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Posts tagged with “healing”

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 …

Why You’re Not Happy (Even If Life Looks Fine)

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Do you sometimes see people running around enjoying life and wonder what you’re missing? Sometimes I used to think I must be a horrible person. I had so many things going for me, and I still couldn’t be happy. I would ask myself, is there something wrong with me? Am I a narcissist?

Then sometimes I would decide I was just going to be happy. I would fake it until I made it and just accept that’s who I was. But it wouldn’t take long for me to feel overwhelmingly depressed.

I had a little dark hole that would constantly …

Healing Comes in Waves

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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 …

She Healed

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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 …

Life After Abuse: A Story of Hope and Healing

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TRIGGER WARNING: This post deals with an account of domestic violence and may be triggering to some.

Growing up, I learned early on how to be aware of the little things that spoke volumes. My mom wasn’t just an alcoholic; she was also bipolar, and I never knew if I’d come home to a mom who was cheerful and loving or to one who would say hurtful things and obsess over cleaning.

I grew up in AA, surrounded by people trying to rebuild their lives. My parents were both recovering alcoholics, and while I didn’t fully understand it at …

How to Reclaim Your Power After Being Denigrated or Disrespected

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“As they become known to and accepted by us, our feelings and the honest exploration of them become sanctuaries and spawning grounds for the most radical and daring of ideas.” ~Audre Lorde

The high-speed train barreled through the Japanese countryside. Craning my neck to take in the scenery, excitement fluttered in my tummy. I was twenty-eight years old and living my dream of being a professional singer.

My duo partner, Caroline, and I had just completed a month onstage at the Intercontinental Hotel in Manila, Philippines. A twenty-piece orchestra backed our forty-five-minute show, an entertaining mix of Motown hits, 80s …

Grief Has No Rules: Love, Loss, and Letting Go

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“Grief never ends … But it changes. It’s a passage, not a place to stay. Grief is not a sign of weakness, nor a lack of faith. It is the price of love.” ~Unknown

“Thank you for letting me know.” The moment I hung up the phone, the tears came. I was confused and caught off guard. Why was I crying over the death of my ex-husband?

We’d separated six years ago. I had a new partner and hadn’t thought much about him in over three years. So why did his death hit me so hard?

Big Girls Don’t Cry

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Healing Through Reparenting: The Greatest Act of Self-Love

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“When you reparent yourself, you can step in and give your inner child the deep love and attention you may not have had when you were young.” ~Victoria Albina

Reparenting is not for the faint of heart, but the journey can surely be described as the greatest act of self-love. It’s a gift—a chance to redo some of the painful aspects of childhood and adolescence, but with the awareness of an adult mind. It is also an opportunity to connect much more deeply with ourselves and those we wish to connect with in a more authentic way.

What is reparenting?…

How to Forgive That Earlier Version of You

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“Forgiveness is an action, which your mind can never understand. Your mind’s sole intent is to balance the books. In issues of morality, it only wants to get even. Therefore, practice forgiveness every day if only in trivial matters. This is an excellent way of tempering the mind and empowering the heart.” ~Glenda Green

Recently, seemingly out of nowhere, I had thoughts about a relationship that ended many years ago. I started to remember some things I had said, emotions I had felt, and things I had done. I cringed.

What could suddenly make me think of those things now? …

Healing Childhood Wounds: A Journey to Love and Connection

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The drive on I-95 from the New England coast back home to Washington, D.C., was harrowing— construction zones, accidents, and rush-hour traffic. I was glad my husband was at the wheel.

After spending the weekend visiting our daughter at college in Connecticut, I was ready to check out, so I scrolled through social media on my phone to mindlessly pass the time. But when I paused on a post from my favorite self-help influencer, Cory Muscara, I got something very different from the relaxation I’d been craving.

I started following Cory several months before, after a friend had sent me …

How to Embrace Elective (not Mandatory) Forgiveness After Trauma

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Do I need to forgive my abusive mother to let go of the past?

This is the question I found myself grappling with when I started to recover from the pain of childhood neglect. For most of my childhood, I did not have access to a consistent adult who valued me. As a result, I believed that I had no value, and I lived my life according to this belief.

I treated myself as an invaluable being by denying my needs, catering to everyone else’s, and engaging in relationships with people who sought to benefit from my low self-worth. …

4 Lessons I Learned from Leaving a Toxic Relationship

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“It takes strength and self-love to say goodbye to what no longer serves you.” ~Rumi

I promised myself at a young age that when I got married, I was not going to get divorced, no matter what! My parents had divorced when I was five, and I knew that I didn’t want to put my kids through what I’d experienced as a child who grew up in a “broken” family. I wanted my kids to know what it was like to live in a house with both their parents present and involved in their lives.

So, when I found …

How I’ve Become My Own Source of Love and Reassurance

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“Create a safe space within yourself that no one will ever find, somewhere the madness of this world can never touch.” ~Christy Ann Martine

Losing my grandmother was like losing the one person who had always been my anchor. She was my steady rock, my quiet cheerleader, and the only person who truly made me feel that I was perfectly fine, just as I was. I never had to pretend around her or hide my mistakes or messiness.

She had this way of being present and calm, even when life around us wasn’t, and that gave me a sense of …

Divorce: A Portal to Reclaiming My Authentic Self

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“The only journey is the one within.” ~Rainer Maria Rilke

Navigating life after divorce has been the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but divorce also contained the best gifts I have ever received. My whole world was shaken up and rearranged. The shake-up included a loss of career and becoming a mostly solo parent on top of the divorce.

From the rubble of my old life, I got the chance to build something new, authentic, and fresh. Divorce was a painful portal to powerfully reclaiming myself and my life. Through the rebuilding process, I found strength and clarity in ways …