Honest storytelling as a form of healing.

Category: Reflective moments

  • As This Month Ends

    As This Month Ends

    I came into this month ready
    I had a poem read
    I wrote for seven days straight
    like I remembered who I was
    and then
    life didn’t ask permission
    it never does
    anxiety filled the pages I meant to write on
    tears took the hours
    and I had to hide them
    because there is always something
    that needs me more than I need
    to create
    now it’s two days till the end
    and I am standing here
    counting what I didn’t do
    like that’s the only math that matters
    and this poem
    will probably be another one
    nobody reads
    they’ll say I support you
    and mean it
    the way smoke means something
    before it disappears
    you saw it
    it was real
    and then
    it wasn’t
    I keep writing into that
    into the almost-there
    into the hands that wave
    and then go quiet
    but I had a poem read
    I wrote for seven days
    I kept a dream alive inside a life
    that keeps trying to convince me
    it’s the only thing real
    that’s not failure
    that’s someone fighting
    with everything she has
    This Month knows what it cost me
    that’s enough

  • When You Don’t Know How You Feel and That’s Okay

    When You Don’t Know How You Feel and That’s Okay

    When’s the last time someone asked how you were doing and you just… didn’t have an answer?


    Not because nothing was happening. But because everything was happening and none of it had a name yet.


    Some days arrive heavy. Not dramatic, not falling-apart heavy just the quiet kind of weight that settles in your chest before you even open your eyes.

    You go through the motions. You show up. You do the thing. And somewhere underneath all of it, something is asking to be felt but you don’t know what it is yet.


    That’s not a problem to fix. That’s actually the beginning of something.


    Journal therapy doesn’t ask you to have it all figured out before you sit down to write. It meets you exactly where you are including the days when where you are is I don’t even know. One of the first things journal therapy teaches us is that the body often knows what the mind hasn’t caught up to yet. So when words won’t come, we start there.
    Try this: before you write a single sentence, pause and ask yourself what does my body feel right now?

    Not your thoughts. Not the story. Just the physical. Tight shoulders. Heavy eyes. A breath you keep forgetting to finish. Write that down. That’s your entry point.


    From there, let yourself go a little deeper.
    Ask yourself what you’ve been avoiding thinking about. Not to force it open just to acknowledge it’s there. Sometimes naming the thing we’re circling around is enough to release a little pressure.
    And then ask the question that changes everything: What would I write if I knew no one was reading?


    That’s where the real stuff lives.
    You don’t have to perform your healing. You don’t have to arrive at a conclusion by the end of the page. Some journal entries are just proof that you showed up on a hard day and that counts.


    So if today is one of those days where the feelings don’t have labels yet, grab the

    journal anyway. Start with your body. Follow the thread. Trust that clarity comes through writing, not before it.
    Start here three prompts for the unnamed days:
    ∙ What does my body feel right now?
    ∙ What have I been avoiding thinking about?
    ∙ What would I write if no one was reading?


    You don’t need the whole answer. You just need the first honest sentence.

  • April is National Poetry Month

    April is National Poetry Month

    Poetry is the language we reach for when nothing else is enough.

    It lives in the grief we can’t explain, the joy that breaks us open, and the silence between what we mean and what we say.


    A poem doesn’t ask permission to tell the truth. Neither should you.


    This month we celebrate the ones who bled into stanzas, who turned pain into pages, who refused to stay quiet.


    Every poet started with one line they were afraid to write. Write yours.

  • 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.

  • Shifts in Mindsets

    Shifts in Mindsets

    Lent has already begun.

    The 100-Day Project is underway.

    I am also doing The Artist’s Way.

    This is not a warm-up.

    This is not preparation.

    This is the work.

    I am in it.

    I am writing this because I know myself.

    What stays in my head stays unfinished.

    What goes on paper becomes a vow.

    What is spoken becomes real.

    The Artist’s Way is my daily return.

    The 100 days are my discipline.

    Lent is my refinement.

    All three are one intention:

    focus.

    This is not about reinvention.

    It is not about performance.

    It is about consistency.

    It is about becoming the woman who does what she says she will do.

    I am showing up.

    Pages written.

    Project created.

    Spirit examined.

    Life throws curveballs.

    Focus adjusts.

    Feet stay planted.

    Eyes stay locked.

    This is my turn at bat.

    No waiting for perfect timing.

    No waiting for better conditions.

    I am already moving.

    I am already committed.

    And I am holding myself to it.

  • Before Resentment, There Was Expectation

    Before Resentment, There Was Expectation

    All right, we’re going to talk about something people usually suppress.

    Resentment.

    What’s interesting is that resentment rarely starts as anger.

    I say this not from theory, but from practice.

    I’ve had to learn how to catch expectation before it turns into resentment, and journal therapy gave me the tools to do that.

    It usually starts as an unspoken expectation.

    A quiet hope.

    A mental script.

    A version of events we never say out loud.

    And when reality doesn’t match that internal script, disappointment hardens quickly into irritation.

    But irritation isn’t the first emotion.

    It’s the second.

    The first emotion was expectation.

    When we don’t name it, the spiral begins.

    3 Ways the Spiral Typically Happens

    1. We Assume They Should Have Known.

    We expect others to intuit what we never expressed.

