Seeing It for What It Is
What I Ask Myself Now Instead of “What’s Wrong with Me?”
“With self-compassion, we give ourselves the same kindness and care we’d give to a good friend.” ~Kristin Neff
For a long time, I carried a question with me that I rarely said out loud.
It wasn’t dramatic. It didn’t sound cruel. It felt reasonable—even responsible.
What’s wrong with me?
The question surfaced whenever I felt stuck. When motivation disappeared. When I couldn’t seem to do the things I thought I should be able to do with ease. It appeared quietly in moments of overwhelm, in the pause before self-judgment set in.
I asked it sincerely. I believed it was the …
I Stopped Asking “Why Me?” and Started Asking “What Now?”
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response.” ~Viktor Frankl
For a long time, my first response to difficulty was a single, aching question: “Why me?”
It surfaced whenever life took an unexpected turn—when plans collapsed, when effort didn’t materialize, when circumstances felt unfair and overwhelming. I believed that if I could understand why something was happening, I would somehow fix the situation and regain control. That the answer would soften the blow.
But it never did.
One experience, in particular, changed my relationship with that question.
I remember …
Why Letting Myself Fall Apart Set Me Free
“Ironically enough, when you make peace with the fact that the purpose of life is not happiness but rather experience and growth, happiness comes as a natural byproduct. When you are not seeking it as the objective, it will find its way to you.” ~Unknown
I had ten days to pack up my life.
I was moving from Toronto to Florida, and I decided—very confidently—that I would only take what fit in my SUV. Everything else would be donated, sold, or given away. Ten days. One car. A clean slate.
It felt intentional. Grounded. Like the kind of choice someone …
When “Better” Becomes a Trap: How I Learned to Hope Without Clinging
“You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.” ~Buddha
For most of my life, hoping for something better wasn’t a problem. It was my fuel.
If everything had lined up the way I once imagined, it would have looked something like this: steady financial security, meaningful creative work recognized by the world, a sense of arrival—finally—after decades of effort. I would be teaching or creating without scrambling, my work fully valued, my future predictable enough to relax into.
That picture lived quietly in the background of my days. I didn’t obsess …
When You Realize You’ve Outgrown a Friendship
“Sometimes growth doesn’t look like becoming more—it looks like leaving behind what no longer fits.”
For a long time, I believed that outgrowing a friendship meant I had failed at it.
That belief took root early, at boarding school, where friendships weren’t just social—they were survival. We didn’t see each other for a few hours a day. We lived together. Ate together. Studied, slept, and grew up side by side.
There was no going home to reset. No space to retreat and recalibrate. Friendship wasn’t optional—it was the environment.
So when I later began to outgrow one of those friendships, …
What It Cost Me to Always Be the Easy One
“When you say yes to others, make sure you are not saying no to yourself.” ~Paulo Coelho
I grew up as the first-born daughter—the responsible one, the helper, the one who didn’t want to cause trouble. I learned early how to be “good.” Good meant quiet. Good meant easy. Good meant not needing much.
What I didn’t realize then was that I was learning how to abandon myself.
School was hard for me in ways I didn’t know how to explain. I struggled with reading. I struggled with focus. I struggled with keeping up—especially compared to my younger sister, …
How Old Traumas Can Cause Self-Doubt in Destructive Relationships
“Sometimes people wound us because they’re wounded and tell us we’re broken because that’s how they feel, but we don’t have to believe them.” ~Lori Deschene
Age and healing don’t make you invulnerable to moments that can bring you back to the kind of trauma you experienced as a child. It doesn’t mean that you’re broken, but that there is still an opportunity for more healing to take place. Nothing is inherently “wrong” with you.
I experienced a great deal of trauma in my twenties, actively reliving sexual abuse I had gone through in my childhood, and found myself in …
How to Know When You’re Truly Ready to Forgive
“Forgiveness is a painful and difficult process. It’s not something that happens overnight. It’s an evolution of the heart.” ~Sue Monk Kidd
Sometimes I hear the word “forgiveness” and I cringe.
I’ve been wrestling with this all year because I realized something really uncomfortable: When I look back at those moments where I felt betrayed, in most instances, I wasn’t a victim of other people’s bad behavior—I was a willing participant.
For years, I stayed in one-sided relationships and situations that asked me to shrink and conform to other people’s expectations. I gave everything and got crumbs (and this includes …
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