace. But now, she rarely gets out of her robe. She sleeps through the day. The services she once cherished are left unplayed. She says she’s tired and feels ‘off.’ That’s all.

    I ache to restore her to who she was. But no encouragement or gesture can bring that version of her back. Something in me keeps reaching for her past, even as she settles into her present.

    As someone used to teaching, creating, and mentoring, I’ve built a life around helping others move forward. I’m solution-oriented. I try to inspire change.

    But I can’t fix this. I can’t lift her out of time’s embrace. Viktor Frankl, the psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor, wrote, “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” That quote feels especially personal now. Because I can’t change what’s happening to my mother—but I can soften my resistance. I can change the way I show up.

    Walking Each Other Home

    There’s a beautiful quote by Ram Dass that returns to me in this quiet moment: “We’re all just walking each other home.” I think about that when I bring her a bowl of soup, hold her hand, or whisper, “I love you.”

    I’m not here to bring her back to life as it was. I’m here to walk beside her—gently, imperfectly, faithfully—as she lets go of this chapter.

    I think often of Pope John Paul II, who remained remarkably compassionate while bedridden in the last days of his life. As his body failed, he interpreted his suffering not as a burden, but as solidarity with the poor and the sick. His vulnerability became a doorway to greater understanding. That vision moved me deeply. Because that’s what I hope to do—not just care for my mother but be transformed by the act of caring.

    I’ve studied meditation. I’ve written and taught about presence in filmmaking. But this—daily care, raw emotion, the unknown—is the deepest form of mindfulness I’ve ever known.

    Thich Nhat Hanh teaches that “When you love someone, the best thing you can offer is your presence.” So I try to be there. Not fixing. Not explaining. Just breathing. Just sitting beside her.

    In Buddhism, impermanence is not a punishment—it’s a truth. Everything beautiful fades. Clinging brings suffering. Peace comes from loving without grasping. That’s what I’m learning, slowly, as I witness her journey unfold.

    Some days, I feel like I’m failing. I lose patience. I say too much, and I say it too loudly. But I show up again. I apologize. I soften. I learn.

    There’s a quiet kind of love growing in me. It doesn’t look like grand gestures. It looks like warming her tea with honey. Adjusting her blanket. Noticing she’s cold before she says a word. This is slow-burning compassion—the kind that asks nothing in return. It’s not about being a hero. It’s about being human.

    I used to think wisdom came from those who spoke the most. But now I see that some of the greatest teachers say little at all. My mother, mostly silent now, is teaching me about humility, aging, and surrender.

    Like Pope John Paul II, I want to turn my suffering into understanding. To feel my heart break open—not shut down—and to know that this is not just her time of transition, it’s mine too.

    Lately, my own health has begun to shift—macular degeneration, diastolic heart failure, near-blindness, persistent fatigue, and a growing sense that I, too, am aging. At first, I resisted. I wanted to stay useful and strong. But now, I see these changes as reminders: to live gently, to love fully, and to be present. My body is not the problem—it’s the messenger. And its message is simple: this isn’t about me. It’s about how well I show up for her.

    So what is it that I’m learning here in this strange, quiet space between caregiving and grief?

    • You don’t have to be perfect to be present.
    • Love doesn’t always look like joy. Sometimes it looks like patience.
    • Letting go isn’t failure—it’s an expression of grace.
    • Even in loss, there is growth.
    • The end of one life chapter can open your heart to all of humanity.

    A Whisper Before Sleep

    Each night, I make sure she’s ready to sleep. Sometimes she’s dozing. Sometimes she’s half-aware. Sometimes she’s just staring at the TV. But every night, I whisper, “I love you, Mom.” Maybe she hears me. Maybe not. But I say it anyway—because love, at this point, is more about presence than response.

    And now, another quiet miracle has entered her world. Nugget—the small, grey-furred cat who is super cute and equally crazy—has become her closest companion. My mother never cared much for animals. She found them messy, distant. But Nugget changed all that.

    This tiny creature curls at her feet, climbs into her lap, and purrs without question. And my mother responds—stroking her fur, talking softly, calling her ‘my little kitty.’ It’s pure, surprising, and profound. Nugget brings her back to the present in ways I cannot. She opens a door to tenderness that has long remained closed.

    My mother still shares vivid stories from the distant past, though she forgets what happened an hour ago. Still, she knows me. She knows Nugget. And for that, I am grateful.

    I still wish I could do more. But I show up—quietly, imperfectly, with love. I walk her home the best I can.

    And in that walking, in that surrender, I’m beginning to understand what it really means to be alive.

  • What My First Heartbreak Revealed About My Self-Worth

    What My First Heartbreak Revealed About My Self-Worth

    The first time I got my heart broken—really, painfully broken—I remember feeling too ashamed to ask for support. I didn’t talk about it with anyone because, at the time, there weren’t many people I trusted with such a raw and tender part of myself.

    I cried a lot, so people around me knew something had happened, but looking back, I think it’s tragic that I had no friends or family I felt safe enough to open up to. No bestie to cry into a tub of ice cream with. Tragic, but also a bit revealing.

    Like all painful experiences of loss, it eventually became more bearable. I resumed my regular routines. Heartbreak is just another part of life, and we move on as time passes, right?

    It was over a decade later when I chanced upon a letter I had written to my ex shortly after our breakup. I found it at my parents’ house in the pocket of an old pair of pants, in a drawer full of remnants from those restless years of young adulthood when I had no true home of my own.

    My stomach sank as I pulled it out, recognizing it instantly. Had someone found it and read it? Imagine that. Shame outweighed curiosity even all those years later. But the envelope was still sealed. It had his name written on the front in my handwriting.

    The letter was written to him, but it was always meant for me. I had been drowning in misery when I wrote it, and re-reading the words pulled me right back into that pain. But with years of distance, I saw something I couldn’t have grasped back then.

    At the time, I had believed the pain was all about losing him—that I couldn’t imagine not being with him anymore. Missing him felt like a black hole in my life, one that only he could fill. And yes, part of my pain was indeed about him. But if I’m being honest, our connection was never strong enough to justify the depth of pain I felt when it ended.

    The true source of my pain—the visceral agony of the weeks that followed—was not about him at all. It was about what his rejection confirmed for me.

    I’m not enough.

    That is why the whole experience was so closely tied to feeling shame as much as (or more so) than feeling grief. Every insecurity I had carried since childhood—not smart enough, not interesting enough, not attractive enough, not cool enough, not sexy enough, not fun enough—felt legitimized the moment he decided I wasn’t for him. Losing him was a personal failure and a reflection of my insignificance.

    Even more than that, I realized that our entire relationship had been a desperate attempt to prove my own worth. If I could be loved by him, then maybe I was good enough. That was my only focus. And in making that my focus, I sabotaged the relationship.

    In the early days, I was being me. That’s what had sparked the attraction. But once we committed, I became hyper-aware of everything I thought I needed to be in order for him to keep wanting me. I stopped being present. I stopped enjoying him. Without even realizing it, I created drama—not because I wanted to, but because I needed him to prove he cared enough to stay. I was so obsessed with being enough for him that I never paused to ask myself if he was enough for me.

    I didn’t know it then, but breakups don’t just hurt because of who we’ve lost. They crack open something deeper. They expose wounds we didn’t even know we were carrying.

    At the time, I looked at other people—especially my ex—who seemed fine, and I convinced myself that something must be wrong with me. But looking back, I see how misguided that was. I wasn’t broken. I was reckoning with my own self-loathing. Without support. Without any reason to see how human it was.

    I wish I had known that the pain of a breakup isn’t necessarily just about missing someone. It’s also about what the feeling of desertion stirs up in you. It’s about how the sudden loss of connection can make you question your own worth.

    I tried to be strong by pushing through, distracting myself, pretending I was okay. I tried to hate him, fixating on all his flaws. But avoidance isn’t healing—it only postpones the inevitable. The feelings I refused to process didn’t disappear; they resurfaced in my self-doubt, in my choices, in the quiet moments when no distraction was enough.

    Standing in my parents’ home that day, I was able to see the missed window of opportunity. I understood how going through that alone due to my shame never gave the experience a chance to be properly digested. The same inner critic and shame resurfaced again and again in the years that followed until eventually, I was brave enough to do the work and step into a version of myself who believes in my inherent value.

