Honest storytelling as a form of healing.

Category: Posts

  • A new Never ending Wave

    A new Never ending Wave

    Today marks 20 years since my oldest daughter’s passing to SIDS and I thought I’d share 20 things I wish people understood about grief:

    1. “They’re in a better place” doesn’t make the missing stop. Both things can be true and still hurt.
      1. “Don’t be sad” is not comfort. It’s a request for your silence.
      2. “They wouldn’t want you to cry” maybe. But grief isn’t about what they want anymore. It’s about what love does when it has nowhere to go.
      3. “You’re lucky you have other children” is one of the cruelest things you can say to a grieving parent. Children are not interchangeable. Every single one is irreplaceable.
      4. “Just smile” means make me more comfortable with your pain.
      5. Grief has no expiration date. None.
      6. Twenty years later, that is still your person. That is still your baby. Time does not shrink that.
      7. It comes in waves. I can be fine right now and crying in an hour for no reason other than love.
      8. Sometimes the wave hits in the middle of a grocery store. Or a gym. Or a Tuesday morning.
      9. You learn to carry it, not lose it. It becomes part of how you walk through the world.
      10. Anniversaries are not just dates on a calendar. They are full-body experiences.
      11. The ones who feel it most are the ones who say the least about it.
      12. Grief is lonely. Not because no one cares, but because no one else loved them exactly the way you did.
      13. Sometimes I just need someone to say I’m here. That’s all. No fixing. No advice. Just I’m here.
      14. Silence from the people you expected to remember hurts in its own quiet way.
      15. Putting up a face is exhausting. But sometimes it’s how you survive the day.
      16. You don’t grieve less over time. You just get stronger between the waves.
      17. A favorite book, a song, a smell any of it can bring them back in a rush. That is not a breakdown. That is love.
      18. Grief is not weakness. It is the proof of how deeply you loved.
      19. My child will always be my child. In this world and the next. No amount of time, distance, or “looking on the bright side” changes that.


    If you are grieving today, I see you. You don’t have to explain yourself. You don’t have to be okay. You just have to keep going, and you are.

  • Go Bloom: A Love Letter to the First Day of Spring

    Go Bloom: A Love Letter to the First Day of Spring

    There is something almost magical about the way the earth just decides to shift.

    No announcements. No countdown. Just one morning you step outside and something in the air feels different. Lighter. Like the world exhaled.

    Today is the first day of spring, and I need you to feel the full weight of what that means.

    The spring equinox is the moment when light and dark are perfectly balanced, and then, just like that, the light starts to win. Day by day, little by little, there is more brightness than shadow. That is not just science. That is a message.

    Whatever you have been carrying through the winter, whatever felt heavy, stuck, frozen in place, the season is literally changing around you. The ground that looked like it had nothing left in it is already doing the quiet work of becoming something new. That is what seeds do. That is what we do.

    New beginnings do not always arrive with fanfare. Sometimes they arrive on an ordinary Friday, with a cup of something warm in your hand, and a feeling in your chest that says this is it. Something good is coming.

    I believe that feeling. I am choosing to believe it today.

    If you have been waiting for a sign to start again, to try again, to hope again, let this be it. The first day of spring on a Friday, the end of one week and the start of everything new.

    Happy Spring. Happy Friday. Happy new chapter.

    Go bloom.

  • Why Share Anyway

    Why Share Anyway

    I want to talk about something that I think a lot of creators sit with but don’t always say out loud.
    Sometimes you put something into the world not because you know it’s going to land, but because you believe it’s important. Because something in you said this needs to exist. And that reason that one is enough.
    I didn’t create what I created because I was chasing numbers. I created it because I thought it could help someone.

    Because it meant something to me. And that meaning doesn’t disappear just because the response was quiet.
    We live in a world that measures worth in metrics. Likes, views, shares. And it’s easy to let that math talk you out of your own conviction.

    But I keep coming back to this: if you share something true, something you genuinely believe in, you’ve already done the thing. The reach is secondary. The intention is the foundation.
    Not everyone will want what you have. That’s not failure. That’s just how it works. Your people are specific. Your message is specific. And specificity takes time to find its audience.
    So keep sharing what matters to you.

    Not for the validation. Because it’s important. Because you think it’s important. And that’s the only reason you ever needed.

  • When Your Soul Has Been Speaking and You Haven’t Been Listening

    When Your Soul Has Been Speaking and You Haven’t Been Listening

    There is a version of you that already knows the way.
    Quiet, not because there is nothing to say, but because the noise of everything else has been louder. The to-do lists. The grief you’re carrying. The version of yourself you keep trying to be for everyone around you. That part of you has been waiting underneath all of it, patient as the moon, holding the truth of who you actually are.
    This is for that part of you.

