“You’ve gone full Rapunzel,” my friend teased, half-laughing, half-concerned. “Are you ever coming down from that tower?”
She meant it playfully, but the image stuck. A woman in a tower, wrapped in quiet, choosing solitude not as punishment—but as medicine. For me, stillness has been a way to re...
We grew up on slow-motion kisses, dramatic airport chases, and rain-soaked declarations. Hollywood taught us that love is supposed to feel like a climax—loud, chaotic, and impossibly perfect (I still love watching those movies).
B...
I saw a TikTok yesterday. A woman stood in front of her bathroom mirror, mascara smudged, holding a sticky note that read: “I am still worthy.” She whispered it like a secret. The caption said: “Day 37 of loving myself after betrayal.” It had 2.3 million views.
There’s a whole genre of these now...
Last night in martial arts class, the instructor said:
“Picture yourself facing you.”
Not an opponent.
Not a stranger.
You.
It was meant to help us hit harder. But it hit me differently.
Because when you’re stuck—when you freeze, flinch, or fold—it’s not the world holding you back.
It...
My son was in Air Force bootcamp when he called me—voice tight, pride trembling. He’d failed one of his exams and wanted to come home. I could hear the effort in his breath: trying to “man up,” trying not to cry, trying to sound okay when he wasn’t.
But I didn’t need him to be okay. I need...
Why Divorce Is So Common—and Why I Still Believe in Love That Lasts
I was having coffee with a friend recently—one of those slow, soul-rich conversations that starts with caffeine and ends with a question that lingers long after the mug is empty.
She’d met someone new. They were getting married...
A reflection on integrity, quiet power, and Netflix’s Love Con Revenge
I recently watched Love Con Revenge, Netflix’s docuseries on romance scams. Smart, kind people were conned out of thousands—sometimes millions. Their trust was weaponized. Their relationships were used as currency by people w...
There’s a quiet pressure that creeps in after betrayal trauma. A whisper that says: You must be fully healed before you let anyone close again. You must be flawless, boundary-bound, trigger-free, and emotionally enlightened before you’re safe to connect.
It’s seductive, isn’t it? The idea that h...
I took a hit once in martial arts because I forgot to keep my hands up. It was fast, sharp, and humbling. But the hits that stayed with me weren’t physical—they came from people who never asked what I’d survived, only what I’d done wrong. In betrayal trauma recovery, judgment often arrives faster t...
About eight years ago, my daughter came home from high school quiet. Not the usual tired-teen quiet, but the kind that holds something heavy.
A group of girls had left her out—on purpose. Not just from a party, but from belonging.
She asked me, “Why don’t they like me?”
And I felt that old ach...
As a therapist working with couples and individuals, this is one of the most common—and most gut-wrenching—questions I hear: “Should I forgive someone who cheated on me?”
Infidelity doesn’t just break trust. It destabilizes...
When my martial arts instructor first suggested I learn the Japanese art of the sword, I thought they’d lost their mind. Me? A blonde girl who loves makeup, hair, and a good blowout—doing swordwork? I’m a therapist by day, true crime junkie by night. I spend my evenings diagnosing fictional narcissi...
Because healing doesn’t happen in isolation—it happens in community.
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