Posts tagged with “healing”
What I Ask Myself Now Instead of “What’s Wrong with Me?”
“With self-compassion, we give ourselves the same kindness and care we’d give to a good friend.” ~Kristin Neff
For a long time, I carried a question with me that I rarely said out loud.
It wasn’t dramatic. It didn’t sound cruel. It felt reasonable—even responsible.
What’s wrong with me?
The question surfaced whenever I felt stuck. When motivation disappeared. When I couldn’t seem to do the things I thought I should be able to do with ease. It appeared quietly in moments of overwhelm, in the pause before self-judgment set in.
I asked it sincerely. I believed it was the …
The Hidden Cost of Trusting the Universe More Than Yourself
“You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop.” —Rumi
The last days of the year felt like the right time to let go. I stood in my backyard with twenty-five years of journals—thick notebooks filled with prayers, confessions, and late-night spirals—ready to release them to the flames.
I wasn’t being dramatic. I was being deliberate. I stopped daily journaling several years ago.
For years, I’d used these journals as a kind of inner courtroom, constantly building a case against myself or others. Every page held evidence of failures, proof of my profoundly …
The Simple Words That Reshaped How I See Myself
“Only say good words to your child. Even if it looks like they’re not listening, if you repeat those kind words a hundred or a thousand times, they will eventually become the child’s own thoughts.” ~My grandmother
When I think about my childhood, the first word that comes to mind is “night.”
The nights were always the hardest.
My father struggled with alcohol and sometimes turned that pain into violence at home.
As a kid, I felt like danger could appear at any time after the sun went down.
I was afraid to sleep deeply. I kept the light on …
What Losing My Brother Taught Me About Addiction, Shame, and Love
“Protest any labels that turn people into things. Words are important. If you want to care for something, you call it a ‘flower’; if you want to kill something, you call it a ‘weed.’” ~Don Coyhis
Losing my brother to a substance use disorder taught me things I never wanted to learn. Things nobody prepares you for. Things that will change you in ways you never thought possible.
It taught me that you can love someone so much it physically hurts—and still not be able to save them. It taught me that you can mourn someone you love long before …
What Happened When I Stopped Making Rigid Rules for Myself
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” ~Viktor E. Frankl
I stood in my kitchen, staring at the leftover red velvet cake from my birthday party the night before. It was beautiful: layers of deep red with cream cheese frosting that I knew tasted incredible. And for the first time in years, I heard something different than the voice that had ruled my life.
For so long, there had been this other voice. Dominating. Controlling. It told me exactly what
A Simple Practice That’s Keeping Me Out of Catastrophic Thinking
“Hope is not a prediction. It is the choice to believe something good is possible before we have proof.”
For most of my life, I lived with an internal alarm system that never turned off. I expected disaster around every corner—financial collapse, professional failure, health crises, humiliation, and loss. Catastrophic thinking wasn’t just a habit; it felt like responsibility. It felt like vigilance. It felt like survival.
As a documentary filmmaker, anticipating the unexpected is part of the job. We learn to obsess over what could go wrong—equipment failures, weather shifts, emotional volatility, permissions falling apart, safety concerns, or a
How to Create Micro-Moments of Joy to Help You Keep Going
“The present moment is filled with joy and happiness. If you are attentive, you will see it.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh
I want to shine a light on something that often gets overlooked in both the medical world and the mental health space. Something I didn’t have a name for until I lived through it myself.
I call it joy deficiency.
If you’re reading this, chances are you’ve felt it too.
Maybe you’re living with Crohn’s, like I am.
Maybe you’ve faced chronic migraines, cancer, autoimmune symptoms, depression, fatigue, or simply the exhaustion of carrying emotional pain for far too long.…
The Moment That Brought Me Hope When Life Felt Joyless
“If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change.” ~Buddha
There are seasons when life feels stripped of joy, when hope seems far away, unreachable, or unreal. Seasons when you wake up already exhausted, and it feels like there’s nothing soft left in the world—no beauty, no connection, nothing to rest in. I’ve been living in that season lately.
I’m losing my vision to macular degeneration. I’m a caregiver for my ninety-six-year-old mother. I’m navigating disability, financial strain, and the feeling that the future is shrinking instead of widening. Most days, I move …
The Growth That Came from Not Saying Sorry
“You are not responsible for other people’s emotional reactions.” ~Susan Forward
This morning, in our usual rush and routine heading to school, my son was looking for something, as per usual. I calmly asked what he was doing, and he snapped at me. That’s not uncommon.
I stayed regulated and grounded to help him regulate. But sometimes, that calm turns into overfunctioning.
