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Posts tagged with “heal”

The Lie of Packaged Healing and the Truth About Feeling

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“Emotions are not problems to be solved. They are signals to be felt.” ~Vironika Tugaleva

We’ve been taught to package our emotions like fast food—served quick, tidy, and with a smile. Americanized feelings. Digestible. Non-threatening. Always paired with productivity.

If you’re sad, journal it. If you’re angry, regulate it. If you’re overwhelmed, fix it with a three-step plan and a green juice. And if that doesn’t work? Try again. You probably missed a step.

This is how we sell emotional healing in the West—marketed like a self-improvement product. Seven-minute abs. Seven habits. Five love languages. Follow the formula. Find the …

What Heals Our Nervous Systems

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How I Broke Free from a Narcissistic Family System

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“Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.”~ Carl Jung

My mom had always been invested in real estate. I remember snacking on open house charcuterie years before we finally purchased a house to flip—the first of four. By the time I was eighteen, we’d moved five times.

I knew our family was falling apart by renovation number three.

I had spent the previous few years experiencing suicidal ideation and was now on a strict cocktail of seven or so psychiatric and neurological medications.

My brother …

I Lost My Father—and the Illusion of My Mother

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“Sometimes letting things go is an act of far greater power than defending or hanging on.” ~Eckhart Tolle

In July 2023, my father died in a tragic accident. We were devastated—my sisters, my mother, and I. Or so I thought.

What followed in the months after his death forced me to confront the truth of my mother’s emotional disconnection, a truth I had sensed but never fully allowed myself to see. In losing my father, I also lost the illusion of the mother I thought I had.

A Sudden Exit

By September, just two months after my father’s death, my …

Raised on Their Best Intentions—Healed on My Own Terms

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“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.” ~Kahlil Gibran

There are two versions of me.

There’s the one I am now—the grounded, present woman who holds space for others, who guides people toward healing, who walks barefoot through the grass and whispers affirmations while sipping her coffee.

And then there’s the other version. The one who barely made it. The one who used to stare into her fridge not out of hunger but as a distraction from the ache in her chest. The one who didn’t feel at home in her …

Rebuilding Myself After Divorce: How I Found Healing and Hope

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“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” ~Rumi

I never imagined I’d be here at forty-nine—divorced, disoriented, and drowning in an identity crisis. I had met him just before my sixteenth birthday. He was all I knew. We built an entire life together—nearly three decades of marriage, raising children, shared memories, traditions, routines. And then, one day, it all collapsed with five haunting words: “I need some space, Heather.”

At first, I thought it was a phase. But the space became silence, the silence became separation, and soon after, I was signing divorce papers. The man I …

Mindful Parenting: How to Calm Our Kids and Heal Ourselves

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“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. …

The Whisper That Saved My Life When I Was Drowning

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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 …

How I Found Myself on the Other Side of Survival

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“Until you make peace with who you are, you will never be content with what you have.” ~Doris Mortman

For most of my life, I believed my worth was tied to how well I could perform.

If I looked successful, kept people happy, worked harder than anyone else, and stayed quiet about my pain, maybe—just maybe—I would be enough.

That belief didn’t come from nowhere. I grew up in a home where fear was a constant companion. Speaking up brought consequences. Being invisible felt safer. I learned early to smile through it all, to stay small, to never be a …

The Trauma in Our Tissues and How I’m Setting Myself Free

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“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.…

How My Mother’s Alcoholism Shaped Me and How I’m Healing Now

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“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 …

From Injury to Insight: A New Kind of Yoga Practice

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“Healing may not be so much about getting better, as about letting go of everything that isn’t you—all of the expectations, all of the beliefs—and becoming who you are.” ~Rachel Naomi Remen

For years, yoga was my safe space—the place where I felt strong, grounded, and whole. My practice wasn’t just physical; it was my sanctuary, my moving meditation. So, when a shoulder injury forced me to change the way I practiced, I wasn’t just in pain—I was lost.

