Posts tagged with “Love”
What Letting My Dad Go Taught Me About Love
“Some of us think holding on makes us strong, but sometimes it is letting go.” ~Hermann Hesse
My dad was intubated, so he couldn’t say the words back to me.
I told him I loved him anyway.
Instead, he slowly pointed to himself and then to me.
“You love me too?” I asked.
His eyes widened ever so slightly, and he nodded gently, giving me the biggest response his body could offer. I held onto that moment like it was something solid in a room where everything else was slipping away.
It was the last moment we had together before
How I Broke My Painful Relationship Patterns for Good
“Sometimes we fall for the same mistakes because we haven’t learned to love ourselves fully.” ~Unknown
As long as I can remember, my relationships followed the same script.
At first, there was charm. Attention. Sweetness. Intensity. That intoxicating feeling of being seen and chosen, sometimes for the very first time.
Then, slowly, the cracks appeared.
It started small. A comment like, “You’re overthinking it again,” said with a laugh when I tried to express how I felt, and suddenly I went quiet, wondering if maybe I was the problem.
Then came the silence, and instead of questioning it, I found …
My Father Taught Me Love Is Something You Earn; He Was Wrong
“One of the hardest things I’ve had to understand is that closure comes from within. Especially difficult if you’ve been betrayed by someone you love because you feel like you gotta let them know the pain they caused, but the peace you seek can only be given to you by you.” ~Bruna Nessif
A photo of my father handing me a tennis trophy has hung in my living room for years.
Even now, if I stare at it too long, I can feel the old rush: pride, relief, belonging. For most of my life, that photograph served as proof that …
The Beautiful Gift We Give Without Even Knowing
“The most precious gift we can offer anyone is our attention.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh
Five years ago, my son missed a basketball tryout.
We had been out of town, and by the time we got back, the rosters were already set. I made a few calls anyway, hoping someone might give a kid a late shot. One coach said yes. He had a spot left, and he was willing to take a chance on a name he’d never heard from a father he’d never met.
That coach became one of my closest friends.
I started coming to practices to help …
How Being the Strong One in My Family Became a Trap
“The world breaks everyone, and afterward, many are strong at the broken places.” ~Ernest Hemingway
My grandmother had just died. My sister and I had come from the room where her body still lay, and we were standing in the elevator in silence when the doors slid closed. My sister looked at me and said, “Now you’re the last strong one in this family.”
It was comforting to hear her words. I felt proud. And then, almost immediately, something else. My stomach clenched. I just wanted to stop the elevator, run away, and never look back. My sister wasn’t …
How to Overcome Ultra-Independence and Receive Love and Support
“Ultra-independence is a coping mechanism we develop when we’ve learned it’s not safe to trust love or when we are terrified to lose ourselves in another. We aren’t meant to go it alone. We are wounded in relationship and we heal in relationship.” ~Rising Woman
Do you feel like you have to do everything on your own?
Is it difficult for you to ask for and receive help for fear of being let down?
Have you ever heard the expression “Ultra-independence may be a trauma response”?
If this is you, I get it; that was me too.
Please know there …
Phone Down, Eyes Up: How to Really See the People We Love
“The most precious gift we can offer anyone is our attention.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh
Judy was three the first time I missed it. She had spent a solid ten minutes stacking every couch cushion on our living room floor in Vancouver, building what she clearly considered an Olympic-grade landing pad. She climbed up on the couch, stretched her arms out wide, and gave me that look. You know the one. The look kids give you right before they do something that makes your heart jump into your throat.
“Baba, watch!” she yelled.
My phone was in my hand. It was …
It’s Okay to Have No Purpose Beyond Being and Enjoying This Moment
“I don’t believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive.” ~Joseph Campbell
I was sitting on my yoga mat with my legs stretched out in front of me. I bent forward into a fold, puffing and clenching my jaw as I extended my fingertips toward my toes. I was growing angrier by the second.
A slew of sour thoughts marched through my brain.
This is stupid. I thought yoga was supposed to be relaxing. I’m so out of shape. Other people have no trouble with this pose. …
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 I Learned About Love and Worth When Money Was Gone
“The greatest discovery of all time is that a person can change his future by merely changing his attitude.” ~Oprah Winfrey
The fluorescent lights of the grocery store hummed, a cruel counterpoint to the silence in my head. I watched the cashier scan the items, the familiar beep-boop-beep of the register a countdown to my humiliation.
Pasta, milk, a loaf of bread, eggs—each item was a tiny weight on a scale, and I knew the final tally would tip it into the red.
“I’m sorry,” the cashier said, her voice a soft, sympathetic murmur as she removed the items one
When Love Isn’t Enough: How I Found Healing After Emotional Abuse
“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 …
The Lonely Ache of Self-Worth That No One Talks About
“The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.” ~Kahlil Gibran
They don’t talk about this part.
The hardest part about knowing your worth—after doing the work, setting boundaries, and getting crystal clear on what you want—is the ache.
Not just any ache. The ache of being awake. The ache of knowing. The ache of not settling.
I remember the first time I walked away from someone who didn’t mistreat me but who also didn’t quite meet me. I had spent years unraveling my old patterns: the people-pleasing, the over-giving, the “maybe this is …
The Child I Lost and the Inner Child I’m Now Learning to Love
“Our sorrows and wounds are healed only when we touch them with compassion.” ~Jack Kornfield
Her absence lingers in the stillness of early mornings, in the moments between tasks, in the hush of evening when the day exhales. I’ve gotten good at moving. At staying busy. At producing. But sometimes, especially lately, the quiet catches me—and I fall in.
Grief doesn’t always roar. Sometimes it’s a whisper, one you barely hear until it’s grown into a wind that bends your bones.
It’s been nearly three years since my daughter passed. People told me time would help. That the firsts—first holidays, …
I Spent Years Chasing Love Until I Finally Chose Myself
“The only people who get upset when you set boundaries are the ones who benefited from you having none.” ~Unknown
For most of my life, I lived with a quiet ache, a longing I couldn’t quite name but always felt. I wanted to be chosen. Not just liked or tolerated, but fully seen, wanted, and loved.
That longing shaped so many of my choices. I over-gave in relationships, staying in situations far longer than I should have, and shrank myself to be accepted.
I didn’t know it at the time, but I was trying to fill an emptiness that had …
The Truth About Why I’ve Ghosted People (and What I’ve Learned)
“Ghosting is cruel because it denies a person the chance to process, to ask questions, or to get closure. It’s emotional abandonment, masquerading as protection.” ~Dr. Jennice Vilhauer
I never set out to ghost anyone.
In fact, I used to hate ghosting with the burning fury of a thousand unread dating app notifications. I told myself I’d never be that person—the one who disappears mid-conversation, fails to reply after a good date (or sends a very bland thank you message), or silently vanishes like a breadcrumb trail to nowhere.
And yet… here I am. Writing a post about how I’ve …