    If I could go back, I would tell myself a few important things:

    • This isn’t something to just get over. It’s something to move through. The pain isn’t here to break you—it’s asking for your attention.
    • Real strength isn’t pretending you’re fine. It’s allowing yourself to feel what needs to be felt. It’s getting the right support, whether from a therapist, a coach, or a trusted guide. It’s letting the experience change you—not by making you harder, but by making you whole.
    • Healing doesn’t mean forgetting. It doesn’t mean waking up one day and realizing you no longer care. It means learning from the loss. Understanding yourself more deeply. Stepping forward with a clearer sense of what you truly need and deserve.

    I can’t go back and give my younger self this wisdom. Who knows if she would have been ready to listen anyway? But I can offer it to anyone who might be there now—wondering why it still hurts, wondering when they’ll finally be “over it.”

    The truth? The most painful moments of our lives often carry the greatest invitations for self-discovery. Normalizing our pain and meeting it with self-compassion can unlock massive personal growth.

    We don’t get through life unscathed. We will be hurt. We will face pain. We will have to accept the incomprehensible.

    But if we learn to turn inward—to become a safe refuge for ourselves, filled with kindness and understanding—we can evolve. We can transform our lives rather than repeat the same lesson over and over, carrying that wisdom into our next experience.

    So here is my wish for all of you with a broken heart. May you meet your pain so it won’t just wound you but shape you into a truer version of yourself. Stay in your heart.

  • The Trauma in Our Tissues and How I’m Setting Myself Free

    The Trauma in Our Tissues and How I’m Setting Myself Free

    “I feel like I can see with my whole body,” I said to my peer after our last session exchange.

    As part of my ongoing growth and development as a practitioner, I regularly participate in somatic therapy exchanges with a small group of peers.

    On completion of our last session, I found myself sitting with a sense of a quiet, steady seeing, almost like sitting on the top of a mountain, rooted to the earth, not a breath of wind, and a 360-degree view of not just the world around me but of it within me, and me within it.

    It felt as though I had stepped into a deeper dimension of perception, where sight wasn’t limited to my eyes but woven into my body’s knowing.

    It was unfamiliar, but a place where I felt a deep sense of being able to rest. Completely.

    I came to her that morning wanting to work on the shock I felt I was still carrying from the day—twelve years ago—when I learned my partner had taken his life. I’ve done a lot of work over the years, but the impact of this moment in time was still untouched.

    As we prepared for our session, I felt a fluttering in my chest and a mild contraction behind my heart and upper torso.

    “I feel a little fear…” I shared with her, knowing that this was normal and the very reason I had yet to touch how my body had stored the impact of this day.

    Often the places we fear the most are exactly where we need to go.

    I recalled the memory of traveling down the small bitumen road leading to the gravel driveway of our family home. We lived on two acres in a beautiful community in semirural NSW. My dear friend, who unbeknownst to me had already been informed of what had happened, was driving, as I was five months pregnant and overwhelmed with emotion.

    That morning, we had gone to the local police station to report him missing. He had not been answering his phone and had not turned up at work that day. His closest friend had not heard from him, and neither had I.

    We all knew something was amiss.

    As we turned onto our property, we were met with a row of cars scattered outside the entrance. My breath caught in my chest, my eyes widened and darted, taking in the cars and the close friends walking toward me through the front door. The moment felt so surreal; I knew something was terribly wrong.

    There is a moment in time where our nervous system perceives what the eyes have yet to see. A deeper knowing that, much like an animal in the wild who can feel the storm before it arrives, braces itself against the danger afoot.

    I don’t know when that initial moment was for me. Whether it was when I spoke to his work and was advised he hadn’t turned up, when I went to the police, when my friend stood to take a private call while we were waiting for the police to contact us, or when we turned the car to drive down the little bitumen road, right before the tree canopy parted to expose the cars scattered outside my home.

    When it comes to shock trauma, the brainstem registers the shock before it has even happened. And the body, in response, braces.

    I was already bracing as I exited the car, tightening further as I met the eyes of my friend walking out of the front door, and then at the nod of his head, my world stopped and my body locked.

    I had shared with my colleague that morning that I felt like I was bracing. That in my deepest moments of meditation, I could feel a very deep clench. That sometimes I wake with a very subtle but palpable internal holding, a contraction deeper than I could touch on my own. I also shared that I felt this bracing was impacting my health.

    For many years, I have worked diligently on restoring my health. Spending thousands upon thousands. Recovering from severe biotoxin poisoning, chronic fatigue, and burnout from the trauma of the relationship, the trauma of his death, and all of the survival stress beyond.

    Though I have come a very long way, I know there is still a way to go. Peeling away layer by layer.

    Our session met one of those layers.

    Releasing trauma can often appear as a tremor. A tremble. It can show up in the arms, hands, legs, feet, or anywhere in the body, visible to another in its release. And it can also be held deep inside, in tissues that never see the light of day.

    Twenty-five minutes into our session, I felt a subtle internal tremble. It felt almost like an electric shock. A tremor that started in my cervical spine, just under the occiput, the back part of the skull at the base of the head where the skull meets the spine, and rippled to the bones protecting the back of my heart, and there it stopped.

    I had been sitting in silence with myself, noticing sensations in my body and allowing my body to direct me to where the bracing was. Sensing, feeling, and ‘being with’ all that arose. Offering simple, loving presence.

    It took all of three seconds from start to finish for this seismic ripple to initiate a wave through my body that was literally like a soul-level shudder—a deep unwinding pulse—reaching into the very fabric of stored experience so that it may unravel.

    It was sudden, potent, and gone in an instant. And then something unlocked, I took a deep breath, and I wept.

    I grieved in a way I had not yet done for what was lost that day. For him. For me. For my children. For his family. For the ripple effect of his choice.

    I cried an ocean of tears for days. Tears that were locked within the fortress of my body, held in place by years of survival, tension, and bracing.

    In my own attempt to manage the intensity of the event, my own vulnerability of being pregnant at the time, and all that came after it, I had braced against the news of his death and the aftermath. I had braced against the reality of mothering alone. I had braced against my breath. I had braced against all of it.

    Over the years, I thought I had worked through all of that, but deep down inside, I was still bracing.

    As I cried, I softened.

    The walls that once held so firm began to melt a little, and in their place, there was space. A vast, quiet openness where my breath could move freely, where my body no longer clenched against itself or life.

    I felt lighter. Not in the way of something missing but in the way of something finally released.

    I didn’t realize I was holding my breath until I could finally exhale.

    This is what I was holding. This is what I was not feeling. What I was unable to feel at the time because my body was primed to protect my unborn child. This was what my body had been orienting around for the last decade.

    Holding in these tears, holding in the shock, holding in the fear.

    This is where deep unraveling happens. This is why we work with the body.

    I can’t say that all was released in that session, but I can say that the earth cracked open enough for me to feel a space within my being that is unfamiliar and yet also feels very much like what a deeper part of me knows as home.

    In the days that followed, I moved differently. I breathed differently. I noticed the absence of a tension I had carried so long it had become invisible, woven into the fabric of my being. And with its release, even more presence to be with what is, rather than bracing against what was.

    This is what the body holds.

    Not just the stories, not just the memories, but the impact of them, the ways we shape ourselves around survival. And this is why we must listen, not just with the mind, but with the body itself.

    Because healing isn’t about erasing the past. It’s about unwinding from it.

    It’s about reclaiming the space within us that trauma occupied. It’s about finding breath where there was constriction, movement where there was rigidity, presence where there was absence.

    And ultimately, it’s about coming back to ourselves. Whole. Embodied. Free.

    As I continue on this journey, I find myself increasingly aware of how much of our lives—the obstacles we face and the emotional, health, and relational challenges we experience—are shaped by the events we have yet to truly feel.

    Trauma, shock, old wounds, and all that we hold in our tissues don’t disappear because we ignore them; they settle into our body, like dust gathering on the shelves of a forgotten room, firing the lens through which we see, live, and breathe, waiting for the moment when we are courageous enough to turn towards them instead of away.

