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When Your Feelings Were Never Safe at Home

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“The fuel of life is feeling. If we’re not filled up in childhood, we must fill ourselves as adults.” ~Jonice Webb, author of Running on Empty

I was nine years old the first time I taught myself how to disconnect completely from my emotions.

It started with a secret I wasn’t supposed to tell, a classroom that turned on me by lunchtime, and a mother who had nothing left to give me the exact moment I needed her most. By the end of that day, I understood the one rule my whole family lived by, even though nobody had ever …

The Wholeness I Found When I Lost Someone I Love

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

The room didn’t change when she left. The chair was where it had always been, angled toward the window the way she liked it. What changed was that I could finally see the shape of the thing I’d been leaning on, now that it wasn’t there to lean on anymore.

For a long time, I called what I felt “love,” and some of it was. But underneath the grief was something I was slower to admit. A lot of what I missed wasn’t her. It was the version of …

What My Broken Face ID Taught Me About Being More Present

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“Every moment, every challenge, every inner reaction is here to show you exactly what you need to let go of in order to be free.” ~Michael A. Singer

The other day, while standing in the kitchen, I grabbed my phone to send a text, but it didn’t recognize my face. Suddenly, every time I wanted to use it, I had to enter my four-digit code. The whole process took no more than two seconds, yet I caught myself sighing with exasperation every time.

My reaction surprised me. Had I become so accustomed to immediacy that even such a tiny …

What Happened When I Finally Stopped Saying “I’m Fine”

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

The first winter, I learned to lie cheerfully.

“How are you settling in?” someone would ask, and I would smile and say, “Really well, thank you.” That was the most fluent English I spoke all day.

I had left a warm, loud, crowded life and landed in a quiet apartment in a country where the cold did something to the air that made it hurt to breathe. I was a student, far from everyone who knew my name properly. I was supposed to be grateful.

And I was grateful. …

Why Self-Care Matters Most When You Have No Time

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“Taking care of yourself doesn’t mean me first; it means me too.” ~L.R. Knost

We live in a society that celebrates pushing through; burnout is often worn as a badge of honor, and many job descriptions state bluntly, “Must be able to perform well under pressure and thrive in a fast-paced environment.”

I’m very well aware that self-care isn’t a luxury; it’s essential. “You can’t pour from an empty cup” and “You must put on your own oxygen mask first before assisting others” are two of the most well-known quotes. And while they might sound like a cliché, they are …

Same Café, New Me: How I Found Freedom Without Changing My Life

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“Trauma creates change you don’t choose. Healing is about creating change you do choose.” ~Michelle Rosenthal”

Today I am sitting in my favorite café in Venice Mall. I got my favorite seat, the one near the water.

I have spent countless hours here. I have cried here. Journaled here. Drawn here. Consoled myself here.

There was a time when this café felt like my only refuge from a life that felt too heavy to carry.

Today I am sitting in the same seat, drinking the same tea, looking at the same water. And for the first time, I realized something. …

When Your Imagination Turns Every Problem into a Crisis

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“You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.” ~Mark Twain

It started with a clogged kitchen drain. Or maybe the drain was where everything else I’d been carrying finally surfaced.

Regardless, the water wasn’t moving. It was so bad that some of it backed up in the bathroom sink. Baking soda and vinegar didn’t help. Neither did copious pots of boiling water.

I felt my jaw clench, shoulders stiffen, and breath shorten. My brain, seeing a break in my supposedly impenetrable shield, saw this as a perfect opportunity to create a disaster movie screenplay on …

The Pressure to Excel: When Success Feels Like Survival

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“To tie your worth to achievements is a recipe for suffering.” ~Brad Bizjack

Children don’t just learn mathematics, science, and languages in school. They also learn what success feels like, what failure means, who they believe they are, and sometimes, whether they think they belong.

When I was in primary school, my school introduced academic streaming. If there were four grade seven classes, the highest-performing students were placed in the first stream, followed by the second, third, and fourth streams based on academic performance.

On paper, it made perfect sense. Students would learn alongside peers of similar academic ability, and …

How “Missing the Boat” Led Me Somewhere Better

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A few months ago, I found myself wondering whether I had made a mistake.

It is not a question I expected to be asking in my seventies.

Like many people my age, I sometimes think about retirement, savings, and financial security. I look around and see friends who spent decades building stable careers and preparing for the future. Some seem to have arrived exactly where they planned.

Meanwhile, my own life feels harder to explain.

I have spent much of it following opportunities that interested me rather than opportunities that promised security. Looking back, I sometimes wonder whether I should …

The Power of Waiting When You Don’t Know What to Do

By in Blog, happiness & fun, meaning & passion

“Waiting is not mere empty hoping. It has the inner certainty of reaching the goal.” ~I Ching 

Waiting has a bad rap in modern Western society. It’s not surprising that I had to look to an ancient Chinese text (the I Ching) in order to find a suitable quote to begin this article. We don’t like to wait! It’s far easier to find quotes on the Internet about “seizing the day” and making something happen.

