“Survival mode is supposed to be a phase that helps save your life. It is not meant to be how you live.” ~Michele Rosenthal Childhood is the most cherished time for many. However, nobody gets to adulthood unscathed. We all go through incidents with our friends, family, and at school or otherwise that leave us feeling emotionally bruised or…
“The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.” ~Michel de Montaigne Some people fear spiders. Some fear public speaking. My biggest fear? That my plus-one will always be my own reflection. More and more people are finding themselves in the single life—not because they joyfully signed up for it, but because they’ve quietly resigned themselves…
“There is no way to be whole without first embracing our brokenness. Wounds transform us, if we let them.” ~Sue Monk Kidd Menopause flagged up everything unresolved, unmet, and unchallenged and asked me to meet it with grace. I’m not saying it was an overnight thing—more like a ten-year process of discovery, rollercoaster style. One of those “strap yourself…
“The habits you created to survive will no longer serve you when it’s time to thrive.” ~Eboni Davis I learned early how to measure the danger in a room. With a narcissistic mother, the air could shift in an instant—her tone slicing through me, reminding me that my feelings had no place. With an alcoholic stepfather, the threat was…
“Have no fear of perfection—you’ll never reach it.” ~Salvador Dalí We live in a world that worships polish. Perfect photos on Instagram. Seamless podcasts with no awkward pauses. Articles that read like they’ve passed through a dozen editors. And now, with AI tools that can produce mistake-free writing in seconds, the bar feels even higher. Machines can generate flawless…
“The strongest people are the ones who are still kind after the world tore them apart.” ~Raven Emotion A few months ago, I stopped being friends with my best friend from childhood, whom I had always considered like my brother. It was a tough decision, but I had to make it. In the past five years, my friend (let’s…
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response.” ~Viktor Frankl For years, I thought something was wrong with me. No matter what I was doing—sitting in a meeting, walking the dog, or watching TV—my brain was busy debating food. Should I eat? Shouldn’t I? I could just have one more…
“There’s no such thing as a ‘bad kid’—just angry, hurt, tired, scared, confused, impulsive ones expressing their feelings and needs the only way they know how. We owe it to every single one of them to always remember that.” ~Dr. Jessica Stephens All children look up to their parents from the moment they enter this world. They have this…
“The paradox of trauma is that it has both the power to destroy and the power to transform and resurrect.” ~Peter Levine I was sitting in the conference room at work with the CEO and my abusive male boss. The same boss who had been love-bombing and manipulating me since I started nine months earlier, slowly pushing my nervous…
“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson Ever since I was about four years old, I knew I was different from the other kids. I was always on the outside looking in. As I approach middle age, I’ve never shaken that feeling—the knowing—of being…
