Honest storytelling as a form of healing.

Tag: reflections

  • 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.

  • When Everything Feels Amplified

    When Everything Feels Amplified

    There are days when nothing catastrophic happens,

    yet everything inside me feels louder.

    The thoughts move faster.

    The body feels heavier.

    Ordinary moments carry more weight than they should.

    I’ve learned not to panic when this happens.

    Emotional intensity doesn’t automatically mean something is wrong.

    It doesn’t mean I’m unstable.

    It doesn’t mean I’m failing.

    Sometimes it just means I’m aware.

    Intensity is what happens when I stop numbing.

    When I’m no longer distracting myself enough to avoid what’s stirring underneath.

    When something in me is outgrowing the version of life I’m currently living.

    It shows up as restlessness.

    As heat in the chest.

    As a quiet refusal to keep settling.

    I used to interpret this feeling as a problem to solve.

    Now I see it as information.

    It’s asking questions.

    Where are you misaligned?

    What are you tolerating that you’ve already outgrown?

    What would it look like to choose yourself here?

    I’m learning that I don’t need to escape intensity.

    I need to hold it long enough to understand what it’s pointing toward.

    Not every strong feeling is a crisis.

    Sometimes it’s a compass.

  • 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.

  • Pressure Makes Diamonds

    Pressure Makes Diamonds

    My alarm goes off well before the sun even considers rising.

    3:00 a.m. blinks back at me, blurry and unforgiving.

    I lie there for a moment, knowing I want to hit snooze but also knowing I won’t.

    I sit up anyway.

    I grab my phone and remember I didn’t even set out what I’m going to wear.

    The exhaustion from yesterday has settled deep into my legs, heavy and familiar.

    And the thought comes, quiet but clear:

    this is not where I’m supposed to be.

    Still, I push myself up.

    Because I need to do this.

    Because this will be part of my story.

    Part of what I went through.

    They’ll say it’s easy work.

    Minimal tasks.

    Nothing to complain about.

    But those minimal things drain my soul,

    because I know deep in my bones that I am meant for something else.

    I layer up for another winter day and wonder if maybe it’s just seasonal depression.

    Maybe when the light returns, when the warmth does, this feeling will fade.

    And then the nudge comes again:

    No. This isn’t that.

    So I write this as a reminder to myself

    if it’s true that pressure makes diamonds,

    then I will be the biggest one ever found.

  • The Cost of Pulling Back

    The Cost of Pulling Back

    Pulling back has a cost.

    That’s the part no one prepares you for.

    There’s a quiet loss that comes with no longer being immediately available.

    With not filling the space just because it’s empty.

    With choosing not to explain yourself into comfort for others.

    Journal therapy has helped me sit with that cost instead of rushing to justify it.

    When I write, I can see what pulling back actually asks of me.

    It asks me to tolerate silence.

    It asks me to let misunderstandings exist without correcting them.

    It asks me to stop proving my care through exhaustion.

    None of this feels good at first.

    There is a loneliness that shows up when you stop overextending.

    Not because you’ve done something wrong,

    but because familiarity dissolves when you no longer perform it.

    The page doesn’t argue with me about this.

    It doesn’t rush me toward empowerment language or quick clarity.

    It just shows me the exchange.

    What I lose when I pull back.

    And what I lose when I don’t.

    That’s where journal therapy lives for me 

    not in pretending there’s no grief in choosing myself,

    but in letting the grief be seen without letting it decide for me.

    Pulling back isn’t avoidance.

    It’s an audit.

    And sometimes, the cost of staying is higher than the cost of leaving.

    So I write.

    Not to feel better.

    But to stay honest long enough to choose well.

  • Breaking One At A Time

    Breaking One At A Time

    Last week was about saying the thing out loud.

    Naming it without softening it.

    This week is different.

    This is about staying after the truth is spoken.

    Journal therapy isn’t relief.

    It’s containment.

    The page holds what the body has been carrying

    so it doesn’t spill into every conversation, every silence, every night.

    Nothing magically changes after honesty.

    The job still exists.

    The weight still shows up in the morning.

