No More Making Yourself Smaller


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“In order to move on, you must understand why you felt what you did and why you no longer need to feel it.” ~Mitch Albom
The marble tile felt cold and hard against the side of my body as I lay sobbing and shaking on the floor. Some part of my mind nudged me to get to the couch, but I couldn’t. What did it matter?
Tears kept flowing as my moans of “Why? Why? Why?” echoed through the room. Despite the discomfort, I curled into a tighter fetal position on the floor, continuing to sob and whimper. Every once …

“When we allow ourselves to be vulnerable, we are not pretending, we are not hiding—we are simply present with whatever is going on inside us. Ironically, it is this very feeling of authenticity that draws people to us, not the brittle effort of perfectionism.” ~Maureen Cooper
Most people in my life would call me an extrovert, and I often refer to myself with that label as well. On the surface, I appear friendly, talkative, and enthusiastic, and those characteristics became part of my identity at an early age. I enjoy being around other people and value my interpersonal relationships.
I …
The FREE Collective Trauma Summit 2022: Creating a Global Healing Movement is starting soon, and I’m excited to extend an invitation to you! This is a nine-day online event to explore emerging solutions for healing individual, ancestral, and collective trauma.
When you register, you’ll be able to see the powerful lineup of speakers including therapists, scientists, researchers, activists, poets, artists, visionaries, and more. You will also get access to special live events, musical performances, as well as movement practices to support your integration and healing.
Some of the topics that will be addressed during the Summit include:

“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” ~Rumi
The hardest battle I’ve fought is an ongoing one. It’s an all-consuming shadow of dread that never leaves, only resting long enough for me to catch my breath.
I know what it feels like to be depressed. I know the feeling of pain and hopelessness so well it almost feels like home.
I remember being around eleven years old and thinking, wow, this all seems so meaningless. I had become awakened by my consciousness and overwhelmed by emptiness. I knew then that there was more to life than …

“To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest. To live fully is to be always in no-man’s-land, to experience each moment as completely new and fresh. To live is to be willing to die over and over again. ” ~Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart
I am forty-nine years old, and I’ve never felt so young in my life. Many people my age feel old. Many people younger than I am feel old, while many people who are older than I am still feel young.
What makes someone feel …

“When you can’t look on the bright side, I will sit with you in the dark.” ~Unknown
It’s hard and uncomfortable to sit with pain, our own or someone else’s.
We don’t like to see people hurting, especially people we love, because we instinctively want to make them feel better, and we feel powerless if we think we can’t.
We feel like we have to do something. We have to say something. We have to somehow pull them out of the darkness—and we often try to do this by dousing them with light.
We do this to ourselves as well, …

“Staying sober really was the most important thing in my life now and had given me direction when I thought I had none.” ~Bradley Cooper
I remember that exact feeling of shame that washed over me when I was filling Yeti water bottles with 100 proof vodka instead of water. Then I chugged it, all while knowing it was the worst idea. Yet, I couldn’t stop.
Addiction is messy.
My social outings were with the wealthiest in the town, always with plenty of other alcoholics in my midst. I surrounded myself with people who drank like me because why on …