    I recognize that the path of healing is not linear, nor a one-time fix or a quick release. It’s a constant process of coming back to the body, coming back to the breath, and coming back to ourselves. The layers that we peel back, slowly, patiently, hold not just pain but also possibility in their wake; and in the space after each unraveling, we move closer to the wholeness that resides within us all, buried beneath years of survival, and the quiet, fertile ground of presence.

    By listening deeply to our body and holding space for ourselves with compassion and presence, we give ourselves permission to unravel and heal. We make room for the truth of what happened, and in doing so, we make room for the truth of who we are beyond the trauma.

    I don’t know what the future holds or how many more layers I’ll uncover, but I do know this: A part of me is no longer bracing. That part is here. Present. With all of it. And in this presence, I find the gift of peace.

    And maybe, just maybe, that is where true freedom begins.

  • The Truth About Rainbows: Hope Doesn’t Always Look Like We Expect

    The Truth About Rainbows: Hope Doesn’t Always Look Like We Expect

    “If you have ever followed a rainbow to its end, it leads you to the ground on which you are standing.” ~Alan Cohen

    There’s nothing more exhilarating than riding in a Jeep through masses of standing water. With each push forward, my friend Angela expertly maneuvered through enormous puddles, sending fountain-like arcs of aquatic glory past my passenger-side window.

    This was joy to me.

    It was a welcome reprieve considering the past couple of years had unraveled in ways I never saw coming. In fact, this watery wonder, cruising through the quaint streets of the beloved beach island I called home, was a rare outing for me.

    I wouldn’t call myself a shut-in exactly, but if you had spotted me out and about in recent months, you might have likened it to a unicorn sighting—rare and a shock to the system. Rare, because leaving my house required something other than pajamas. Shocking, because it meant I had somehow rallied after a morning of ugly crying.

    These days, the ugly cries came less frequently, but getting out the door still required careful planning and a healthy dose of positive self-talk. Angela, sensing all I had been through, didn’t attempt to fill the space between us with mindless chatter. She let the air breathe, allowing our hearts to settle into a comforting silence.

    And wouldn’t you know it? In that silence, as we rolled forward over the waterlogged road, a rainbow appeared.

    It was magnificent. A full curve stretching across the sky, untouched by a single cloud. We both took it in, wordless at first, until Angela finally spoke the thought we were both holding:

    “This has to mean brighter days are ahead.”

    I nodded, hoping with everything in me that she was right. Not just for our community, which had been pummeled by weeks of relentless storms, but selfishly, for me. I needed this to mean something. The universe wouldn’t place something so breathtaking in my path if life wasn’t about to shift in a meaningful way… right?

    At that moment, although I wasn’t ready for it, a tiny doorway of hope cracked open in my heart.

    Angela pulled into my driveway, gave me one of those deep, soulful hugs she’s known for, and I stepped onto the sand-packed pavers, feeling something I hadn’t felt in a long time: the possibility of relief.

    But relief never came.

    The next morning, I woke up expecting transformation. I brushed my teeth, looked in the mirror, and waited for the shift. And then it hit me. Nothing had changed.

    Worse yet, everything that had once shattered me remained intact, as if locked in a forgotten pause. My father was gone—forever. And instead of the clarity or closure I had hoped for, I was left with the unsettling reality that some pieces of life can never be fully mended.

    By some unknown force of grace, the years, months, and weeks leading up to our last conversations allowed them to be light, even warm. A reminder that the love we shared, though imperfect, continued to move freely in both directions. And still, his sudden departure sent shockwaves through my family, shifting fault lines in ways I couldn’t control. Unable to bear it, like a sea turtle stunned motionless after a sudden freeze warning, I collapsed inward and began my retreat from the external world.

    Then, there was my future looming over me, a blank slate waiting to be filled. My identity had been tethered to raising my boys, but soon, my nest would be empty.

    I had no roadmap for what came next. I had tried to carve out a new path through writing and building a mindful and self-compassionate community, but since my father’s death, that dream and the energy for it had faded.

    My reflection met my gaze, uncertain and hesitant. Fifty years etched into my skin, fine lines tracing both laughter and worry, a strip of silver roots marking the passage of time, yet I felt invisible in a world that had seemingly moved on.

    What now, rainbow? What now?

    And beyond the grief, beyond the exhaustion, there was something else.

    Anger.

    How dare that rainbow give me hope? How dare it let me believe, even for a moment, that things were about to get better? I felt tricked, betrayed by my own willingness to believe in something beyond my suffering.

    But as I spiraled deeper into my chasm of despair, something else took shape on the edges of my soul. A truth so simple, so unshaken by my sorrow, that it stopped me in my tracks.

    I finally learned the truth about rainbows.

    Rainbows do not exist to change our lives. They do not come with promises or guarantees. They are not here to tell us whether things will get better or stay the same.

    A rainbow’s only purpose is to illuminate what already exists. To take the ordinary and, for a fleeting moment, drench it in color. It does not erase the rain, nor does it undo the storm. But it shifts our perception. It allows us to see the world, and ourselves, in a way that feels momentarily brighter.

    And maybe, just maybe, that is enough.

    Maybe healing is not about waiting for life to change but about learning to be with life exactly as it is. Maybe it’s about making space for the full spectrum of our emotions—grief and wonder, despair and hope, pain and beauty—without needing to force one away to make room for the other.

    Maybe the rainbow was never a promise of transformation. Maybe it was simply an invitation to see my life, my grief, and even myself through a different lens.

    And so, instead of cursing the rainbow for failing to fix me, I let it teach me something else.

    That I am still here.

    That even in grief, I can experience awe.

    That even in uncertainty, wonder can still find me.

    That even in the hardest moments, light doesn’t disappear. It refracts, scattering in ways I might not have expected but still can choose to see.

    And maybe, just maybe, hope isn’t about believing something external will come along to save us. Maybe hope is simply the courage to keep going, even when we don’t yet see the path ahead.

    So, I will keep going.

    Not because I know what’s next.

    Not because I believe everything will suddenly fall into place.

    But because there is still light in this world. Light that is beautiful, redemptive, and multi-faceted, and I want to keep searching for it.

    Even in the rain.

    Even in the in-between.

    Even in me.

  • How Grieving a Dream’s Loss Built Hope for a New Life

    How Grieving a Dream’s Loss Built Hope for a New Life

    “Our painful experiences aren’t a liability—they’re a gift. They give us perspective and meaning, an opportunity to find our unique purpose and our strength.” –Dr. Edith Eger, The Choice: Embrace the Possible

    The loss of an unrealized dream sent me spiraling down, down into the darkness. A darkness filled with a despair and hopelessness that I had not known before.

    It was safer and more comfortable for me to attribute all my grief to losing a loving mother-in-law suddenly in the beginning of 2023. Her abrupt absence not only in my life but also in my husband’s and daughter’s lives was incredibly hard.

    Though the loss opened the portal of grief, there was more I hid. When I was still in a tender place, intangible losses and a health scare came.

    The loss that completely broke my heart was when my husband and I made the joint decision to end our dream of trying to have a second child. A shared dream since early on in our relationship and a dream of mine since long before.

    Neither of us could have anticipated my unexplained infertility diagnosis and the four-year-long, beautiful, broken, and growth-filled road to parenthood. Throughout the entire journey, I still held onto hope that we would one day have two children.

    The visceral, raw grief that came after we made the decision shocked me. When we had first honestly discussed this idea, I felt excited to build our life as a family of three. I deeply knew our family was complete.

    But once we made the decision, grief I did not want or know how to feel consumed me. Grief for all that had been lost. For all that wouldn’t come into being in the future. Invisible to the outside world.

    At first, my negative, self-critical talk took over, giving me a hard time for what I was going through. Full of self-judgment, regret, anger, and shame. Overcome with grief, I had forgotten I didn’t have to believe that voice and could be kinder to myself.

    Mornings were the toughest. Each day, I would wake up with the weight of unshed tears under my eyes. Though I had slept well, my whole body was heavy and weary. My mind felt foggy. I’d forget small things, which wasn’t like me. Seemingly simple tasks took so much energy.

    After dropping off my daughter at preschool, I would sit in my living room alone. I had no motivation to do anything. If I didn’t have a work meeting to prepare for or immediate deliverables to complete, I’d distract myself on my phone, numbing. This unhealthy morning cycle would continue for a while.