    So this week, the practice looks like this:

    Write one sentence that tells the truth

    without fixing it.

    Notice where the tension lives today

    Pause and pick up the pen

    and let that place speak first.

    Name where your energy went

    without asking it to make sense yet.

    Finish the sentence,

    “I am no longer explaining why I ___.”

    End the page knowing this:

    Nothing is resolved,

    but everything has a place now.

  • Integration: living with what you’ve named

    Integration: living with what you’ve named

    Earlier this week, we moved slowly on purpose.

    Monday, the truth was spoken out loud.

    No polishing. No preparing it to be received.

    Tuesday, the page became a place of containment.

    Somewhere the truth could rest without running the nervous system.

    Wednesday, we stayed.

    With the discomfort. With the quiet. With what didn’t immediately resolve.

    And now it’s Thursday.

    The 15th.

    Halfway through the month.

    This is the part that rarely gets named.

    Building the week with goals

    The middle.

    Where nothing is new anymore,

    but nothing is finished either.

    This is where I’m learning what included really means.

    Not included once I feel better.

    Not included after I figure it out.

    Included while I’m still carrying it.

    Journal therapy, for me, isn’t about clearing myself out.

    It’s about letting the truth exist in my daily life

    without treating it like a flaw.

    Included means the heaviness doesn’t disqualify me.

    The quiet doesn’t mean I’ve stalled.

    Showing up without momentum still counts.

    Mid-month isn’t a checkpoint for performance.

    It’s a reminder that I’m allowed to stay present

    without rushing toward a conclusion.

    Some days, the writing is full.

    Some days, it’s one sentence:

    “I didn’t abandon myself today.”

    That sentence belongs.

    Because healing doesn’t ask for erasure.

    It asks for presence.

    And today, halfway through January,

    I’m practicing staying with myself

    instead of skipping ahead to who I think I’m supposed to be next.

  • Commitment is quiet

    Commitment is quiet

    The past few days have been an exercise in honesty.

    Not the kind that demands confession, but the kind that asks for consistency. I’ve been paying attention to how this practice feels as I try to show up every day not perfectly, just deliberately.

    It’s been a bit easier lately, but only in moments.

    Small ones. Quiet ones. And I’m learning not to dismiss those anymore.

    Putting the pieces together

    The real challenge hasn’t been whether I can write. It’s been committing to it. I know what I want by the end of this year, and I know that wanting something doesn’t move it any closer. Commitment does.

    That’s where journal therapy comes in for me. Not as a trend or an aesthetic, but as accountability. As a way of telling myself the truth when no one else is asking for it.

    These past two days, I’ve shared how I use journaling to stay honest with myself. This is the next layer: commitment. I’ve kept it simple on purpose  mone sentence a day. One memorable moment. Nothing poetic. Nothing curated. Just proof that I was present.

    December was scattered. I won’t pretend otherwise. But I didn’t quit. I found my way back.

    This month, with the new year beginning, my children traveling, birthdays passing through, it’s been easier to notice the moments worth recording.

    This isn’t about perfection.

    It’s about showing up anyway.

    One sentence a day is how I keep my word to myself.

  • Monday Reflection

    Monday Reflection

    Four and a half hours,

    and Sunday was thinning out,

    leaving Monday behind its shadow.

    Was still in bed

    not buried,

    just listening before the week speaks first.

    The list waits from across the room,

    polite in its pressure.

    Unchecked boxes.

    A future that wants motion

    before it wants truth.

    I don’t rush to answer.

    The blankets don’t negotiate.

    The pillows don’t demand readiness.

    My thoughts move like birds at dawn

    restless,

    but not directionless.

    This isn’t avoidance.

    It’s calibration.

    Monday always asks who I am

    before I’ve decided.

    Today, I decide anyway.

    Not clones.

    Not discipline disguised as punishment.

    Not the lie that rest is laziness.

    Just one page.

    Where the journal opens the door

    and the poem walks through.

    I don’t need to carry the whole week.

    Only to step into it

    without abandoning myself.

    So I write

    as a way of arriving.