    2. We Attach Meaning to the Outcome.

    “If this didn’t happen, it must mean I’m not valued.”

    3. We React Instead of Reflect.

    Withdrawal.

    Sharp tone.

    Cold distance.

    Not because we’re cruel but because we feel let down.

    But there is another way.

    3 Different Decisions That Change the Outcome

    1. Name the Hope Before It Turns Into a Story.

    Ask yourself: What was I actually hoping would happen?

    Clarity interrupts resentment.

    2. Separate Fact From Interpretation.

    Something didn’t occur.

    That does not automatically define your worth.

    Pause before attaching narrative.

    3. Choose Conscious Action.

    Communicate the desire clearly.

    Or meet the need yourself without punishment.

    Expectation is human.

    Resentment grows when expectation goes unnamed.

    Journal Prompt:

    What small, unspoken expectation shifts your mood the fastest?

  • Matters of the Four Chambered Organ

    Matters of the Four Chambered Organ

    A couple of months ago, after watching a rom-com of all things, this poem arrived.

    It reminded me that inspiration doesn’t ask permission. It doesn’t care if the source is high art or a late-night movie. It simply taps you on the shoulder and says, pay attention.

    With a weekend that centers everything around love, this feels like the right moment to share

    Love is a chamber
    already loaded.
    One wrong trigger
    and something vital ends.
    They tell us it lives in the heart
    this soft red symbol
    we never see working
    until it fails.
    love can be known as euphoria,
    as breathless light.
    It’s also been known as being
    collapsed on a bathroom floor,
    tiles cold against the cheek,
    trying to remember how to breathe.
    From there love lives
    inside a clear bubble.
    Visible.
    Watched.
    Marked do not touch.
    Strong enough to exist.
    Fragile enough to shatter.
    Maybe one day
    it will swell with courage
    and burst.
    For now,
    it stays still
    beating carefully,
    on purpose    .

    Love isn’t always roses and violins. Sometimes it’s courage. Sometimes it’s caution. Sometimes it’s survival.

  • Love is in the Air or is it?

    Love is in the Air or is it?

    Yesterday, on my way to therapy, I walked past the little shopping center near the office.

    Everything is hearts and “love is in the air” but what I saw felt different.

    Almost Valentine’s Day

    Almost Valentine’s Day

    and the lonely souls wander

    the small shopping center

    like prayers with no altar.

    One man stumbles toward the liquor store

    another exits, older,

    paper bag folded tight around his arm

    as if it might hold him back together.

    Companionship waits inside

    lined up in glass curves

    dark and gleaming

    all willing

    to offer warmth for a price.

    No roses.

    No cards.

    Just the romance of a bottle’s body

    whispering

    you’re never too old

    to feel something.

  • Facing the Week’s Battle

    Facing the Week’s Battle

    This week had a way of testing me.

    It started on Monday,

    when I knocked down my own tower and finally let myself see what it is I want to work toward. Tuesday came and the feelings didn’t leave. They lingered, pressed in, asking to be acknowledged.

    So I began to encapsulate them, to plan because planning is part of what I’m building now.

    By Wednesday, Thursday, and now Friday,

    the lesson became clear: support matters.

    Not a crowd. Not a circle for show. But someone who listens really listens who acknowledges the trials, who tries to understand.

    I may not have what people call a group of friends, but having support that hears me

    has made all the difference. In this journey of entering my sovereignty, I know I have to stay true to myself.

    I know I have to keep going. This is a hard hill to climb.

    But knowing I have the ability to succeed and the drive, and the support is what’s keeping me moving forward, even now.

  • Doing Hard Things (Even When Your Soul Isn’t in It)

    Doing Hard Things (Even When Your Soul Isn’t in It)

    Doing hard things when your heart is elsewhere is one of the most exhausting acts of adulthood.

    There are moments when your spirit has already left the room. You’ve renounced a situation internally emotionally, energetically, spiritually but your body still has to show up. Duty calls you into places you’ve already outgrown. And no, you can’t always just walk away. Not yet.

    So you stay.

    Not because you’re weak.

    Not because you lack courage.

    But because responsibility, timing, and reality sometimes require endurance before release.

    This is the part no one romanticizes: continuing on while your passion lives somewhere else. Knowing you’re meant for more, yet tending to what’s in front of you because walking out prematurely would cost you more than staying a little longer.

    I’ve done this in every form

    a job that drained me,

    a relationship that had run its course,

    friendships that no longer fit the version of me I was becoming.

    And here I am again, standing at a crossroads, holding a double-edged sword. One side is survival. The other is vision. Both are sharp. Both require intention.

    What keeps me moving forward is this:

    I know this is temporary.

    There’s already a countdown in my mind.

    The work I’m doing now is not wasted it’s preparation.

    Sometimes thriving doesn’t look like joy.

    Sometimes it looks like discipline.

    Sometimes it’s simply keeping your word to yourself while you build the bridge out.

    If you’ve ever stayed somewhere longer than your soul wanted to, I see you. And I’d love to know what was it for you? A job, a relationship, a friendship? What did you learn while you waited for your moment to step forward?

    This isn’t the end of the story.

    It’s the part where the groundwork is being laid.