    Once I started working, I would get in a rhythm and focus on the projects in front of me, which I did enjoy.

    My body and psyche knew what had happened was significant. It would take time for my rational mind to catch up. I would need to allow myself to have my full experience of grief.

    An Expanded View of Grief

    Developing an expanded view of grief and processing my experience with a grief therapist began to help.

    One of the first concepts I learned is that there are different types of grief. Through Atlas of the Heart, a book by research professor, author, and podcaster Brené Brown, I understood I was dealing with both acute and disenfranchised grief.

    Acute grief is the intense grief that occurs during the initial period after a loss. I was not familiar with disenfranchised grief.

    Brown writes, “Disenfranchised grief is a less-studied form of grief: grief that ‘is not openly acknowledged or publicly supported through mourning practices or rituals because the experience is not valued or counted [by others] as a loss.’ The grief can also be invisible or hard to see by others.”

    My grief not only felt invisible to the outside, but also, I hadn’t valued the end of an unfulfilled dream as a loss at first.

    A second concept was to focus on integrating grief into my life. My therapist shared that it’s not about moving on after experiencing a loss; it’s about moving forward, integrating our losses with how we live our lives.

    A third concept came from psychologist and Holocaust survivor Dr. Edith Eger’s book The Choice: Embrace the Possible. Though she had been through unimaginable suffering, she gave a message of hope and healing.

    She shared, “When we grieve, it’s not just over what happened—we grieve for what didn’t happen… You can’t change what happened; you can’t change what you did or what was done to you. But you can choose how you live now.” We could choose freedom, joy, and love over suffering.

    What Helped Me Cope and Rebuild

    I began to shift my experience from resistance to instead supporting myself during this period of grief. I started to accept that simply getting through my day was enough. These approaches can be beneficial to anyone experiencing grief, especially if it feels invisible.

    1. Support myself and be supported

    Once I remembered that I could support myself, my entire grief experience became more manageable. I already had tools to be kind and compassionate to myself. It was a matter of intentionally using them.

    I began a practice of noticing and bringing in. Noticing my self-critical voice and, instead of getting caught up in it, bringing in self-compassion and kindness. I would say statements to myself like: It’s okay to feel this way. This is really hard. May I be kind to myself. Sometimes, I visualized wrapping myself in love.

    I began to turn toward myself with kindness and love. To be there for myself. To process my experience through writing.

    I opened up in close relationships and with my therapist, where I did feel listened to and accepted to share my struggles.

    2. Feel my difficult feelings and bring in the light

    One day, when I was meditating, I noticed what was happening in my body. I opened to the intense sensations. Before I knew it, I’d gone through a shorter version of Tara Brach’s RAIN practice. This had been a fundamental practice of mine when dealing with infertility, but I likely hadn’t done the full practice in years. The practice remembered me.

    This framework means:

    • Recognize what is happening.
    • Allow the experience to be there just as it is.
    • Investigate with interest and care.
    • Nurture with self-compassion.

    Once the exercise came back to my consciousness, I spent time each morning feeling my painful feelings.

    One morning, at the end of the RAIN practice, I intuitively brought in light and love. Another time, I started saying a lovingkindness meditation to myself. I began to incorporate bringing in aspects of positivity after feeling my difficult feelings.

    3. Go on awe walks

    My grief was the heaviest in the darkness of the winter in Colorado. Toward the beginning of spring, still overcome with grief, I started going on awe walks. Awe walks, a term from Dacher Keltner, are walks where you shift your attention outward. Your task is to encounter something that amazes and transcends. Every day, I looked for new signs of spring at the trail near my house.

    I would have missed most of the early signs if I hadn’t been seeking them: flower buds, tiny green leaves forming on branches, the first yellow wildflower blooms that peeked out from behind tangled branches. Then one day, I looked up and saw a canopy of green covering the trees overlooking the trail. Spring had fully arrived.

    I discovered that growth starts small; it’s barely noticeable at first. Pay attention to changes happening, to what’s building slowly. It’s the foundation for what wants to come forth. And the bigger message is that winter comes first; only after going through winter is spring possible.

    4. Embrace fallow time

    Toward the end of the spring, I was getting tired of the heaviness of continued grief. I journaled frantically that I wanted a project. Something new to give my attention to. I longed to experience the energy of summer.

    Grief still had more to teach me, though. The next day, my deepest wisdom instead shared with me to embrace “fallow time.” The term is from farming. Allowing the land to lie fallow is a technique where nothing is planted for a period of time. The goal is for the land to rest and regenerate.

    Fallow time was asking me to continue to honor the nothingness where dreams once were. To rest in the space before building the next beginning.

    I opened to allowing the vastness of where there once was something linger without trying to rush to the next thing.

    I discovered that this clearing is where the potential for what’s next would emerge.

    5. Reconnect with hope

    I had attached so much hope to the outcome of having two children. While hope for a realistic outcome is important and kept me going, I found out its limitations when I let go of the dream.

    But hope is so much vaster than that.

    One day, I unexpectedly felt the energy of expansive hope. Called transcendent hope, it is broad hopefulness that something good can happen. This form of hope reignited a light deep within me.

    Hope to build the beautiful life in front of me that I had once longed for, honoring the dreams, losses and imperfectness.

    6. Rebuild possibilities and dream again

    Grieving and dreaming felt at odds with each other initially. It turns out, grief would create an opening and space for what wanted to emerge next. Grief was my winter season, my fallow time. It was like planting flower seeds in the fall that won’t bloom until the next spring.

    I would first need to accept the past and close this chapter of my life. Then, I could connect with the potential of dreaming again.

    The dreams I most wanted to nurture in 2023 were coaching and writing. In the first half of the year, the dreams moved ever so slowly or seemingly not at all.

    During this time, I was taking the Playing Big Facilitator’s Training coaching program but had no energy or motivation to start building coaching as I intended.

    I also kept trying to write a personal essay about aspects of my infertility journey but felt blocked. I started but kept getting stuck. So instead, I journaled, with writing prompts such as a few things I don’t know how to write about.

    Something profoundly shifted within me in September 2023. I became drawn to rebuilding what could be possible in my life.

    The personal essay I had attempted to write for months flowed. A story about choosing to focus on personal growth and well-being amid the challenges of burnout and infertility. The final piece would later be published in Tiny Buddha in 2024: How I Found the Good in the Difficult.

    As Dr. Egar shared in her book, it was about an experience where I had choice.

    September was also the month I started a positive psychology coaching certification program. One reason I selected this coaching program is because positive psychology and mindfulness had been so impactful to me while facing infertility and burnout. Simultaneously, I began offering career, life, and well-being coaching.

    I had to go all the way through the intensity of the grief to understand Dr. Egar’s wisdom: “Our painful experiences aren’t a liability—they’re a gift. They give us perspective and meaning, an opportunity to find our unique purpose and our strength.”

    I received so many gifts when facing infertility and burnout. Transforming my relationship with myself and my life was the most wondrous. This painful time period was the gateway, on so many levels, for me to connect with a greater sense of meaning and overall well-being. To shift to work that felt more fulfilling. To rediscover my creative self-expression, especially writing, which surprisingly impacted my personal life and work. To uncover a dream to coach others in creating change that matters to them.

    My experience in a grief cocoon profoundly changed me. On the other side, I have felt more at home in myself. More at peace with my past challenges. I have sensed wholeness. With a deeper appreciation of integrating it all—the grief, pain, gifts, gratitude, and joy. I am choosing to move forward with renewed hope for fully living my life and honoring my dreams.

  • How My Dog Became an Unexpected Source of Healing

    How My Dog Became an Unexpected Source of Healing

    “The place of true healing is a fierce place. It’s a giant place. It’s a place of monstrous beauty and endless dark and glimmering light. And you have to work really, really, really hard to get there, but you can do it.” ~Cheryl Strayed

    My memories of my sister are much hazier than they used to be—somehow less crisp and colorful than before. But time has a way of doing that. Images of her that used to show up in bold, bright colors in my mind’s eye have slowly faded to black and white, with various shades of gray and silver popping in from time to time, almost as if to keep me on my toes and keep her memory alive.

