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Vulnerability Is Powerful But Not Always Safe

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“Vulnerability is not oversharing. It’s sharing with people who have earned the right to hear our story.” ~Brené Brown

Earlier this year, I found myself in a place I never imagined: locked in a psychiatric emergency room, wearing a paper wristband, surrounded by strangers in visible distress. I wasn’t suicidal. I hadn’t harmed anyone. I’d simply told the truth—and it led me there.

What happened began, in a way, with writing.

I’m in my seventies, and I’ve lived a full life as a filmmaker, teacher, father, and now a caregiver for my ninety-six-year-old mother. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve …

The Questions That Helped Me Reclaim My Life

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“You can rewrite the story. You just have to pick up the pen.” ~Unknown

I remember the exact moment I started disappearing.

It was my wedding day. Just before I walked down the aisle, my mother gently reached for my hand and said, “Your hands are freezing!”

She was right. I was ice-cold.

At first, I laughed it off—after all, it was February in Connecticut. Cold hands made sense, right? But that day, something didn’t add up.

We were in the middle of an unusual Indian summer. The air was warm, the sun soft and golden. People were sipping champagne …

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

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“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, …

Why I Learned to Stay Quiet to Be “Good”

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 “Your silence will not protect you.” ~Audre Lorde

When I was little, I learned that being “good” meant being quiet.

Not just with my voice, but with my needs. My emotions. Even the space I took up.

I don’t remember anyone sitting me down and saying, “Don’t speak unless spoken to.” But I felt it—in the flinches when I was too loud, the tension when I cried, the subtle praise when I stayed calm, agreeable, small. I felt it in the way adults sighed with relief when I didn’t make a fuss. I felt it in the way I stopped …

How I Learned to Treat Myself Like Someone I Love

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“Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I built my life.” ~J.K. Rowling

Most people who know me will say I am incredibly kind, loving, and empathetic. They know me as a safe person that they can share anything with and that I won’t judge. What they may not know is I am incredibly judgmental and unkind to myself.

When it comes to others, I see light and love. I see confusion and fear behind their misguided actions. I see mistakes as learning opportunities. For myself, I used to see…if I dare say it, a stupid girl who should …

How I Got Free from the Trap of Resentment

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“Jerry, there is some bad in the best of people and some good in the worst of people. Look for the good!” ~George Chaky, my grandfather

I was seven when he said that to me. It would later become a guiding principle in my life.

My grandfather was twenty-one when he came to the US with his older brother, Andrew. Shortly afterward, he married Maria, my grandmother, and they had five children. William, the second youngest, died at the age of seven from an illness.

One year later they lost all of their savings during the Great Depression of 1929 …

Pay What You Can for 21 Days of Laughs and Light

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My electric toothbrush has seen it all.

I usually look in the mirror when I’m brushing my teeth, and for a while last fall, I often cried when I stared into my own eyes.

I did my best to hold it together in front of my sons—most of the time, anyway. But the mask often cracked when I met my own gaze. Deep sobs set to the gentle hum of my sonic. Life was just that overwhelming—with medical issues, a loved one’s shock diagnosis, and countless other challenges too numerous to list.

Then one day, after months of carrying more …

I Spent Years Chasing Love Until I Finally Chose Myself

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“The only people who get upset when you set boundaries are the ones who benefited from you having none.” ~Unknown

For most of my life, I lived with a quiet ache, a longing I couldn’t quite name but always felt. I wanted to be chosen. Not just liked or tolerated, but fully seen, wanted, and loved.

That longing shaped so many of my choices. I over-gave in relationships, staying in situations far longer than I should have, and shrank myself to be accepted.

I didn’t know it at the time, but I was trying to fill an emptiness that had …

The Lie of Packaged Healing and the Truth About Feeling

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“Emotions are not problems to be solved. They are signals to be felt.” ~Vironika Tugaleva

We’ve been taught to package our emotions like fast food—served quick, tidy, and with a smile. Americanized feelings. Digestible. Non-threatening. Always paired with productivity.

If you’re sad, journal it. If you’re angry, regulate it. If you’re overwhelmed, fix it with a three-step plan and a green juice. And if that doesn’t work? Try again. You probably missed a step.

This is how we sell emotional healing in the West—marketed like a self-improvement product. Seven-minute abs. Seven habits. Five love languages. Follow the formula. Find the …

The Hidden Link Between Self-Rejection and Social Anxiety

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“True belonging only happens when we present our authentic, imperfect selves to the world. Our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance.” ~Brené Brown

Last year over lunch, my friend, Jess, confessed something to me that hit me right in my gut because I’d been there too—that exact same lie, that exact same fear.

Out of nowhere, she blurted out, “I need to cancel.”

“Cancel what?” I asked.

