Tag: self-compassion

  • What Is Real Safety — And How Do You Find It?

    Safety isn’t the absence of danger. It’s the presence of something. Learn how to recognize real safety in your body, test for it in relationships, and begin rebuilding trust with yourself — one small step at a time.

  • The People Who Stay: Why Friendship Is the Love Story We Keep Missing

    **Slug:** the-people-who-stay-friendship-love-story — **Excerpt:** We were taught that romantic love is the answer — the thing that will complete us, save us, prove our worth. But what if the most nourishing love story of your life has been unfolding quietly beside you all along, in the people who simply stayed? This is a post about…

  • What If I’d Driven Away? Learning Self-Compassion When You Can’t Forgive Your Own Choices

    What if one different choice could have changed everything? Through the lens of a moment sitting outside a church in a minivan, this post explores what it really means to stop punishing yourself, listen to the parts of you that are exhausted, and discover that self-compassion — not self-criticism — is the only way forward.…

  • A Table for My Enemies

    “I have spent so much of my life closing and barring the door to the parts of myself I find unacceptable. I’m realizing as I get older how much energy it requires to continue to push on this door to prevent it from breaking open. Sitting on my desk is a little golden table—a sacred…

  • When Helping Ourselves Becomes Hurting Ourselves: My Journey with Rumination

    For years, I thought retelling my abuse story was helping me heal. I had no idea I was retraumatizing myself every single time. Today I discovered the hidden pattern that’s been keeping me stuck—and why even well-intentioned therapy can miss it.

  • Breaking Down the Barriers to Love

    “I spent almost half a decade looking into the mirror and seeing someone else. Who did I see? Someone who everyone else expected me to be. People-pleasing doesn’t give your true self the opportunity to be loved—and it doesn’t give someone else the opportunity to be loved by your true self.”

  • Are You Running on Fear?

    Our nervous systems are wired to keep us alive, not to keep us happy. They’re incredibly good at detecting danger, but terrible at telling the difference between real threats and false alarms. That rustling in the bushes could be a bear or it could be a squirrel. Your nervous system doesn’t care—it just screams ‘RUN!'”

  • Learning to Trust Yourself: A Journey of Self-Discovery

    “Here’s what I’ve learned: self-trust isn’t something you either have or don’t have—it’s something you build through small, consistent deposits of self-advocacy.Just like a bank account, trust accumulates through repeated deposits. Every time you honor a commitment to yourself—even a tiny one—you’re making a deposit. Every time you speak up for your needs, set a…