    I can still remember her last days, the light slowly dimming from her eyes as she lay bound to her bed, no longer able to move or eat on her own, with feeding tubes in her nose and various devices surrounding her for those inevitable—and fear-gripped moments when she needed help breathing.

    Like the rest of my family, I would take my turn staying in her room, checking on her to make sure she was still breathing. It was always the same routine. With anxiety creeping into my chest, I would place one hand on her belly to make sure it was still rising and falling while leaning in close to her nose, listening for the soft sound of her breath. A sigh of relief would pass through me every time I heard her gentle exhale.

    The night she passed, I had just finished performing that very ritual, rising to leave only once I felt the repeated slow, steady rise and fall of her belly and the soft whisper of her strained breath on my face. I can still remember walking back into the family room and gratefully announcing, ”She’s okay.”

    Maybe it was mother’s instinct, but only moments later my mother rushed back into my sister’s room. Her sense of urgency took me by surprise since I had just left the room and everything had been fine. I assumed she didn’t think I could be trusted and needed to see for herself.

    It wasn’t long before I heard the sound of my mother’s screams through the thin walls of our small duplex. I knew right away what it meant—my sister had stopped breathing.

    For a long time afterward, I blamed myself for not having been in the room when she took her last breath, and for leaving her alone in those last few seconds. If I had just stayed another minute, I could have been with her. Instead, I had left the room right as she had been getting ready to leave the world.

    The months that followed were a blur of pain, confusion, and disbelief as I tried to make sense of a world without her in it. At ten years old, I was too young to understand how much my parents were hurting or how deeply my sister’s death affected them. I mistakenly thought their withdrawal and anger were because of something I had done. Maybe I was the one who had messed up—missed the signs that could have saved her night. Or maybe I was the one who they wished had died instead.

    Those thoughts became the foundation for years of self-punishment after my sister’s death. I found myself struggling with feelings of self-hatred and inadequacy, which often showed up as eating disorders, self-harm, and feelings of unworthiness.

    Survivor’s guilt and the belief that I was the “bad” daughter who didn’t deserve to live only added more shame and self-doubt that I couldn’t shake off. But as I got older, I learned to shut the pain—and the memories—out.

    Soon, I stopped thinking about that night altogether. I convinced myself that I had moved past it, telling myself that time really does “heal all wounds.” I couldn’t have been more wrong.

    It would take me decades to understand that time hadn’t actually healed anything. I had just pushed the memories so far down that they became buried under layers of guilt, shame, and unresolved grief, waiting to resurface when I was ready to face them.

    The truth is, time doesn’t heal all wounds unless we do the work to heal them ourselves.

    My own healing came in an unexpected way after years of trying to prove my worthiness through constant people-pleasing, overworking, over-committing, and deliberately taking on more challenging projects and activities, both personally and professionally, just to prove that I mattered and was deserving of my life. I still hadn’t forgiven myself for being the one that lived when a soul as beautiful, bright, and loving as my sister hadn’t.

    I finally realize now that it wasn’t even the rest of the world I was trying to prove my worth to—it was myself. And if it hadn’t been for my dog Taz, I’m not sure if I would have ever come to that realization.

    When I first rescued him, I was unknowingly bringing Taz into my life as yet another way of trying to prove I mattered. Having been severely abused and fresh off a major back surgery, he could barely walk when I first took him in.

    His (understandable) anxiety had created severely destructive—and, at least initially—fear- and pain-based behavior that made him particularly challenging. I can still remember countless friends saying to me, “You know you can’t do this. What are you trying to prove? He’s too much for you.” But my self-punishment game was strong, and their words only pushed me to try harder.

    For his entire first year with me, I would carry him around in his special harness like a suitcase, setting him down for short spurts so he could get the feeling of putting weight on his legs and paws and build enough strength to start walking.

    In the beginning, he couldn’t understand that he had to lift his paws and set them down again to walk, so he would drag them instead, scraping his paws until they were raw and bloody within seconds and prompting me to pick him right back up and carry him again. (I can only imagine what others thought when they saw my 5’2 frame carrying a seventy-pound pitbull around like a duffel bag!)

    That drill went on for months. Inside the house, I would bring him into the carpeted rooms and teach him how to place his paws—down on all fours and crawling along the floor with him as my other dog, Hope, did her part and pranced around showing him how she did it. Slowly, he started to understand. And even more slowly, he started to walk.

    A year later, he was running, which turned into sprinting a few months after that. Another three years after that, he was (cautiously) able to go up and down stairs. And seven years after he came to me, just when it seemed that he was at his strongest yet, he was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer.

    “He has hemangiosarcoma. The tumor is on his heart, and every pump is spreading it throughout his body. There’s nothing we can do. He has about ten days before his heart will stop pumping.”

    What had started as an emergency visit for his stomach issues had turned into a death knell for Taz.

    The thought of this being the end of his story, when he had already been through so much and finally made it to the other side, seemed unfathomable. In some ways, it was the biggest challenge I had faced yet, and I was determined to save him.

    I didn’t sleep the night of his diagnosis. Or most of the nights after that. Instead, I found myself waking up almost every hour, gazing at him sleeping by my side, tears gathering in my eyes, and wondering how I could save him—and what else I needed to sacrifice to keep him by my side.

    I initially failed to grasp that his illness was the beginning of my healing. And the darkness that would ensue was actually the beginning of the light that would start pouring into my childhood wounds.

    As the pain eclipsed me in those dark, late-night moments, I didn’t even realize what I was doing at first. What started as just trying to soak in every moment with him had triggered the very ritual I had performed for so long as a child. Only this time, it wasn’t my sister I was watching over—it was Taz.

    Every time I woke up and gazed at him throughout the night, I would place my hand on his belly to make sure it was still rising and falling and lean in close to see if I could hear him breathing.

    Just like that, I had brought myself right back into the unresolved trauma loop that I had buried and ignored so long ago. When the realization hit me, I immediately felt transported back to that night decades ago—to that last moment with her, the last time my hand had been on her belly.

    I understood then that I had never truly healed—I had only learned to suppress it. I also realized that the shame, blame, and guilt I had carried for so long had never really left me and were still huge parts of who I was and had been for decades after she died.

    All the unshed tears, anger, and grief that I had never processed came pouring out. I wept for hours. And every time I thought I was out of tears, a new stream would surface.

    That ritual lasted every night for thirty-four days. Courageous as ever, Taz had outlived the ten days he was given, and on the thirty-fourth day, my Tazzie Bear left me. Only this time I was in the room.

    Somehow, we both knew the time had come, and as he lay his head in my lap one last time, gazing lovingly one more time into my eyes and proceeded to take his last breath, I felt his soul leave his body. And somehow, an unexpected sense of peace seemed to have entered mine.

    That beautiful, amazing soul of his had taken my pain with him, and in the process, he had somehow broken the trauma loop I had unknowingly been caught in all those years.

    His death had helped me heal years of pain I didn’t even know I was carrying. As I sat there, holding him in his final moments, I realized that his presence had been the biggest gift I had ever received.

    For animal lovers, this next sentence will make perfect sense: Taz had been far more than my pet; he had come to me as a lifeline, guiding me into my next chapter of healing and self-discovery.

    Because of him, I had officially started a new chapter of my life. One that was free from the debilitating shame, guilt, and pain I had carried for so long. And in that quiet moment, I understood that healing isn’t linear—it’s a journey, often led by the most unexpected teachers.

    And I will forever be grateful that I was lucky enough to have him as one of my teachers.

  • Grief Has No Rules: Love, Loss, and Letting Go

    Grief Has No Rules: Love, Loss, and Letting Go

    “Grief never ends … But it changes. It’s a passage, not a place to stay. Grief is not a sign of weakness, nor a lack of faith. It is the price of love.” ~Unknown

    “Thank you for letting me know.” The moment I hung up the phone, the tears came. I was confused and caught off guard. Why was I crying over the death of my ex-husband?

    We’d separated six years ago. I had a new partner and hadn’t thought much about him in over three years. So why did his death hit me so hard?

    Big Girls Don’t Cry

    Growing up in Ireland, emotions weren’t something we talked about. Tears were for small children, not grown women. When I was upset, I’d hear the same phrase, “Big girls don’t cry.” It wasn’t meant to hurt me, but it stayed with me.