    We talk a lot about finding ourselves, as if the self is something we misplaced, like keys or a good pen. But what if you were never lost? What if you just got… covered? Layer by layer. Year by year. Expectation by expectation.


    Alignment isn’t about becoming someone new. It’s about returning.
    It’s the exhale after holding your breath too long. It’s recognizing your own voice again after months of only hearing everyone else’s. It’s soft, and it’s sacred, and it takes exactly as long as it takes.

    I created 7 Days of Alignment because I needed it myself.
    Not as a therapist. Not as an expert. As a woman who has stood at the crossroads of who I was and who I was being called to become, and needed somewhere to put it all down. To write it out. To sit in the discomfort of my own becoming without running from it.
    Seven days. Seven affirmations. Seven invitations to stop performing and start listening.
    Each day holds one truth to carry in your body before your mind wakes up and tries to take over.

    One prompt that asks you not to have the answers, but to have the conversation, with yourself, with the divine, with the parts of you you’ve been avoiding.
    This isn’t a challenge. It’s not a program. It’s a clearing.

    You don’t need to be in crisis to use it.
    You need to be in transition, and aren’t we all, always, in some kind of becoming?
    Maybe you’re standing at the edge of something new and can’t quite name what’s shifting. Maybe you’ve been feeling the pull to go inward but don’t know where to start. Maybe you’ve been running so long you forgot what it feels like to be still.
    This journal meets you where you are. It does not ask you to be healed before you begin. It asks you to show up, imperfect, unsure, tired if you need to be, and write.

    The page is where I have always found my way back to myself.
    Before I was a poet. Before I was a mother. Before I survived the things that tried to take me out. I have always trusted the blank page the way some people trust prayer, because for me, they are the same thing.
    7 Days of Alignment is that: a prayer you write to yourself.
    And when you close it on the seventh day, you won’t be a different person. But you will be a clearer one. A little more anchored. A little more you.

    Download it. Light a candle. Begin.
    The version of you that already knows the way has been waiting long enough.

    Get your copy of 7 Days of Alignment HERE

    Can’t wait to hear about your journey.

  • It started with a Page

    It started with a Page

    I didn’t set out to create a journal. I set out to survive.
    There have been seasons in my life where the only thing that kept me grounded was writing.

    Not pretty writing. Not polished writing. Just honest words on a page that helped me figure out what I was feeling when I couldn’t say it out loud.


    That’s what 7 Days of Alignment is born from.
    It’s a seven-day guided journal for anyone who is in the middle of something grief, change, becoming, all of the above.

    Each day gives you one affirmation to hold in your body and one prompt to take you deeper. No experience required. No perfection expected.

    Will you take the challenge?


    Just you and the page.

    I’ve been working toward this for a while, and I won’t pretend it didn’t feel vulnerable to put it out into the world.

    But if even one person picks this up on a hard day and feels a little less alone because of it, then it was worth every bit of courage it took to hit publish.

    So check it out HERE if you are ready to give yourself 7 Days of Alignment.

  • When Life Pulls the Tablecloth

    When Life Pulls the Tablecloth

    Funny how it feels like time is slowly shifting, but still moving slow.

    Not gonna lie at first I thought it was just the season. All that glum, grey cold weather. The seasonal heaviness that was becoming a storm I couldn’t escape. I told myself that if we could finally get some warm sunshine, it would solve everything.

    Finally, March arrived. The trip I’d planned with my youngest to the Botanical Garden to kick off the month was a go. Color, warmth, making memories with my little girl. It was gonna be a win-win.

    But life had other plans.

    Friday night I had a slight cough but I also have asthma, and my body was achy from a long hard work week, so I brushed it off. Saturday arrived with a headache and that same cough still hanging around. I said nope, took a vitamin C, and even went for a run. Had to stop midway. I told myself I just hadn’t run in a bit and the cough wasn’t helping, so I went and got a pedicure instead. At least I’d do something good for myself to set the mood for the fun time ahead.

    But once I was done, I felt my body say: are you done?

    I’ll admit it, I’m stubborn. I took some cold meds and more fluids and kept the plan alive in my head. I got up early Sunday after doing asthma treatments through the night. That should’ve been my sign right there. Maybe going into the city wasn’t a good idea.

    But I mustered on, got dressed, and we headed out only to turn back midway because I got sick on the train.