At first, it seemed minor. A nagging soreness, nothing I hadn’t worked through before. I convinced myself that more movement would …

How I Stopped Hiding Myself for Love and Approval

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TRIGGER WARNING: This post includes a brief mention of childhood physical abuse and may be triggering to some readers.

 “The person who tries to keep everyone happy often ends up feeling the loneliest.” ~Unknown

It’s Christmas morning. I’m seven years old. I sit on the hardwood floor with my sisters, in my nightgown surrounded by crumpled wrapping paper. I grab the next present to open. I tear off the paper. It’s a ballerina costume with a pink leotard, tutu, and pale pink tights.

As soon as I thank my adoptive parents, I leave the room with my new gift, keeping …

Beyond Coping: How to Heal Generational Trauma with Breathwork

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“Healing doesn’t mean the damage never existed. It means the damage no longer controls our lives.” ~Akshay Dubey

The realization came to me during a chaotic day at the Philadelphia public school where I worked as a counselor.

A young student sat across from me, her body language mirroring anxiety patterns I knew all too well—the slightly hunched shoulders, shallow breathing, and watchful eyes scanning for threats that weren’t there. She responded to a minor conflict with a teacher as though she were in genuine danger.

Something clicked into place as I guided her through a simple breathing exercise. The …

When Healing Feels Lonely: What I Now Know About Peace

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“Avoiding your triggers isn’t healing. Healing happens when you’re triggered and you’re able to move through the pain, the pattern, and the story, and walk your way to a different ending.” ~Vienna Pharaon

I thought I had figured it out.

For a year, I had been doing the “inner work”—meditating daily, practicing breathwork, journaling, doing yoga. I had read all the books. I had deconditioned so many behaviors that weren’t serving me: my need to prove, my need to compare, my negative thought patterns. My self-awareness was through the roof. I had hit that deep, deep place in meditation I …

Sometimes Not Forgiving Is a Powerful Step Toward Healing

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“You should be angry. You must not be bitter. Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. It doesn’t do anything to the object of its displeasure. So use that anger. You write it. You paint it. You dance it. You march it. You vote it. You do everything about it. You talk it. Never stop talking it.” ~Maya Angelou

My mother left when I was five. Dad told me that for a little while I stopped talking, which is hard to imagine because now I never shut up.

Apparently, I disappeared into myself. The doctors called it selective …

Heal So You Can See That…

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A Message of Love and Support We All Need to Hear

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“When you can’t look on the bright side, I will sit with you in the dark.” ~Unknown

There are moments in life when pain feels consuming—when it lingers, reshapes us, and forces us to confront parts of ourselves we’ve long avoided. Recently, I found myself in one of those moments.

I was overwhelmed, unraveling, and isolating, trying to make sense of emotions that felt heavy. In that space, I wrote this message to a close friend—someone who has stood by me through my highs and lows, yet someone I now realize I haven’t always shown up for in the way …

How My Dog Became an Unexpected Source of Healing

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“The place of true healing is a fierce place. It’s a giant place. It’s a place of monstrous beauty and endless dark and glimmering light. And you have to work really, really, really hard to get there, but you can do it.” ~Cheryl Strayed

My memories of my sister are much hazier than they used to be—somehow less crisp and colorful than before. But time has a way of doing that. Images of her that used to show up in bold, bright colors in my mind’s eye have slowly faded to black and white, with various shades of gray and …

Breaking Free: Healing from cPTSD and Reclaiming My Life

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“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” ~Rumi

In 2011, my world shattered. My mother passed away, and with her, the fragile scaffolding that held my life together. It wasn’t just grief. It was as if her death unearthed a deep well of pain I had been carrying for years.

Looking back, I can see that I was living with complex PTSD (cPTSD), though I didn’t have the language for it at the time. cPTSD is a condition that often results from prolonged exposure to trauma, leaving deep emotional scars. It manifests as a constant state of …