How does your life change when your worth is no longer tied to approval or success? I love this question — and I don’t find it easy to answer. For years, I wanted to write a book. I wanted to create a journal. I wanted to expand my coaching work. What held me back wasn’t lack of ability or desire. It was caring too much about what others thought. Everything shifted when I realized I had a voice — and that there were people who could benefit from my experience. That understand

In the last two blogs, I shared about my free-spirit nature and my complicated relationship with the holidays. These are two of my shadow parts — the places where I once felt defective. One of them, the free spirit, I now truly love. The other — my resistance to the material side of the holidays — is still a work in progress. And that’s okay. Learning to love our shadow parts isn’t about becoming perfect for others. It’s about having compassion for ourselves as human beings.

What are you afraid will happen if you stop trying to control the outcome? Anyone who knows me well knows this: I am not a holiday person. The pressure of trying to make the holidays magical for everyone quite literally sends me into depression. I don’t know exactly when it started, but I do know that gift-giving has never been my love language. Add in growing up in a broken home — even one where my parents tried their best — and the holidays always felt heavy, confusing, and

For years, I believed that the purpose of my self-help journey was to fix myself. The more I read, studied, and talked with others, the more I began to realize something unexpected: I wasn’t broken. What I was really doing was remembering who I had always been. Re-membering myself. When I was younger, I had healthy instincts. I was observant. I watched the adults around me work through their own struggles, and I learned very quickly that love often came with conditions. I wan

Letting go is often described as a form of freedom. But for most of us, it doesn’t feel freeing at first—it feels terrifying. Because letting go doesn’t just mean releasing a person, a pattern, or a belief. It means letting go of the identity we built around survival. It means facing the quiet question underneath everything: Who am I without this struggle? For those of us shaped by fear, responsibility can feel like loss. Loss of connection. Loss of purpose. Loss of the role

My Story I hated substance abuse. I hated addiction. But if I’m honest, what I hated most wasn’t the substances themselves. It was the attachment—the way the addict clung to a persona they played. Someone unreachable. Someone evasive. Someone I couldn’t save. Instead of walking away, I tried to fix them. I became codependent without realizing it. I confused control with care. I believed that if I loved harder, showed up more, sacrificed enough of myself, I could turn them bac

The Power of Hate: My Story I hated substance abuse. I hated addiction. But if I’m being honest, what I hated most wasn’t the drugs or the alcohol. It was the attachment . The way the addict clung to a persona they played—someone unreachable, evasive, always just out of grasp. I watched someone I loved choose that version of themselves over and over again. And instead of walking away, I tried to fix them. I became codependent without realizing it. I mistook control for care.

Embracing Change and Growth This past year has been a transformative journey for me. I've learned so much about myself and the areas of my life that needed nurturing. I like to think my creative side is finally finding its voice. Last summer, I took a class on writing and publishing. It opened my eyes to possibilities I hadn’t considered before. Inspired by what I learned, I wrote and published my first book. It was less about being serious and more about enjoying the process