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Posts tagged with “heal”

The Small, Unexpected Ways Grief Stays with Us

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“The reality is that you will grieve forever. You will not ‘get over’ the loss of a loved one; you will learn to live with it.” ~Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

My friend Diana’s WhatsApp profile picture is of herself hugging her dog, Zibby.

Every time her name comes up on my phone, there they are. The two of them in a tiny square. I’ve seen that photo so many times I stopped really looking at it.

Until recently.

Zibby wasn’t just a dog. She was part of the whole rhythm of their life, the mornings and the evenings and all the …

The Subtle Ways You Lose Yourself in a Toxic Relationship

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“Emotional abuse is any pattern of behavior that undermines a person’s sense of self-worth and reality.” ~Beverly Engel

At first, the changes were small.

I stopped wearing that outfit everyone liked because they said it didn’t look good on me. I let certain friendships fade because it made him uncomfortable. I laughed less at things he didn’t find funny.

I face-checked myself to make sure my expression was pleasing to him. I shrank just slightly, in ways no one else would notice.

Then it got bigger.

I stopped trusting my own judgment because he told me I was too sensitive. …

How to Heal on a Deeper Level After Moving On

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“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” ~C.G. Jung

For twelve years, I believed I was the architect of a perfect life. I had the “Summa Cum Laude” degree, a respected career in human services, a devoted husband, and two healthy daughters. I had checked every box on the “Success” list. I truly thought I had outrun my past.

But trauma has a way of waiting. It doesn’t disappear just because you stop looking at it. It simply goes underground, like a silent program running in the background of a …

How to Feel Safe When Panic Feels Dangerous

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“Anxiety isn’t you. It’s something moving through you. It can leave out of the same door it came in.” ~James Clear

Years ago, I had a panic attack while driving across a bridge, and I thought I might die that day.

Suddenly my heart started pounding. My breath became shallow and tight. My chest felt constricted, and a wave of dizziness washed over me.

I was driving sixty miles per hour, and there was nowhere to pull over. The bridge stretched for miles, suspended over open water, and I was alone in the car.

A terrifying thought shot through my …

What Happened to My Body When I Suppressed My Emotions

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“Our bodies communicate to us clearly and specifically, if we are willing to listen.” ~Shakti Gawain

As a child, I was never taught to regulate my emotions. I learned instead to override them—pushing through stress, swallowing tears, and even hiding a cast at dinner, afraid that showing what had happened to me would create anger instead of care.

By the time I was a teenager, I turned to drugs and alcohol to manage my emotions. It was easier to feel nothing at all than to be bombarded by emotions I had no clue what to do with.

This turned into …

What My Body Taught Me: 13 Surgeries, One Coma, Countless Powerful Lessons

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

I was born with spina bifida. When I was ten years old, doctors told me I might not walk again after a surgery that would change my life.

I don’t remember every word they said, but I remember the feeling, the air shifting in the room, the adults speaking carefully, the quiet that followed.

Paralysis was a possibility.

By that point, my body already knew hospital ceilings well. I had been through multiple surgeries before I fully understood what surgery meant. …

How to Know When You’re Truly Ready to Forgive

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“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 …

The Power of Writing for Healing: An Embodied Approach

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FREE Live 90-minute Write to Heal class and 20-page guide with prompts, recordings and more to support your healing journey. 

When I was studying writing in college, my personal essay class was my favorite. I’d already been journaling for almost a decade, so I understood the power of exploring life experiences through the written word.

Journaling wasn’t immediately helpful for me. In my younger years, I often wrote to ruminate, beat myself up, count calories, or otherwise reinforce patterns that didn’t support me. But as I worked through childhood trauma in therapy and through other approaches, my writing gradually became …

How to Calm Anxiety That’s Rooted in Childhood Wounds

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“Anxiety is a response to a nervous system that learned early on it had to protect itself.” ~Dr. Hilary Jacobs Hendel

Anxiety shaped much of my life—how I showed up, how I held myself back, and how I connected with others. For years, I didn’t even know what it was. I just knew the pounding heart, the tight chest, the trembling hands. I knew the shame that followed every “failure,” big or small, and the fear I would never be enough.

For a long time, I thought I was the problem. But anxiety isn’t a moral failing. It’s a part …

Healing Without Reconciling with My Mother and Learning to Love Myself

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“Owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing that we’ll ever do.” ~Brené Brown

Several years ago, I wrote a heartfelt letter to my estranged mother, articulating my deep feelings about her perceived lack of empathy and care. My intention in writing the letter wasn’t to ignite conflict; it was to sincerely share my perspective.

Rather than lashing out with blame, I expressed my profound sadness about feeling parentless and the struggle of raising myself without parental love and guidance, something I desperately needed at times.

I bared my soul, detailing the emotional turmoil …

When the Person You Love Is Disappearing into Addiction

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“Boundaries are the distance at which I can love you and myself at the same time.” ~Prentis Hemphill

I thought I had seen the worst of it. I thought I knew what it meant to watch someone you love disappear into addiction. My mother taught me that lesson long before I was old enough to truly understand it.