    I learned to swallow my feelings. Anger, sadness, fear—those were things you kept private. I thought strength meant holding it all in. But as I grew older, that kind of strength felt heavy.

    When my ex-husband died, all of it came rushing back. The sadness, the confusion, the guilt. And then the shame. Why couldn’t I just be stronger? Why couldn’t I pull myself together like I was supposed to?

    Grief and Guilt Collide

    I felt like I was failing. Crying didn’t just feel wrong—it felt like a betrayal. A betrayal of my upbringing, of the image I had of myself, and even of my current relationship. I couldn’t stop thinking: What if my partner saw me like this? Would he understand? Would he think I still loved my ex?

    The guilt weighed on me. But so did the fear. I wanted to go to the funeral, but I was terrified. What would his family think if I showed up? Would they see my tears and think I didn’t deserve to grieve? Would they think I was pretending?

    I wanted to hide. I wanted to run away from the emotions I wasn’t supposed to have. But this time, something inside me told me to stay.

    Reaching Out for Support

    I couldn’t carry it alone anymore. The grief, the guilt, the fear—it was all too much. For the first time in my life, I did something I’d always avoided. I reached out.

    I called my mum.

    At first, I hesitated. My instinct was to keep it together, to pretend I was fine. But the moment she picked up, the words spilled out. I told her everything. How lost I felt. How ashamed I was for crying. How afraid I was of what people would think if they saw me like this.

    She didn’t say much at first. She just listened.

    The Power of One Simple Truth

    Then, when I finally stopped talking, she said something simple. “It’s okay to feel this, you know. You loved him once. That doesn’t just go away.”

    Her words broke something open in me. I cried harder than I had in years, but for the first time, I didn’t feel alone in it. She stayed on the phone while I let it all out. She didn’t try to fix it or tell me to stop. She just stayed.

    That moment was a turning point. I started to see that grief wasn’t something to fight against or hide from. It was something I had to let myself feel. And asking for support didn’t make me weak. If anything, it gave me strength.

    Leaning on my mum helped me find my footing. I wasn’t over the loss—not even close—but I felt less trapped by it. For the first time, I could breathe again.

    Facing My Fears at The Funeral

    I arrived early at the church with my friend, my stomach in knots. The air felt heavy, like it knew I didn’t belong here—or at least, that’s what my mind kept telling me.

    A car pulled in beside us, and my heart sank. It was his sister. Without thinking, I slumped down in the seat, silently pleading for the ground to swallow me whole. What am I doing here? I wasn’t sure I could face their grief. I wasn’t sure I could face my own.

    But I’d come this far, and I couldn’t back out now.

    Finding Unexpected Comfort

    Dragging my feet, I walked toward the church door. Each step felt heavier than the last. I caught a glimpse of his brother standing near the entrance, and panic bubbled up in my chest. I almost turned and ran.

    My friend, sensing my hesitation, gently squeezed my elbow. It was a small gesture, but it steadied me. I kept walking.

    Then I saw her—his sister—standing at the church door. Her eyes locked with mine. There was no way out now. I braced myself, expecting a cold stare, a sharp word, maybe even outright anger.

    Instead, she stepped forward. And then, before I could react, she wrapped her arms around me. The hug was warm and full of love. It broke down every wall I’d built up in my mind.

    Finding Solace in Shared Memories

    Inside, the service was simple and poignant. The priest spoke softly, and memories of our life together floated through my mind—some good, some hard, all real. As the coffin was carried out of the church, I felt the tears welling up again.

    My friend placed an arm around my waist and gave me a little squeeze. For a moment, I considered pulling away, trying to summon that old stiff upper lip. Pretending I was fine. But I didn’t. I let the tears fall.

    After the service, the family invited me for a drink. It was an Irish funeral, after all. I hesitated, unsure if I belonged in their circle of mourning, but their warmth melted my fear. As we shared stories about him—some that made us laugh, others that brought tears to our eyes—I realized something profound. We had all loved this man in our own ways, and in that moment, our shared grief united us.

    Carrying the Sadness, Embracing the Joy

    Leaving the funeral, I felt a strange mix of emotions. The heaviness of loss was still there, but so was something else—a sense of lightness, even relief.

    The family’s kindness had reminded me of something I’d forgotten in my guilt and fear. I wasn’t just grieving a person; I was grieving a chapter of my life. My ex and I had shared 18 years together. Those years mattered. They shaped me into who I am today.

    A Beautiful Realization About Love

    At first, I struggled to reconcile those feelings with the love I have for my current partner. I worried that my grief might hurt him or make him feel less important. But over time, I realized something beautiful: love isn’t a competition. There’s space for both past and present love in my heart.

    I still feel sad when I think about my ex. Some days, it sneaks up on me—a song he used to love, a random memory, or even a quiet moment when the world feels still. But I’ve learned that sadness doesn’t mean I’m stuck or broken. It’s just a part of healing, a reminder of the love we shared and the lessons we learned together.

    Lessons Learned Through Grief

    • Grief Has No Rules: It’s okay to mourn someone even if your relationship wasn’t perfect or ended long ago. Grief is deeply personal and unpredictable.
    • Emotions Are Strength, Not Weakness: Feeling your emotions doesn’t make you weak—it makes you human. Suppressing them only makes the weight heavier.
    • Ask for Support: You don’t have to carry grief alone. Lean on those who care for you and let them help lighten your burden.
    • Grief and Growth Can Coexist: Mourning someone is also an opportunity to reflect on what that relationship taught you and how it shaped you.
    • Healing Takes Time: There’s no timeline for healing. Be patient and gentle with yourself as you navigate the journey.

    Grief isn’t something we “get over.” It’s something we carry with us, but over time, it becomes lighter. We make space for it, and in doing so, we make space for love, connection, and joy again.

    If you’ve experienced grief, know that you’re not alone. Share your story in the comments below or reach out to someone who can support you. Sometimes, simply being heard can be the first step toward healing.

  • Two Reasons We Sabotage Our Joy and Success and How to Stop

    Two Reasons We Sabotage Our Joy and Success and How to Stop

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

    Have you ever held yourself back from going after what you truly want, or from enjoying what you have, because of a lingering fear that it might be taken away from you, or because you felt guilty for having more than others?

    For years, I found myself unintentionally sabotaging moments of pure joy and personal success without being able to embrace them fully.

    For example, when my son was born, a rush of panic would flood me every time I even imagined the possibility of losing him, and I felt guilty even having a family knowing that my friend was struggling with infertility due to her health issues.

    Also, the money that flowed into my life always seemed to vanish as if I was in a rush to get rid of it, feeling torn between my gratitude for what I’d earned and the unease of knowing that others were barely getting by.

    No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t shake the constant sense of dread that lingered. One moment, I’d feel exhilarated and at peace, only to be hit with a wave of fear and guilt, as if my mind was plagued by relentless, unsettling static.

    It felt like an endless cycle of scarcity. A pattern of having and sabotaging. But it was something deeper that made me question my beliefs of my own worthiness.

    It took years of reading, researching, and learning to realize that this feeling wasn’t just a behavior—it was a belief that traced back to my childhood.

    I grew up in a dynamic, happy family that traveled often, cared for me, and always made me feel safe and loved. But when the war came and everything changed in an instant, my life of safety and my carefree days turned into a desperate fight for survival.

    That abrupt shift of losing freedom and the life I had before that moment left a deep mark on my young mind. It taught me that nothing is guaranteed and that having too much joy was dangerous and it could vanish in a flash.

    Later on, this belief seeped into every corner of my adult life. When I built a vibrant career, guilt kept creeping in because I knew there were others who were struggling. Even in moments of personal growth and healing, the weight of this belief made me feel as if I was betraying all the suffering and destruction I had witnessed as a child.

    It was exhausting, and for the longest time, I had no idea why I felt this way. But holding onto this belief didn’t help anyone. It certainly didn’t help me. And especially not those still fighting for survival. It kept me small and limited, trapped in a cycle of guilt and fear.

    While this mindset once served as a form of protection, I had to accept that loss is an inevitable part of life—and that fearing it only kept me from truly living.

