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What Happened When I Went Off the Social Media Grid

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“Remember, being happy doesn’t mean you have it all. It simply means you’re thankful for all you have.” ~Unknown

It was 3 a.m. when I realized I was the only person not in St. Barts. At least that’s what it felt like on Instagram, even though I know it wasn’t true. I wasn’t the only person not dancing on tables to a saxophone in the Caribbean. My fiancé was asleep right next to me.

For the next three hours, I continued down the rabbit hole.

Three hostages were released. Trump did more things to avoid bringing up at dinner parties, …

The Power of Silence and How to Really Listen

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“The silence between the notes is as important as the notes themselves.”  ~Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

When I was younger, I thought knowledge was something you could capture—something you could write down, measure, and prove. I believed that to understand something, I had to explain it. And for a long time, I tried.

But then, life—through film, through music, through long conversations with people whose wisdom couldn’t be found in books—taught me something else: the most powerful truths don’t always come in words. They exist in the space between them.

I learned this lesson in the mountains, where the sky stretches …

The Greatest Transformations Often Emerge from Hardship

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“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” ~Viktor Frankl

Life has moments that completely reshape us, often without our consent or preparation. Trauma, loss, and grief—they don’t wait until we feel ready to handle them. Instead, they arrive unexpectedly, pinning us against the wall and demanding transformation.

What began as a day like most training days, fueled by focus and determination, unraveled into an unimaginable traumatic event, one that shattered the life I had known.

Prior to that moment, as a fitness trainer by profession, my world was defined by …

Discovering I Lived in Fear, Thinking It Was Love

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“Fear is the opposite of love. Love is the absence of fear. Whatever you do out of fear will create more fear. Whatever you do out of love will create more love.” ~Osho

I did not realize I was driven by fear for most of my life.

I thought I was making choices from love by being good, responsible, kind, and successful. Looking back, I see how much of my life was organized around keeping myself safe, and that came from a place of fear.

From the outside, I looked successful, practical, and just fantastic at adult life. In the …

When Healing Feels Lonely: What I Now Know About Peace

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“Avoiding your triggers isn’t healing. Healing happens when you’re triggered and you’re able to move through the pain, the pattern, and the story, and walk your way to a different ending.” ~Vienna Pharaon

I thought I had figured it out.

For a year, I had been doing the “inner work”—meditating daily, practicing breathwork, journaling, doing yoga. I had read all the books. I had deconditioned so many behaviors that weren’t serving me: my need to prove, my need to compare, my negative thought patterns. My self-awareness was through the roof. I had hit that deep, deep place in meditation I …

How to Start Teaching Mindfulness (Even if You’re Still Learning)

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Sponsored by MindfulnessExercises.com

A few years ago, I was meditating in silence beneath the canopy of a forest monastery in Thailand, questioning everything.

I had left my job, relationships, and most of what I knew to live as a Buddhist monk in the Ajahn Chah tradition—eating one meal a day, sleeping little, and sitting with discomfort, doubt, and the rhythms of the natural world.

But the hardest part wasn’t the mosquitoes or the hunger.

It was this: I was afraid to teach what I was still learning.

Maybe you’ve felt this too—that deep yearning to guide others in healing, in …

Trusting the Pause: When Patience Is Better Than Pushing

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

I still remember my last year of college vividly. I was frustrated and disheartened after my application to study abroad was rejected. I had been obsessed with exploring the world through academia, convinced that further study was the best way to achieve my dream.

While most of my peers were preparing to enter the workforce, I envisioned a different path for myself—one that involved research, intellectual growth, and ultimately a career in academia.

However, there was one major obstacle: my …

Dancing with Darkness: How to Reclaim Your Whole Self

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“Shadow work is the way to illumination. When we become aware of all that is buried within us, that which is lurking beneath the surface no longer has power over us.” ~Aletheia Luna

For years, I believed healing was about transcending pain. I took the courses, read the books, learned every energy-healing technique I could find, and became a healer myself.

And for a while, I felt better. I had breakthroughs. My anxiety lessened.

My depressive episodes became fewer. But they never fully disappeared. Even after all the inner work, there were still days when I felt unbearably low. …

Permission to Rest: What Happened When I Embraced Stillness

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“If you are continually judging and criticizing yourself while trying to be kind to others, you are drawing artificial boundaries and distinctions that only lead to feelings of separation and isolation.” ~Kristin Neff

I was lying on my couch again, Netflix playing in the background, when I heard my husband’s footsteps on the stairs. Instinctively, I reached for my phone, desperate to appear busy—productive—anything but resting.

For months, that had been my routine. As the severe anemia from my adenomyosis and fibroids worsened, I found myself increasingly couch-bound, dizzy, and exhausted. Yet each time my husband entered the room, I’d …

Feeling Stuck? Maybe You Don’t Need to ‘Fix’ It Right Now

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“Growth is painful. Change is painful. But nothing is as painful as staying stuck where you do not belong.” ~N. R. Narayana Murthy

Anyone who had a Stretch Armstrong as a kid remembers that moment when you and a friend would test the limits of what good ol’ Armstrong could handle. You’d each grab an arm and slowly walk backward, waiting for that pivotal moment when either your strength would give out or Armstrong’s limbs would tear apart like a medieval torture device.

