Category: Raising Humans

Let’s sit with this one slowly, like a warm cup of tea you sip when the world feels too loud. “I deserve to take up space.” That means: you have the right to exist fully—with all your feelings, thoughts, needs, and dreams. You don’t have to make yourself smaller so others feel more comfortable. You…

Let’s start right here – where most of our shame lives – in our bodies. Have you ever been called “too sensitive,” “too emotional,” “too needy,” or felt like you had to shrink yourself to be loved? Maybe people made you feel guilty for needing comfort, reassurance, affection, time, or help. Maybe you were told…

Somewhere along the way, many of us learned that needing rest made us weak. That wanting beauty made us shallow. That craving gentleness made us needy. That asking for care made us a burden. So we hardened. We got louder, faster, busier. We learned to survive in a world that praised exhaustion and self-denial. And…

The world trains us to believe that softness is a reward. That we can only be gentle after we’ve achieved enough, proven enough, survived enough. That femininity—whatever that means for each of us—is some faraway version of ourselves we have to claw our way back to. But if you pause… if you breathe… nature reminds…

Sometimes, out of nowhere, a memory will rise. A version of you before all the heaviness. Before the survival mode. Before the walls you didn’t even know you were building. Maybe she laughed easier. Maybe she believed people quicker. Maybe she danced without needing a reason. Maybe she didn’t carry so much. And maybe now……

We’ve been fed this strange lie that rest is a reward. That it’s something you earn only after exhaustion. That rest is for the weak, the unmotivated, the unambitious. And so we push ourselves past tired, past depletion, past the whispers of our bodies asking us to slow down. But rest is not the enemy….

Somewhere along the way, being strong turned into being isolated. Carrying it all became the badge. And asking for help? That somehow felt like weakness. Like failure. Like we’d disappointed some invisible standard. But here’s the truth—being able to do it all doesn’t mean you’re supposed to. You weren’t designed to hold the weight of…

No one taught us how much our nervous systems carry. They just expected us to push through. Be productive. Be polite. Be presentable. Be fine. Even when we were unraveling inside. But your nervous system remembers everything—the heartbreaks you buried, the tension you shrugged off, the panic you masked with a smile. It holds the…

You were never cold. It just looked that way because you were wrapped in layers—layers of silence, of survival, of having to be okay when you weren’t. You learned to keep your warmth tucked deep inside because the world didn’t feel safe enough to let it out. And when no one offered to help you…