    As I started my healing journey and helped other souls find their path to healing, I began learning about the subconscious mind and how early childhood experiences, cultural conditioning, and unresolved emotions shape us.

    When I allowed myself to acknowledge the origin of this belief without judgment, I knew I had started the healing process. I gave myself permission to grieve for the child I was and for everything I had missed experiencing as a twelve-year-old girl.

    Then I started working on how I see the world and how I, just like everyone else, am responsible for the energy I send out into the world. I started to see my joy, success, happiness, and achievements as gifts and opportunities, not things I had stolen from others.

    I reframed my story and embraced an affirmation that I still use nowadays—The more I thrive, the more I can give back. This whole new perspective shifted my energy from guilt to gratitude and inspired action.

    I changed my inner narrative through energy healing and the deep soul alignment my being was craving. I am worthy of happiness, just like everyone else, and I deserve abundance in every aspect of my life.

    Over time, these words became my truth, which I now believe deep in my core.

    It’s no surprise that, of all the emotions I worked on during the process, guilt was the hardest one to let go, because I couldn’t give up thinking and feeling what other people who were going through the same struggles felt. But when I decided to channel my abundance into acts of service, I realized I could help others without sacrificing my own joy.

    Limiting beliefs can be tricky because you may not even realize you have them. And even if you’re aware of some, they might not be the ones you actually need to work on. The root cause isn’t always easy to spot, but there are steps you can take to get there.

    1. Start by identifying areas of your life where you face challenges.

    Write down the belief you feel is contributing to your struggles. Putting it all in writing can give you the clarity you need to move forward.

    2. Explore the origin of this belief.

    Did you hear it from someone? Was it an event in your life that started it? Understanding where this belief might have started can help you detach from it.

    3. Challenge limiting beliefs with empowering truths.

    For example, you could replace “I’m not worthy of success because others are struggling” with “My success empowers others. By thriving, I create more opportunities to help and inspire.”

    Find examples from your own life when this was true and write them down. As you shift your perspective, you’ll begin to see things in a new light—one that is healthier and more uplifting.

    While affirmations can be a powerful tool, please note that they may not be sufficient if you’re dealing with deep-rooted patterns of fear, doubt, or trauma. Simply repeating the words may not be enough if you struggle to truly believe them.

    To more effectively heal these limiting beliefs and rewire the brain, a more holistic approach is often needed—one that integrates mind, body, and energy healing. This can include guided meditation to access subconscious patterns, breathwork to release stored emotions, somatic practices to reconnect with the body, and inner child work to address the root cause of past wounds.

    By combining these methods, you allow healing to happen on multiple levels, creating deeper and lasting transformation.

    4. Create a daily practice where you meditate and visualize yourself thriving to reinforce your new narrative.

    Meditation helps quiet the mind and clear energetic blockages, while visualization allows you to embody the feelings of your new reality.

    To fully integrate this shift, take aligned action each day that supports your growth. Set boundaries by saying no to commitments and situations that no longer serve you, speak your truth by expressing your needs, and engage in new experiences by exploring new places. Celebrate small wins by acknowledging and appreciating every step you take toward becoming the person you are meant to be.

    It might also help to find a guide or a coach who can help you navigate the deeper layers of limiting beliefs. You might realize that an outside perspective is what you need to break free.

    —

    If you find it hard to let go of your conditioning, be patient with yourself. It’s not easy to get out of your own way, even when your soul is feeling a strong pull and an immense desire to break free and to awaken to a life filled with meaning, light, and purpose.

    But if you keep at it, you can let go of the limiting beliefs that hold you back. Then, when you believe that you are worthy of receiving and fully experiencing all of life’s blessings, you’ll be able to embrace each gift with gratitude while you have it, knowing that both gain and loss are natural parts of our journey.

    And remember, embracing joy and success is also a gift to everyone around us. When we honor our worth and embrace our light, we align with a higher vibration that radiates into the world.

  • The Growth That Happens When You’re in Between Chapters

    The Growth That Happens When You’re in Between Chapters

    “The most powerful thing you can do right now is be patient while things are unfolding for you.” ~Idil Ahmed

    When one door closes, another one opens, or so the saying goes. From experience, I know that the new door doesn’t always open right away. Often you spend some time in the hallway, the state in between what has been and what will be.

    About two years ago I decided to quit my job. While I was in the process of making big decisions, I decided to give up my apartment and go abroad for a period. I didn’t have a super thought-out new plan, but I just felt like it was time to move on.

    When my loved ones expressed their doubts about my plans, I waved them away, certain I would figure it out. And to be honest, I kind of expected the new plan to just happen to me as soon as I made the decision.

    For most of my life, the phases between jobs, relationships, and living spaces followed each other neatly. I fully expected this time to be no different.

    You can imagine my surprise when this time the new phase didn’t start immediately. Answers, opportunities, and big synchronicities didn’t just fall at my feet. What I got instead was a lot of confusion and self-doubt.

    In the middle of all this, my long-term relationship ended, which added another element of uncertainty to my life. I was in the hallway, and it felt like I was waiting for the door to appear.

    One way or another, most of us spend time in the hallway during our lifetime. The hallway is that phase between two chapters of life when nothing seems to happen. This in-between phase can take many shapes and forms.

    Sometimes you end up there by choice, like when you take a sabbatical or choose to spend some time focused on yourself. Other times the decision is made for you: perhaps your physical or mental health forces you to take a pause. Maybe you are let go from your job, your business closes, or your partner chooses to end your relationship.

    There is also the space between where we think of something we want to bring into our lives—anything from a business to parenthood—and where it comes into fruition. That period can also feel like an in-between phase, where we are not yet where we want to be, but we are very focused on getting there.

    We want to be there and forget to enjoy that we are now here. Rather than enjoying the journey and all the little steps along the way, we focus on where we feel like we should be.

    Most of us don’t want to spend time in the in-between. It can be a highly uncomfortable time, as there is a lot of uncertainty involved.

    It can feel like being stranded in the middle of the desert: Everything looks the same, and nothing orients us in any direction. We don’t know how long the period will be or where we will go next. It can make us doubt everything we thought we knew and believed in, and that can be unsettling.

    There are different strategies to take in the in-between phase. I know, because I have tried all of them, with mixed results.

    You may choose to frantically knock on all doors until one of them opens. The problem with this strategy is that, while understandable, this is a fear-based approach. Rather than deciding from a deep sense of trust in yourself and life, you become attached to the door that opens.

    There’s also the option of lying on the floor and waiting for the door to present itself. While that works at times, it is not the most empowering strategy. It is also a slippery slope into a bit of a victim mentality when things take longer than you expect.

    And then there’s the option to see this period as an opportunity. A chance to get to know yourself better and become familiar with your own fears and doubts, hopes, and longings. If you let it, this phase can bring you closer to yourself and allow you to move forward in a more authentic, aligned way.

    It took me a little longer than I care to admit to move from strategy one and two into the third, but when I finally did, these were some of the lessons I learned.

    1. When you lose something that feels essential to your self-worth, you learn who you are without that part.

    Most of us feel quite attached to certain parts of our identity, whether it is our job, relationship, or an idea we have about ourselves. The more we attach our self-worth to a door that has been closed, the more uncomfortable this phase will feel. And the more we probably need this time.

    The in-between phase gives you a chance to see who you are without all the things you thought you were. In that process, you are invited to recognize that your worth is so much more than those identities.

    I had always seen myself as someone who followed her intuition and was courageous enough to follow her own path. In my relationships, I had taken on the role of encouraging others to do the same. When I felt neither certain nor courageous, I learned that I was still a caring friend and family member. Opening up about my feelings made other people feel safe about sharing their deeper feelings as well.

    No one is meant to take on one role; we are all multifaceted beings, and all of our parts are valuable.

    2. A period of uncertainty gives you the chance to become more resilient to fear.

    At times, your biggest fears come true in this in-between phase. And that is truly frightening. But it’s also a great opportunity. When what you deeply fear is happening, you have a chance to integrate that fear so that you are no longer so controlled by it in your day-to-day life.

    It gives you a chance to process it rather than just simply hoping it never happens. And with that, it can give you great freedom. If this happens, and you can handle it, then perhaps you are capable of more than you thought.