    From there it snowballed into a whole week of missing work. I was that sick.

    And I still couldn’t see it. Couldn’t see that my body was trying to tell me to slow down.

    That is when we need to stop and listen. Or at least that’s when I need to stop and listen.

    You see, I have a lot of things on my plate. I admit I want them all done ASAP. But that’s the thing about life it doesn’t care about your timeline.

    Again, we are not in control no matter how much we plan. Sure, sometimes that works. But when it won’t, it won’t.

    You can have everything mapped out, color-coded, scheduled down to the hour, and life will still walk in, pull the tablecloth, and watch everything slide. Not to destroy you. Maybe just to remind you that you are not in charge of the pace.

    Sometimes the pause is the plan. And your only job is to rest inside it until it’s time to move again.

    I’m learning that no matter how carefully I plan, life will always have its own version of events. And maybe that’s okay. One moment at a time is still forward motion.

  • Relearning How to Come Back to Myself

    Relearning How to Come Back to Myself

    Today, I learned something in my journal therapy studies that didn’t feel new it felt remembered.

    It wasn’t about fixing anything.

    It wasn’t about digging deeper or analyzing harder.

    It was about re-connection.

    There’s a concept in therapy called a Corrective Emotional Experience.

    In simple terms, it’s when an old emotional pattern gets met differently with more safety, awareness, and choice than was available the first time around.

    That’s what clicked for me today.

    So much of what we carry emotionally isn’t happening in real time. Our bodies and minds are often responding to old moments, old meanings, old survival patterns that once kept us safe. Journal therapy doesn’t ask us to erase those experiences  it invites us to gently re-associate with them in the present.

    To come back to them as who we are now.

    What struck me most is this:

    Healing isn’t always about release. Sometimes it’s about re-meeting.

    Meeting the part of yourself that learned to cope.

    Meeting the version of you that didn’t have language yet.

    Meeting the moment where something got frozen in place not to relive it, but to witness it with compassion and clarity.

    Writing becomes the bridge.

    On the page, we slow things down enough to notice:

    What am I feeling and when did I first learn to feel this way?

    Is this emotion happening now, or is it echoing from then?

    What meaning did I attach to this moment that no longer belongs to me?

    This is where the corrective experience happens.

    Not by force. Not by positivity.

    But by presence.

    When we stay with the feeling and remind ourselves that we are safe now, the nervous system begins to soften.

    The body updates the story. The memory loses its grip not because it disappears, but because it finally gets a new ending.

    Not because the past was wrong.

    But because we are no longer the same person who lived it.

    Today reminded me why I’m drawn to this work.

    Why writing has always been my way home.

    Why the page doesn’t judge, rush, or demand it simply holds.

    Sometimes healing looks like breakthroughs.

    Other times, it looks like sitting quietly with your pen and saying,

    “I see you. I’m here now.”

    And that is enough.

  • Thank you Benito

    Thank you Benito

    I want to take a moment to say thank you to Bad Bunny to Benito, really.

    The Super Bowl halftime show was layered. It wasn’t loud just to be loud. It wasn’t spectacle for the sake of spectacle. It was intentional. Cultural. Personal. And full of messages that landed differently depending on who you are and where you’re standing in your life.

    There were messages for the youth. Messages for people who come from somewhere and had to fight to be seen. Messages about pride, language, roots, and refusing to dilute yourself to be accepted. All of that mattered. Deeply.

    But one moment stayed with me more than anything else.

    When he said, believe in yourself.

    And then without overexplaining, without drama he handed the Grammy to his younger self.

    That moment stopped me.

    Because that wasn’t performance. That was acknowledgment. That was healing. That was a grown man looking back at the version of himself who probably doubted, struggled, felt unseen, and saying: We did it. I didn’t abandon you.

    Make your inner child proud

    There was something so powerful about watching someone honor not just their success, but the work it took to get there. The quiet nights. The moments of being misunderstood. The choice to keep going without losing who you are.

    And the pride in his heritage unapologetic, woven into the fabric of the performance, not explained or translated was beautiful. Not because it needed validation, but because it never asked for it.

    Ironically, or maybe not ironically at all, that message felt like it was meant for me.

    Where I am right now in my life, I’m doing a lot of looking back. A lot of reconciling with earlier versions of myself. A lot of asking whether I believed enough, trusted enough, stayed true enough. Seeing that exchange between present self and younger self felt like permission to be proud of how far I’ve come, even if I’m not “done” yet.

    So thank you, Benito.

