“Our painful experiences aren’t a liability—they’re a gift. They give us perspective and meaning, an opportunity to find our unique purpose and our strength.” –Dr. Edith Eger, The Choice: Embrace the Possible The loss of an unrealized dream sent me spiraling down, down into the darkness. A darkness filled with a despair and hopelessness that I had not known…
“Being a good person doesn’t mean being a doormat… You can be kind, giving, and full of love, but that doesn’t mean you have to accept disrespect or allow your boundaries to be crossed.” ~Unknown I can still vividly remember sitting in my seventh-grade classroom, forcing a laugh as my classmates made jokes at my expense. My cheeks would…
“Neuroscience research shows that the only way we can change the way we feel is by becoming aware of our inner experience and learning to befriend what is going inside ourselves.” ~Bessel A. van der Kolk It’s early morning, and I wake with an intense sensation of foreboding. I say wake up, but really, it’s just coming fully into…
“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…
“Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it.” ~Brené Brown What is the exact point when you realize you are in a toxic relationship? For me, it was a process that took almost a year. I thought I was mindful and “awake.” I did have an internal dialogue with…
“Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.” ~Anne Lamott I used to believe that success meant always being available. Always saying yes. Always responding immediately to emails, Slack pings, texts, whatever was thrown my way. Because if I stopped—even for a second—I might fall behind. And if I wasn’t working harder…
Honestly, it’s hard to believe I’m at the age for perimenopause. I feel young in many ways, despite the exhaustion of parenting two young kids. And I’ve always felt somewhat eternal, doing whatever I want to do at any age, without regard for what other people think or believe. But here I am—forty-five, dealing with all kinds of hormone-related…
“Confidence comes not from always being right but from not fearing to be wrong.” ~Peter T. McIntyre I used to think of confidence as something external, something that people exuded in their body language, in the way they spoke, or in the certainty of their decisions. To me, a confident person had a poker face and a strong, grounded…
“Chance made us colleagues. Fun and laughter made us friends.” ~Unknown A year into my new job, I realized that the hardest part wasn’t the complexity of the work—it was the culture. The office felt like a maze of silos, each person isolated in their corner. The hierarchy was more than just a structure—it was something everyone was constantly…
“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…