Codependency has a way of sneaking in the back door. As someone who was once deeply codependent, I still fall into old habits—being the one who holds it together, who stays calm for others. And if they
How to Be Sad on Vacation
“Healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.” ~Pema Chodron
I recently went on vacation with my partner, Jett. I want to tell you it was kind of a disaster, but the truth is, it was just life. I had a lot of expectations placed on this trip (I have a lot of expectations, period), and I thought my issues wouldn’t follow me to Mexico.
We left the chores and the kids and the pets behind, but we still brought ourselves. We were both currently …
The Beauty in Brokenness: Why Your Scars Make You Worthy
“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” ~Rumi
On July 2, 2009, my life shattered with three words: “He is gone.”
I thought my friend meant my love was away on a camping trip, but no. She meant he was gone, as in forever.
My stomach knotted and my breath stopped. My body was reacting to the gravity of the truth before my mind could fully process it. The man I loved more than life itself never came back from his camping trip, and in many ways, neither did I.
My heart broke in a million …
Breaking Free from the Constant Need to Be Better
“Enough is a decision, not a condition.” ~Unknown
The night sky above Disneyland shimmered in color as fireworks burst to life. My daughters leaned against me, sticky-fingered from melted ice cream, eyes wide with wonder. It was supposed to be the happiest place on earth.
Then Mirabel’s voice from Encanto echoed through the speakers: “I will never be good enough. Will I? No matter how hard I try.”
Something inside me broke.
Sitting cross-legged on the pavement surrounded by thousands of smiling families, I sobbed. Not a dainty, delicate tear but the kind of quiet, chest-aching cry you hope no …
Why Your Friendships Make You Feel Anxious and Overthink Everything
“Many of our relationship struggles are not character flaws but survival strategies that once made sense.” ~Unknown
Throughout my life I’ve often been described as confident and outgoing. I can be the “life and soul” of a party and am able to strike up conversations with a wide variety of people.
But what nobody would have guessed is that I secretly struggled to navigate close friendships. I used to overthink every unanswered text, I felt I needed to please to keep friends close, and I even pushed friends away because I thought they didn’t care.
What made it worse was …
The Power of Writing for Healing: An Embodied Approach
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 …
What Losing My Faith Taught Me About Being Truly Alive
“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
I grew up as the fifth of seven children in a strict religious family where faith shaped everything. From an early age, I learned to follow the rules, perform to be seen, keep the peace, and be good.
My religious upbringing taught me to give my power away. The church held the answers, the authority, and even forgiveness itself. I learned to seek approval from outside sources instead of developing a relationship with my own inner truth. …
How I Found Peace When Everything Suddenly Felt Out of My Control
“That which does not kill us makes us stronger.” ~Friedrich Nietzsche
I was twenty-five weeks pregnant when I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Still working, still showing up, still dreaming of a gentle homebirth.
We had an event at work that day, and I had to walk to it. I remember feeling so out of breath that I had to stop every few steps. Walking upstairs became impossible without pausing. Something wasn’t right.
I’d also noticed I was losing weight, especially in my face. My cheeks had sunken in. Not exactly the glowing pregnancy look I’d envisioned. More “heroin …
Finding Peace When You Don’t Know What Comes Next
“Sometimes letting things go is an act of far greater power than defending or hanging on.” ~Eckhart Tolle
For as long as I can remember, I’ve been the kind of person who plans everything.
My calendar was color-coded, my to-do lists perfectly alphabetized, and I could tell you what I’d be doing six months from now almost down to the hour.
I thought control meant safety. If I could organize my world tightly enough, maybe nothing bad would happen.
For a long time, that illusion worked. I graduated near the top of my class, got a good job, and built …
Why the Breath Is More Powerful Than Willpower in Addiction Recovery
“If you want to conquer the anxiety of life, live in the moment, live in the breath.” ~Amit Ray
I don’t remember the moment I decided I wanted to live again. I just remember the breath that made it possible.
Three weeks earlier, I had been lying in a hospital bed, my liver failing at the age of thirty-six after years of drinking. I knew I wouldn’t survive another relapse; yet the day I was released, I went straight to the liquor store. Unsurprisingly, I ended up back in rehab—completely exhausted, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. I wasn’t looking for …
The Truth About Healing I Didn’t Learn in Med School
“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” ~Rumi
I’ve spent most of my adult life helping people heal.
I’m a podiatrist, a foot and ankle surgeon, and I’ve seen pain in many forms. Torn ligaments. Crushed bones. Wounds that just won’t close. But if I’m being honest, the deepest wounds I’ve encountered weren’t the ones I treated in my clinic. They were the invisible ones, the ones that patients carried silently, and the ones I had unknowingly been carrying myself.
I used to think healing was straightforward. Diagnose. Treat. Follow up. Recover.
That made sense to me. …
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