Holidays

“When you say yes to others, make sure you are not saying no to yourself.” ~Paulo Coelho I grew up as the first-born daughter—the responsible one, the helper, the one who didn’t want to cause trouble. I learned early how to be “good.” Good meant quiet. Good meant easy. Good meant not needing much. What I didn’t […]

“You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.” ~Buddha For most of my life, hoping for something better wasn’t a problem. It was my fuel. If everything had lined up the way I once imagined, it would have looked something like this: steady financial security, meaningful creative work

“Ironically enough, when you make peace with the fact that the purpose of life is not happiness but rather experience and growth, happiness comes as a natural byproduct. When you are not seeking it as the objective, it will find its way to you.” ~Unknown I had ten days to pack up my life. I

“With self-compassion, we give ourselves the same kindness and care we’d give to a good friend.” ~Kristin Neff For a long time, I carried a question with me that I rarely said out loud. It wasn’t dramatic. It didn’t sound cruel. It felt reasonable—even responsible. What’s wrong with me? The question surfaced whenever I felt

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

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

“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

“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;

“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.