Don’t Ever Get Tired of Being a Good Person
How to Speak from the Heart: Let Your First Word Be a Breath
“Mindfulness is a pause—the space between stimulus and response: that’s where choice lies.” ~Tara Brach
We’ve all been there.
A sharp reply. A snide remark. A moment when we said something that didn’t come from our heart but from somewhere else entirely—a need to be right, to sound smart, to prove a point, to stay in control, or simply to defend ourselves.
What follows is the spinning. The knowing that what was said didn’t align with our soul. The overthinking, the replaying of the moment, the rumination, the regret, the tightening in the chest, the wish we could take …
Can You Live a Meaningful Life Without Being Exceptional?
“The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.” ~Alan Watts
As I enter the later stage of life, I find myself asking questions that are less about accomplishment and more about meaning. What matters now, when the need to prove myself has softened, but the old voices of expectation still echo in my mind?
In a world that prizes novelty, speed, and success, I wonder what happens when we’re no …
Mindful Parenting: How to Calm Our Kids and Heal Ourselves
“When we show up for our kids in moments when no one showed up for us, we’re not just healing them. We’re healing ourselves.” ~Dr. Becky Kenedy
I wasn’t taught to pause and breathe when I was overwhelmed.
I was taught to push through. To be a “good girl.” To smile when something inside me was begging to be seen.
I was told to toughen up. Not to cry. Not to feel too much.
But how can we grow into resilient humans when we’re taught to hide the very feelings that make us human?
I thought I was learning strength. …
When Growth Comes with Grief Because People Still See the Old You
“In the process of letting go, you will lose many things from the past, but you will find yourself.” ~Deepak Chopra
There’s a strange ache that comes with becoming healthy. Not the physical kind. The relational kind. The kind that surfaces when we’re no longer quite so wired to betray ourselves for belonging. When we stop curating ourselves to fit into spaces where we used to shrink, bend, or smile politely through the dissonance.
Years of hard work and effort, slowly unwrapping all those unhealthy ways of being in the world, cleaning off my lenses to see more clearly …
The Whisper That Saved My Life When I Was Drowning
TRIGGER WARNING: This post references rape and suicide attempts, which might be distressing for some readers.
“Our lives only improve when we are willing to take chances, and the first and most difficult risk we can take is to be honest with ourselves.” ~Walter Anderson
This was my third psychiatric hospitalization after my suicide attempts.
On this visit, something shifted. All I knew at that moment was, for the first time, I wasn’t in a hurry to leave.
There was no window or clock. Just blank, pale walls I’d been staring at for twenty-one days.
I lay there, shattered and …
A Case for Joy in a Monetized World
“Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.” ~William Bruce Cameron
My gardener and I were talking the other day—his English broken, my Spanish worse—but we found a way to connect.
He told me about his eight-year-old son, a bright, joyful kid who loves baseball. The boy wants to play. His mother wants him in tutoring. And somewhere in that gap, a bigger question emerged: what matters more—discipline or joy?
I didn’t plan to give advice, but it came out anyway. “Let him play ball,” I said. “Let him be part of a
Healing Through Grief: How I Found Myself in the Metaphors of Loss and Love
“When the soul wishes to experience something, she throws an image of the experience out before her and enters into her own image.” ~Meister Eckhart
For most of my life, something in me felt off—misaligned, too much, not enough. I moved through the world trying to fix a thing I couldn’t name.
Then, a beautiful chapter emerged where I no longer questioned myself. I met my husband—and through his love, I experienced the life-changing magic of being seen. His presence felt like sunlight. I softened. I bloomed. For the first time, I felt safe.
Losing him to young-onset colorectal cancer …
How Getting Dressed Became a Love Letter to Myself
“Style is a way to say who you are without having to speak.” ~Rachel Zoe
I didn’t set out to find myself.
I just looked in the mirror one day and thought, “Wait, when did I stop looking like me?”
It was after a breakup—the kind that leaves you foggy, emotionally threadbare, trying to make sense of where you lost yourself.
There I was, standing in my bedroom, wearing something functional, outdoorsy, and… completely not me.
Not that there’s anything wrong with cargo pants and fleece. If that’s your style, it’s beautiful.
But I’m a woman who grew up in …
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.