“The wound is where the light enters you.” ~Rumi “I can’t do anything right. There’s something wrong with me.” My daughter said these words quietly, almost as if she didn’t want me to hear them. But I did. And the moment I did, something in my chest cracked open. I knew that feeling. I’d carried it my entire childhood….
“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…
Would you say you’re a healthy eater? If not, is this a goal for you? For years, people thought of me as healthy because I rarely ate meat or desserts. But it was more that I was desperate to stay thin, and I consumed tons of processed food and sugary candy because I could eat them without gaining weight….
It was close to midnight the first time it really hit me. I was sitting alone at my kitchen table, still in work clothes, phone in hand. I’d come straight home after a long day of back-to-back meetings, staff conversations, and one decision I’d been avoiding for weeks—a call that would affect someone’s role, their income, and their sense…
“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…
“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….
“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….
“The resistance that you fight physically in the gym and the resistance that you fight in life can only build a strong character.” ~Arnold Schwarzenegger The gym. Just saying the word makes some people break into a sweat—and not the good kind. Bright lights. Mirrors everywhere. What do I wear? That “everyone is staring at me” feeling (spoiler: they’re…
“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…
“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…