Growing up, I saw her sink deep into heroin. I learned to read the signs before she even spoke. I knew when she was high. I knew when she was lying. I knew when she was gone, even when she was …

The Hardest Person to Be Honest with Is Yourself

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“You cannot heal what you refuse to confront.” ~Yasmin Mogahed

At sixteen, I walked out of my mother’s house with track marks and a half-packed bag. No big fight. No slammed door. Just the silent resignation of someone who couldn’t look his mother in the eye anymore. I wasn’t leaving home—I was bailing on it. On everything.

I didn’t know the word “addiction.” Well, I knew it; I just didn’t understand it. I didn’t know that the flu I kept getting was withdrawal. I thought I was just weak. A loser. A burnout who couldn’t even use the …

Relief from Relentless Thoughts: Reclaiming My Mind from OCD

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“Don’t believe everything you hear—even in your own mind.” – Daniel G. Amen

This quote might sound like something you’d read on a coffee mug or an Instagram quote slide. But when your own mind is feeding you a 24/7 stream of terrifying, intrusive thoughts? That little phrase becomes a survival strategy.

Sure, I have lots of strategies now. But they weren’t born from a gentle spiritual awakening or a peaceful walk in the woods. They were born out of a relentless, knock-down, drag-out fight with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). A fight that started when I was a kid and stole …

When Love Isn’t Enough: How I Found Healing After Emotional Abuse

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“You can’t save someone who isn’t willing to participate in their own rescue.” ~Unknown

You and I have been doing the work. Talking. Writing. Processing.

Everything I’m focused on right now—in my healing, in my spirit, in my writing—is love. Becoming love. Living in love. Returning to love.

And yet, there’s a chapter of my life that continues to whisper to me: Why wasn’t love enough?

I spent nine years in a relationship that left me anxious, confused, and small. I was always on edge. Walking on eggshells, never knowing whether I’d be met with affection or fury. He …

Shifting Out of Survival Mode: Healing Happens One Choice at a Time

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“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” ~Viktor Frankl

It started as a faint hum—a sense of unease that crept in during the isolation of the pandemic. I was a licensed therapist working from home, meeting with clients through a screen. Together, we were navigating a shared uncertainty, trying to cope as the world shifted beneath us.

I could feel the weight of their anxiety as they talked about their spiraling thoughts and struggles to feel grounded. What I didn’t realize then was how much of their turmoil was a reflection …

The Song That Surprisingly Brought Me Back to Life

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“Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.” ~Maya Angelou

I used to believe that healing and personal transformation required a lot of effort—writing page after page in a journal or getting up at the crack of dawn to carry out a morning routine, to name a couple.

When I moved through a phase of numbness—or the tunnel of darkness, as I now call it—it was frightening, and there seemed to be no end in sight. But one song found me at the right moment and changed everything.

In …

The Trauma Keeps Talking—But My Voice Is Now Louder

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“Turn down the volume of your negative inner voice and create a nurturing inner voice to take its place.” ~Beverly Engel

After the abuse ends, people think the pain ends too. But what no one tells you is that sometimes the loudest voice isn’t the abuser’s anymore—it’s the one that settles inside you.

It whispers:

“You’re broken.”

“You’re used.”

“You don’t deserve better.”

And over time, that voice doesn’t just whisper. It becomes the rhythm of your thoughts, the lens through which you see yourself.

That’s what I mean when I say the trauma keeps talking.

Living with the Echo

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The Grief No One Talks About: How to Heal After Losing a Soulmate Pet

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“Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unawakened.” ~Anatole France

When my cat Squiggles died, I didn’t just “lose a pet.” I lost a part of my identity, my greatest source of comfort, and my sense of home.

Squiggles was the one constant in my life through every milestone, every heartbreak, every version of myself I grew into over the course of two decades. I had her since the moment she was born, and for almost twenty-two years, Squiggles was my constant companion, my emotional support, my soul-kitty.

But no matter how much I prepared …

The Truth About My Inner Critic: It Was Trauma Talking

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“I will not let the bullies and critics of my early life win by joining and agreeing with them.” ~Pete Walker

For most of my life, there was a voice in my head that narrated everything I did, and it was kind of an a**hole.

You know the one. That voice that jumps in before you even finish a thought:

“Don’t say that. You’ll sound stupid.”

“Why would anyone care what you think?”

 “You’re too much. You’re not enough. You’re a mess.”

No matter what I did, the critic had notes. Brutal ones. And the worst part? I believed every …

Could Curiosity Be the Best Medicine for Chronic Illness?

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“Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t, you’re right.” ~Henry Ford

We’ve all been there: happily ticking off life’s checkboxes, certain we’ve cracked the code, until—bam!—life decides otherwise. Divorce papers, layoffs, grief, or unexpected illness—life’s curveballs don’t discriminate.

For me, it was a sudden mystery illness at sixteen. What should have been a simple infection changed the trajectory of my entire life. Doctors were at a loss, tests offered no answers, and I was left navigating an uncertain reality, desperately clinging to control as my lifeline.

One day I’m cheering at the Friday night football …