If you reached your strength limit, an older sibling would eagerly join in—nothing brought them more joy …

A Free 3-Day Vacation to Calm Your Nervous System

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Tell me, is your jaw clenched as you’re reading this? Are your shoulders hunched? Do you feel tension throughout your body that mirrors the constant buzz of stress within your mind?

I suspect we all feel like this far more often than we may even realize because, for many of us, it’s the norm. We push ourselves through one busy day after another, stuffing our feelings down in a constant state of agitation, without ever recognizing that our nervous systems are stuck in survival mode—and that we have the power to break free.

If any of this sounds familiar to …

The Mean Instinct: Why We Exclude Others and How to Stop

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“In a world where you can be anything, be kind.” ~Unknown

“Girls are mean!” I nodded knowingly as my boss struggled to explain the difference between raising boys and girls. I couldn’t speak to raising boys, but I remembered all too well what it was like when my daughters were growing up.

Girls traveled in packs, always with a leader at the helm. And almost every week, one of the lesser-ranked members was cast out, ostracized from the group. More often than not, it was one of my daughters. I distinctly recall their heartbreak—the kind of deep, inconsolable sorrow that …

Meditation: A Simple Way to Show Up Fully in Your Life

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“The real meditation is how you live your life.” ~Jon Kabat-Zinn

I never saw myself as someone who would meditate. It wasn’t even on my radar until my wife suggested it while we were both working on our wellness. I chuckled. Like a lot of people, I assumed meditation meant sitting still, trying to clear my mind, whatever that even meant. It sounded impossible and, frankly, frustrating.

I grew up in the rust belt, part of the baby boomer generation, and I’ve spent my life working hard, showing up, and taking care of my own. I love hard and play …

Transmuting Shame: None of Us Need to Be Fixed

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“Shame is the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love, belonging, and connection.” ~Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart

This past year, I started the journey of investigating—maybe even befriending—“my” shame.

I use quotes around the “my” because most of the shame is not mine; much of it is internalized sexism, racisim, anti-blackness and homophobia, and/or intergenerational—it was passed down to me. And while I didn’t choose to internalize or inherit it, it is my responsibility to care for “my” shame, to tenderize it with love and compassion so …

Lessons from a Former Overthinker: How to Start Really Living

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“Rule your mind, or it will rule you.” ~Buddha

I used to be trapped in a cycle of overthinking, replaying past mistakes, worrying about the future, and mentally holding onto every thought, just as I physically held onto old clothes, books, and my child’s outgrown toys.

The fear of letting go—whether of physical items or persistent thoughts—felt overwhelming. But I didn’t realize that this habit of mental hoarding was keeping me stuck in place.

The Anxiety of Letting Go—My Last Day of School

One of my earliest experiences with mental hoarding happened on my last day …

Sometimes Not Forgiving Is a Powerful Step Toward Healing

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“You should be angry. You must not be bitter. Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. It doesn’t do anything to the object of its displeasure. So use that anger. You write it. You paint it. You dance it. You march it. You vote it. You do everything about it. You talk it. Never stop talking it.” ~Maya Angelou

My mother left when I was five. Dad told me that for a little while I stopped talking, which is hard to imagine because now I never shut up.

Apparently, I disappeared into myself. The doctors called it selective …

How to Get Out of Your Own Way and Bring Your Dreams to Life

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“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” ~Albert Einstein

For a long time, I lived under the illusion that I was solving the problems standing between me and my desires.

Whether it was love, success, or the kind of life I dreamed of, I believed I was taking the necessary steps to create what I wanted. But what I was really doing (without realizing it) was keeping those things forever at arm’s length.

I was trying to create something from the same conditioning I’d adopted to navigate a difficult childhood, …

Don’t Postpone Your Life: Why We Need to Live Fully Now

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“Life doesn’t allow for us to go back and fix what we have done wrong in the past, but it does allow for us to live each day better than our last.” ~Unknown

It’s funny how from one day to the next your entire world, the core of your belief systems, and the way you live life just change. It’s even funnier how sometimes you don’t even notice it happening until it already has. One day you wake up and realize you are brand new, your old self has been lost, and your new self has been found.

Let …

A Message of Love and Support We All Need to Hear

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“When you can’t look on the bright side, I will sit with you in the dark.” ~Unknown

There are moments in life when pain feels consuming—when it lingers, reshapes us, and forces us to confront parts of ourselves we’ve long avoided. Recently, I found myself in one of those moments.

I was overwhelmed, unraveling, and isolating, trying to make sense of emotions that felt heavy. In that space, I wrote this message to a close friend—someone who has stood by me through my highs and lows, yet someone I now realize I haven’t always shown up for in the way …

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

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“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 …