Bracing for Something Bad to Happen
Embracing Slow Growth: The Big Turning Point That Never Came
“It gets easier. Every day it gets a little easier. But you gotta do it every day, that’s the hard part.” ~ BoJack Horseman
If you’d told eighteen-year-old me where she’d be at twenty-eight, she would have laughed nervously and changed the subject.
That was her move, by the way. Laugh it off. Deflect. Eat another biscuit.
She was the girl who cried in bathroom stalls and called it “being sensitive.” The one who said yes to everything because no felt too dangerous. The one who googled “how to be more confident” at midnight and then did absolutely nothing about …
The Simple “Analog Basket” That Helps Me Unplug
“Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.” ~Anne Lamott
You know that familiar routine: an exhausting day at work, a long commute, children, errands, messages, dinner, and notifications.
And then—finally—rest at the end of it all.
A soft, welcoming couch that curves in all the right places. A new episode of a beloved series that whisks you away to a rugged farm in rural Montana. And some short videos that make you laugh: AI-animated cats reviewing street food, influencers in wigs enacting the bickering of a married couple.
The flickering screens distract …
From Blending in to Belonging: My Journey Out of Self-Consciousness
“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
For years, I felt like I was always one step behind everyone else.
Not in a way I could prove. Not something visible or measurable. It was quieter than that—persistent, internal, and hard to name.
It felt like everyone else had been given something I missed. An unspoken understanding of how to move through life. How to talk without overthinking. How to walk into a room and feel like you belonged …
On Staying Light in a World That Feels Bleak
“Love life more than the meaning of it? Yes, certainly.” ~Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
When I was a child, there was a special moment during dusk when the old sodium lanterns switched on in the streets, morphing the world from one of saturation into one of yellow monochrome, and it always made me sad.
One such day, my dad asked me why I became so quiet during those evenings. I wasn’t sure what to answer—how did he not feel the same way?
The evening had just begun, and the ditch outside had started freezing. Looking through the window, I …
Overcoming Self-Sabotage: Why Good Things Felt Like a Trap
“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” ~Carl Jung
I was sitting in my therapist’s office when she asked me a question that made me freeze.
“Tell me about the last time something good happened in your life.”
I opened my mouth to answer, then stopped. My mind went blank. Not because nothing good had happened, but because I genuinely couldn’t remember letting myself enjoy any of it.
She waited. The silence felt heavy.
Finally, I said, “I got a promotion three months ago.”
“And how did that feel?”
“Terrifying, …