    For reminding people especially the ones still becoming that believing in yourself isn’t arrogance. It’s survival. It’s continuity. It’s how you make it back to yourself without losing the thread.

    And sometimes, the most powerful thing you can do is turn around, look your younger self in the eyes, and say: I carried you with me the whole time.

  • Five Free Apps That Turn the City Into a Living Archive

    Five Free Apps That Turn the City Into a Living Archive

    I move through cities the same way I move through memory slowly, observantly, noticing what most people rush past. I don’t just want to go places. I want to understand where I am, and I want to leave a trace for myself.

    Which of these will you use first?

    These free apps have quietly become part of how I explore, wander, and document. Think of them as modern tools for curiosity little digital companions that help turn a walk into a story and a moment into a keepsake.

    Atlas Obscura

    This app is for the curious soul who knows the best places are rarely the loudest ones.

    Atlas Obscura maps the strange, hidden, and often overlooked corners of cities forgotten monuments, unusual museums, secret staircases, quiet landmarks with history baked into their walls. It’s perfect for wandering without a rigid plan. You open it, see what’s nearby, and suddenly the city feels layered instead of flat.

    It’s not about checking things off a list. It’s about discovering what was already there, waiting.

    PocketBooth

    PocketBooth is documentation in its purest form.

    It mimics old-school photo booth strips four frames, one moment, no overthinking. There’s something intimate about it. No filters competing for attention. No pressure to perform. Just presence.

    A photo booth has always been a form of proof: I was here. PocketBooth lets you do that anywhere alone, with friends, mid-walk, mid-life.

    Tape

    Tape feels like movement captured honestly.

    It allows you to document moments in a raw, almost analog way short clips that feel more like fragments than finished products. I use it when I don’t want polish. When I want truth. When the moment matters more than how it looks.

    Some memories aren’t meant to be curated. They’re meant to be kept.

    1SE

    1SE captures just one second a day. I use it as a quiet form of documentation by the end of the month, I can see my days unfold, second by second. It’s a reminder that even the smallest moments count.

    Bloomberg Connects

    This one is for intentional wandering.

    Bloomberg Connects gives access to museums, cultural spaces, galleries, and landmarks, while clearly breaking down what’s free and what’s not. It removes the guesswork and the intimidation that sometimes comes with cultural spaces.

    I love that it makes exploration feel accessible no gatekeeping, no pressure, just information so you can choose how you want to engage.

    Why I Keep These on My Phone

    Together, these apps do two things: they help me discover, and they help me remember.

    Exploration without documentation disappears.

    Documentation without meaning feels empty.

    These tools let me move through cities and through life with intention. Paying attention. Leaving small records behind. Honoring moments without trying to control them.

    A city is a living archive.

    So are we.

  • 14 Reasons Valentine’s Day Is Overhyped (and I’m Not Sorry)

    14 Reasons Valentine’s Day Is Overhyped (and I’m Not Sorry)

    What do you think about this day?

    1. It’s been aggressively commercialized.

    Love didn’t ask to be packaged in red cellophane and sold at a markup.

    2. It’s literally rooted in martyrdom.

    Nothing says romance like a day born from execution and religious confusion.

    3. Love should be practiced daily, not scheduled annually.

    If affection needs a calendar reminder, that’s not romance that’s maintenance.

    4. Flowers and candy prices are straight-up offensive.

    The same bouquet last week was half the price. Miss me with that capitalism.

    5. You can’t get reservations anywhere you actually want to eat.

    And even if you could, the prix-fixe menu is a scam in disguise.

    6. It creates pressure instead of intimacy.

    One person feels judged for “not doing enough,” the other feels undervalued if nothing shows up.

    7. It turns love into a performance.

    Public posts, forced smiles, curated moments who is this really for?

    8. It reinforces outdated relationship roles.

    Men are expected to prove, women are expected to receive. We’re tired.

    9. It ignores every kind of love that isn’t romantic.

    Friendships, self-love, chosen family, healing none of that gets a card aisle.

    10. It magnifies loneliness for people already struggling.

    A whole day dedicated to reminding people what they don’t have is cruel, actually.

    11. It rewards bare minimum behavior.

    One grand gesture doesn’t erase a year of emotional absence.

    12. It confuses spending money with showing care.

    Real love is consistency, not receipts.

    13. It encourages comparison instead of connection.

    Someone else’s roses don’t mean your relationship is lacking social media just lies loudly.

    14. If love is real, it doesn’t need a holiday to survive.

    And if it only shows up on February 14th… that’s your answer.