People Who Are Calm and Kind
How to Tend to Yourself When Being Vulnerable Feels Raw
“Vulnerability is the only path through the wall that separates us from each other.” ~Brené Brown
Every time I share something deeply personal—an article, a post, a piece of my story somewhere or to someone—there is a part of me that lights up with energy. I feel a sense of urgency, a pull to share now. A belief that some humans will need to hear it, relate, and feel less alone. And often, it helps me make sense of my own experiences, too. Even if I’m not always conscious of it, there is a higher reason guiding me.
Storytelling is …
If You Feel Lonely Around People, Here’s Why
“The loneliness of the connected age is not about being alone. It’s about being unseen in a crowd.” ~Unknown
For a long time I thought I was broken.
Not in a dramatic way. In a quiet, persistent way—the kind you learn to manage so well that most people can’t tell, and eventually you almost can’t tell either.
I had a full life by any external measure. Work I cared about. People around me. Invitations to things. And yet there was this gap I couldn’t close—a feeling I can only describe as being on the wrong side of glass. Present in …
Growing Up Without a Family: From Survival Mode to Thriving
“You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.” ~C. S. Lewis
I started life in a poor household with one parent who left when I was very little, never to be seen or heard from again, and another who stuck around but made it very clear I wasn’t wanted and I had ruined their life by existing.
For some reason, I never had any contact from either of their parents, my grandparents, and very little to no contact from their wider families.
So, as a young child, I knew …
Escaping an Abusive Situation: The Hardest Parts and Greatest Lessons
“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” ~Rumi
I watched my son get hit by his father, and something inside me finally broke open.
Not broke apart. Broke open. There’s a difference.
For years, I had absorbed the chaos. I had made myself smaller, quieter, more accommodating. I had convinced myself that if I could just love harder, be better, try more, something would change. But in that moment, watching my child suffer at the hands of the man who was supposed to protect him, I understood with absolute clarity that nothing I did would ever …
Gratitude: The Amazing Superpower Inside Us All
“When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive—to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.” ~Marcus Aurelius
Gratitude.
It used to be a very triggering concept for me, and sometimes it still is.
It’s been a process to unravel what it means to me and to be okay with days where I am in active trauma or grief, when I feel there is nothing to be grateful for. It’s okay to be in those places.
Gratitude is but one of the plethora of tools I’ve used to shift my perspective on …
How I Stopped Overexplaining and Found Calm in Conflict
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response.” ~Viktor Frankl
For a while, I forgot about that space.
When conflict entered my life—first with my employer, then with my insurance company—I didn’t react explosively. I didn’t fire off reckless emails.
I did something that felt far more reasonable.
I built arguments.
I constructed careful, layered explanations. I mapped policy references, contextual details, and logical connections. I laid out what felt like a complete reticulum of ideas in my defense. If I could make my case airtight, I believed, it would …
Though I run this site, it is not mine. It's ours. It's not about me. It's about us. Your stories and your wisdom are just as meaningful as mine. 