I’ve been an impatient person for much of my life. I wanted things to happen to me! I had a definite agenda in my …

Once You See the Relationship Pattern, You Can’t Unsee It

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“When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” ~Maya Angelou

The weekend started like any other family visit. Our family was in town, and it began with real excitement. Kids running everywhere, chocolate chip muffins in the oven, homemade ice cream for our guests, the ordinary, happy chaos of everyone existing in the same space.

On the second day we noticed one of the visiting kids had a runny nose and was rubbing her snot all over herself as she was grabbing our toddler to hold her. She loves babies, and we adore that about her. …

How a Chronic Illness Changed My Life for the Better

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

I smiled when the doctor told me I had a disease I would carry for the rest of my life.

He was calling with my biopsy results, and the word he used was “Crohn’s.” I had no idea what it meant. But after months of pain that no one could explain, hearing an actual name for it felt like someone had finally turned on a light in a dark room. I wasn’t scared. I was relieved.

To understand why, I have to …

Why It’s So Hard to Just Rest and Why We Need to Do It

By in Blog, healthy habits

“If you don’t give your mind and body a break, you’ll break. Stop pushing yourself through pain and exhaustion and take care of your needs.” ~Lori Deschene

In November of 2021, my autoimmune issues flared up. My doctor and I are still unsure which of my conditions—rheumatoid arthritis or fibromyalgia—was the culprit, or if they were acting in cahoots, but the overall achiness and debilitating fatigue were a solid indication that something was more active than usual.

I woke up tired, needed naps, and often ran out of spoons—a phrase familiar to many with chronic conditions, based on a gorgeous …

The Most Helpful Thing Someone Did During My Panic Attack

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“Better than a thousand useless words is one useful word, upon hearing which one attains peace.” ~Buddha, Dhammapada

Did he just cut the side of my head open? Am I bleeding out everywhere? Is there blood rushing down my face and onto the floor?

It was the middle of my standard biweekly haircut when my mind suddenly began to spiral.

I felt a slight sting on the side of my head, and my anxiety took over, using its vivid imagination to pivot to the worst-case scenario.

Moments before, my barber and I were laughing about Disneyland. Seconds later, I was …

The Day I Realized Love Couldn’t Save Someone

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“When it comes down to it, that’s what life is all about: showing up for the people you love, again and again, until you can’t show up anymore.” ~Rebecca Walker

The first time my dad admitted he was scared, I felt something shift inside me.

Not uncomfortable. Not worried. Scared.

He had recently been diagnosed with Stage IV colorectal cancer, and we were standing together when he quietly asked, “Is this what takes me out?”

I wish I could tell you I responded with wisdom or grace. Instead, I did what many people do when confronted with something they cannot …

How I Learned to Be More Present Without Meditating

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“The present moment is filled with joy and happiness. If you are attentive, you will see it.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

A few years ago, I moved to a new country with two children under two.

The idea had felt exciting at first—a fresh start, a new place, a life by the sea. But excitement fades quickly when you realize you don’t know a single person. No friends to call. No family nearby. No one to sit with you on a hard day and just listen.

I wasn’t prepared for that kind of loneliness. The deep, quiet kind that creeps in

…

Healing Is Happening Even When You Can’t See It

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“One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done.” ~Marie Curie

I almost didn’t go to my cousin’s wedding.

Not because I didn’t want to celebrate her. I did. But the thought of walking into a room full of people who knew the version of me from two years ago felt unbearable.

They knew that version well.

The one who cried in bathroom stalls at family gatherings. Who smiled through dinners while silently replaying an argument from three days earlier. Who drank a little too much at Christmas because it was easier than …

The Best Thing to Say to Someone Who Won’t Try to Understand You

By in Blog, letting go, love & relationships

“True love is born from understanding.” ~Buddha

I believe one of our strongest desires in life is to feel understood.

We want to know that people see our good intentions and not only get where we’re coming from but get us.

We want to know they see us. They recognize the thoughts, feelings, and struggles that underlie our choices, and they not only empathize but maybe even relate. And maybe they’d do the same thing if they were in our shoes.

Maybe, if they’d been where we’ve been, if they’d seen what we’ve seen, they’d stand right where we …

Sometimes Love Needs to Move

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“It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work, and when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey.” ~Wendell Berry

I was watching television one night when something on the screen made me set everything aside and go still. It was a scene where the main character, a man who loved his daughter dearly, couldn’t change what was happening to her. So, he went out into the wilderness as a kind of prayer.

I put the remote down and didn’t pick it back …

The 7 Types of Overthinking That Drain Your Energy

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Many years ago, I clearly remember celebrating a strange victory. I had only spent one day overthinking a problem.

I was triggered by the end of another situationship. I could feel them pulling away. Something had changed, but I didn’t have the answers. I was stuck in that painful limbo space.

For that day, I had done what I always did. I replayed conversations in my head, searched for hidden meanings, imagined different scenarios, and mentally rehearsed what I would say if I could turn back time. I checked my phone more times than I could count and searched YouTube …