    When I was in limbo, I realized I had this deep fear that my life wouldn’t really go anywhere, and that I would never be able to live up to my potential. It made me feel deeply afraid of failure and rejection, as I felt that these experiences would confirm my core fear.

    In the process of creating a new path, I faced my share of failure and rejection. Initially, the feelings that came up would overwhelm me, and I would want to give up trying. But gradually, as I learned to process these feelings, I found a deeper sense of safety within.

    As uncomfortable emotions come up, learn to feel them in your body. Become familiar with the sensations and just breathe. Implement tools to calm your nervous system—like deep breathing or listening to calming music—so that you can regulate yourself back to safety.

    The more comfortable you become with uncomfortable emotions, the more resilient you become to them. You then no longer have to avoid the things you fear, which could potentially bring you great happiness.

    3. An in-between period is a chance to move forward in a different way.

    There is usually a paved path in relationships, career paths, and life in general, with a logical next step to take. So often in life we take that next logical step, rather than reflect on whether that aligns with our deepest longings.

    It is challenging to go off that paved path and into the wilderness, but it is greatly rewarding as well. An in-between period forces you to make a conscious choice: Do you want to keep going as you did before, or are there changes you would like to make moving forward?

    As you learn to find safety in the uncertainty and let go of your attachments to things that weren’t quite right for you, you open space to move forward differently. With a newfound trust in your resilience and a deeper knowledge of yourself, it becomes much easier to make decisions that are deeply aligned with you.

    4. Change is often gradual and can only be seen clearly in hindsight.

    There are moments that propel you into a new stage of life from one moment to the next. But often, there is not one big earth-shattering moment that changes everything. The hit-by-lightning breakthrough moment where you suddenly know exactly what to do does not always come.

    Rather, change is often a gradual process that you can only fully see when you look back on it. It is a combination of lots of little steps and lessons and a gradual integration of the emotions that the change brings up. When you fully embrace that, it is powerful.

    It means that you don’t have to dig for answers or figure everything out at once but learn to trust that the things you do every day matter. Life has natural rhythms and seasons, just like nature does. Some seasons are big and exciting, while others are slower paced.

    Looking back now, I can see that I learned to gradually replace my fear-based choices with options that felt more aligned. It started with seemingly small things, like my morning routine and the recipes I cooked, and evolved into starting my own business and deciding to move closer to the ocean. In the stillness, I learned to sit with my feelings and take tiny steps towards sustainable change.

    And so perhaps, as we move toward the door that will inevitably show up at some point, we notice that the hallway isn’t just a space between the two doors. It is a room all by itself, a necessary and fruitful phase of life. We learn that we are never in-between, as we are always growing, evolving, and simply living.

  • That Ache in Your Heart When You Miss Someone

    That Ache in Your Heart When You Miss Someone

  • How I’ve Become My Own Source of Love and Reassurance

    How I’ve Become My Own Source of Love and Reassurance

    “Create a safe space within yourself that no one will ever find, somewhere the madness of this world can never touch.” ~Christy Ann Martine

    Losing my grandmother was like losing the one person who had always been my anchor. She was my steady rock, my quiet cheerleader, and the only person who truly made me feel that I was perfectly fine, just as I was. I never had to pretend around her or hide my mistakes or messiness.

    She had this way of being present and calm, even when life around us wasn’t, and that gave me a sense of security that, looking back, I had leaned on more than I ever realized.

    Her gentle spirit taught me what unconditional love looked and felt like, and without fully realizing it, I relied on her presence to keep me grounded and to make sense of things when everything else felt uncertain.

    In my eulogy to her at her funeral, I called her “The Mary Poppins of Grandmas, practically perfect in every way.” And she was perfect in my eyes; she always will be.

    When she passed, I felt an incredible emptiness; upon receiving the news, I fell to the floor. I was alone, I couldn’t muster up the strength to lift myself from the floor, and I was crying so hard I started choking. I crawled to the bathroom, thinking I was going to throw up. I was leaning up against the bathtub, sobbing, when a strange sense of peace came over me.

    I started to calm down, and the song “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” popped into my head, creating an earworm repeatedly playing the song. I got up from the bathroom floor, grabbed my phone, and posted a video of the song on my social media profile. I found out later that day that that song was my grandma’s favorite.

    It felt like I’d lost not just her but a part of myself—something I had unknowingly depended on for so long. Her love was a mirror that allowed me to see my worth; I wasn’t sure how to recognize it without her. The grief of her loss was profound, but underneath that grief, I knew something else was stirring. I needed to find the consistency she had provided, but this time, it had to come from within.

    My journey toward healing began with the understanding that if I wanted to feel whole, I had to become that steady, loving presence for myself.

    For so long, I had looked to others for validation, believing that if I gave enough, worked hard, and stayed flexible, I’d finally receive the desperately desired acceptance. But when she was gone, something clicked—I realized no one else could fill that space in my life. It was up to me to find that security within.

    In the beginning, it felt like too much to take on. I faced layers of emotions and beliefs that had been there for as long as I could remember, and the thought of working through all of it was intimidating.

    I saw how often I had tied my sense of worth to what I could offer others, how I felt I needed to prove myself through giving, and how I had relied on external reassurance instead of my inner validation. I had learned to take on the role of the fixer, the supporter, and the giver, often without realizing that I had neglected to support and care for myself.

    With time, I began to understand that, like my grandmother, I needed to cultivate a constant, gentle presence within me that I could turn to, no matter what. I needed to become my safe place, someone I could rely on for kindness and encouragement.

    One of the first steps was creating rituals that mirrored the warmth and steadiness she had always provided me. I would sit quietly each morning, meditating on gratitude and journaling about my worth before I began my day. These small, intentional acts became a way to ground myself, check in, and create a sense of stability in my life.

    I wasn’t naturally good at setting boundaries—I would get an anxious feeling in my stomach when it came to saying no. I was always worried that if I said no, the other person would stop coming around, or I would hurt their feelings, and I would guilt myself.

    Eventually, I reached a point where I knew I had to change things. I was allowing myself to be taken advantage of repeatedly. It went into a pattern of me giving too much, then resenting the other person or people involved and not realizing that the problem was me.

    If I didn’t start respecting my limits, I’d have nothing left to give. Little by little, I practiced saying no without offering a reason or apologizing. It wasn’t easy. It felt foreign at first, like I was somehow selfish for doing it. But with each boundary, I began to feel a new sense of inner strength that I hadn’t felt before. It was like I was finally treating myself with the same kindness I tried to give everyone else.

    Learning to sit with my emotions instead of running from them was the most challenging part. I understood that grief wasn’t something you just “get over.” It’s something you learn to live with. I stopped pushing away the sadness and let myself fully feel it, allowing it to come and go without judgment.

    There were times when it felt overwhelming, but it was also healing. In those moments, I felt almost as if she was still with me, her presence comforting me as if saying, “It’s okay to feel this. It’s okay to let yourself grieve.”

    Through this, I began rediscovering parts of myself I had set aside. I allowed myself to get creative again, expressing things I’d bottled up without worrying about how it would come across. I started journaling daily, writing about my dreams, fears, and memories. These weren’t just words on a page—they were my way of healing, piece by piece, as I found my way back to feeling whole again.

    As time went on, I began to notice a shift. I felt a growing sense of worth that wasn’t based on anyone’s approval. I didn’t feel the same need to prove myself. I slowly accepted my flaws, realizing self-love doesn’t mean perfection. It means patience and the willingness to keep showing up for myself, especially on the tough days.

    My grandmother’s passing taught me one of the biggest lessons of my life: I could be my safe place. I could build a life where I feel valued and loved from within without relying on anyone else to create that for me.

    Of course, there are still days when I slip back into old habits, looking for validation outside myself, but now I know I have everything I need inside. Her memory stays with me as a reminder of strength and love—two things she taught me through how she lived.

    For anyone struggling to find that sense of inner peace, I hope sharing my story shows you it’s within reach. It’s a journey; it takes time, patience, consistency, and commitment, but it’s worth it. Otherwise, you will never gain the sense of peace you deserve. In doing this, I’ve found a calm and self-assurance I never imagined. And I believe that’s something my grandmother would be proud of.

  • Sending Love

    Sending Love