The Glow-Up No One Talks About
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 …
Redefining Extraordinary: How I Found Joy in the Everyday
“Joy comes to us in moments—ordinary moments. We risk missing out on joy when we get too busy chasing down the extraordinary.” ~Brené Brown
I started going to my local gym a few months ago to prepare for a strenuous hike.
The gym is a tiny place, located on a quiet street in the middle of a small town. It doesn’t have any fancy accommodations or instructors leading classes. It doesn’t even have showers or lockers to store my bag.
It does have a few treadmills, free weights, weight machines, and regulars who can lift really dang heavy weights.
Now, …
Beyond Cliché Advice: What Helped When I Was Struggling Financially
“When you are in uncertainty, when you feel at risk, when you feel exposed, don’t tap out. Stay brave, stay uncomfortable, stay in the cringy moment, lean into the hard conversation, and keep leading.” ~Brené Brown
When you think of someone who’s struggling financially, you might picture someone who’s barely making ends meet, living paycheck to paycheck, just getting by. But money trouble doesn’t always look like that.
I was struggling even though it didn’t seem that way. I had a six-figure salary. I owned a home in one of the most expensive cities in the world, having bought a …
How to Coexist with Fear (and Spiders)
“If you are willing to look at another person’s behavior toward you as a reflection of their relationship with themselves rather than a statement about your value as a person, then you will, over time, cease to react at all.” ~Yogi Bhajan
Several years ago, I hiked into the remote forestlands of Bukidnon, a mountainous province in the southern Philippines. I was there to make a documentary about the Pulangiyēn people, an Indigenous community living in the village of Bendum. No roads led there. No running water. Just a winding trail upwards, a slow-moving carabao pulling my camera gear, and …
More Energy, Less Regret: Your Guide to a Sober Summer
“Believe you can, and you’re halfway there.” ~Theodore Roosevelt
We are used to people talking about Dry January or Sober October but rarely a Sober Summer. That doesn’t seem to be a thing—but what if it was? What if it could be your reality this year?
I knew I wanted my relationship with alcohol to be different at many points in my twenties, thirties, and forties, and in the summer of 2017, I decided, “This is it—I am going to choose a different path.”
That day in June left me with a terrible hangover the next morning. I didn’t parent …
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.…
What Happened When I Stopped Saying Yes to Everything
“Daring to set boundaries is about having the courage to love ourselves, even when we risk disappointing others.” ~Brené Brown
I used to believe that if someone was in need and I had the ability to help, it was my duty to step in. Whether it was managing caregiving responsibilities for family, fielding crisis calls from friends, or stepping up at work when no one else would, I said yes without hesitation. For me, helping seemed to be the measure of a “good person.”
But what I didn’t realize is that many of us confuse obligation with responsibility.
Obligation feels …
How My Mother’s Alcoholism Shaped Me and How I’m Healing Now
“The journey of the perfect daughter is not about perfection; it’s about finding the courage to be imperfect, to be human.” ~Robert Ackerman, Perfect Daughters
Growing up in a home shadowed by addiction is like living in a house with no foundation. The ground beneath you is unstable, the walls feel fragile, and the roof could collapse at any moment. For me, this was my reality. My earliest memories of my mother’s alcoholism are tied to confusion and worry—a child’s attempt to make sense of an adult world filled with unpredictability and silence.
Her moods were erratic, swinging from one …
How I Learned to Be Present—One Sound at a Time
“Time isn’t the main thing. It’s the only thing.” ~Miles Davis
When I first read that quote, it hit me right in the chest. Not because it sounded profound—but because it was something I had been slowly, painfully learning over the course of a very quiet, very long year.
Time used to feel like a race. Or maybe a shadow. Or a trickster. Some days, it slipped through my fingers like water. Other days, it dragged me along like a heavy cart. But always, it was something outside me—something I was chasing or trying to escape.
I spent much of …
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