She burst into tears. “I RSVPed yes to Jen’s wedding months ago, but it’s this weekend, and I just… I can’t do it.”

As she sobbed, she …

The Small, Simple Acts That Shifted Me Out of Survival Mode

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“True healing is not a straight line. It is a spiral. You come back to things you thought you understood and see deeper truths.” ~Barry H. Gillespie

I used to believe healing would be obvious. Like a movie montage of breakthroughs… laughter through tears, epiphanies in therapy, and early morning jogs that end with a sunrise and a changed life. But that’s not what healing looked like for me.

It looked like dragging myself out of bed with puffy eyes after staying up too late crying. It looked like brushing my teeth when everything in me whispered, “Why bother?” It …

Planning Without Panic and Learning to Live in the Now

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“You can plan for a hundred years. But you don’t know what will happen the next moment.” ~Tibetan proverb

Some days it feels like a fog I can’t shake—this underlying fear that something painful or uncertain is just around the corner.

I try to be responsible. I try to prepare, make good choices, take care of things now so the future won’t unravel later. But beneath that effort is something harder to face: I feel helpless. I can’t control what’s coming, and that terrifies me.

Maybe you’ve felt this too—that tension between doing your best and still fearing it’s not …

From Burnout to Bliss: The Beauty of Therapeutic Art

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“It takes courage to say yes to rest and play in a culture where exhaustion is seen as a status symbol.” ~Brené Brown

“You have burnout.” I listened to these three words in a trance, said thank you, and got off the call with the doctor.

Part of me had known.

The endless days I spent in bed staring at the ceiling with no motivation to do anything. The inability to focus on my screen. And the sudden bursts of tears when I saw yet another meeting pop up in my calendar.

I knew all of this wasn’t normal. That …

How I Broke Free from a Narcissistic Family System

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“Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.”~ Carl Jung

My mom had always been invested in real estate. I remember snacking on open house charcuterie years before we finally purchased a house to flip—the first of four. By the time I was eighteen, we’d moved five times.

I knew our family was falling apart by renovation number three.

I had spent the previous few years experiencing suicidal ideation and was now on a strict cocktail of seven or so psychiatric and neurological medications.

My brother …

How to Enjoy Food and Feel Good in Your Skin

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Have you ever felt like fat and food were your enemies? Like everything would be better if you could just lose weight—and eat whatever you want without consequence?

I felt that way for much of my childhood and teens, when unresolved trauma and low self-esteem led to a long battle with food and my body.

I struggled with bulimia for over a decade, starting at twelve. And though I technically “recovered” in my early twenties, I spent years after trapped in rigid food rules and a lingering fear of eating the “wrong” thing.

It wasn’t until my thirties that I …

I Lost My Father—and the Illusion of My Mother

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“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 …

Left-Side Pain: A Powerful Messenger for My Abandoned Parts

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“The body always leads us home… if we’re willing to listen.”

For over a decade, I lived in a body that tried to tell me something I wasn’t ready to hear. But eventually, it got louder—loud enough that I could no longer ignore the message.

It started with migraines—always on the left side.

Then came a string of sinus infections and dental issues—again, always on the left.

Lumps formed in my left breast. Then pain in my left ribs. Then a left-sided numbness that made doctors run MRIs for multiple sclerosis. Every test came back normal. And yet my body …

Raised on Their Best Intentions—Healed on My Own Terms

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“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.” ~Kahlil Gibran

There are two versions of me.

There’s the one I am now—the grounded, present woman who holds space for others, who guides people toward healing, who walks barefoot through the grass and whispers affirmations while sipping her coffee.

And then there’s the other version. The one who barely made it. The one who used to stare into her fridge not out of hunger but as a distraction from the ache in her chest. The one who didn’t feel at home in her …

The Truth About Why I’ve Ghosted People (and What I’ve Learned)

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“Ghosting is cruel because it denies a person the chance to process, to ask questions, or to get closure. It’s emotional abandonment, masquerading as protection.” ~Dr. Jennice Vilhauer

I never set out to ghost anyone.

In fact, I used to hate ghosting with the burning fury of a thousand unread dating app notifications. I told myself I’d never be that person—the one who disappears mid-conversation, fails to reply after a good date (or sends a very bland thank you message), or silently vanishes like a breadcrumb trail to nowhere.

And yet… here I am. Writing a post about how I’ve …

How Two Simple Lists Completely Transformed My Life

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“Happiness turned to me and said, ‘It is time. It is time to forgive yourself for all of the things you did not become… Above all else, it is time to believe, with reckless abandon, that you are worthy of me, for I have been waiting for years.” ~Bianca Sparacino

I didn’t know who I was.

That realization hit me like a punch to the chest after I ended a decade-long relationship and canceled my wedding six weeks before it was supposed to happen.

I remember standing in my kitchen one morning, staring at the floor, and thinking, I have …