When expression stops feeling safe, then feeling stops feeling safe.

But that energy still has to go somewhere.

Because after all these years, memories, battles, fought for or against each other, how could it all be for nothing?

Resting feels wrong. Distraction feels wrong. Even when things are going “right,” celebration is short-lived.

Healing isn’t something we can shop for. Neither is peace. If all we look for is relief from suffering, then the whole point of it is lost. 

We’re taught that worrying will somehow help solve the problem. We’re taught to say, “I’m worried.” As if it was something we couldn’t control. As if it was a state that befalls us, rather than an action we’re choosing.

We all have a "witching hour". That specific time of day when loneliness hits the hardest and the old patterns start screaming for immediate relief. If you've ever found yourself staring down an old coping mechanism just to escape a heavy emotion, this is what moving through that urge actually looks like from the inside.

They repeated the words, “Now, faith,” aggressively, still seeing the mind as something formidable that needed to be wrangled. Like “presence” was the escape hatch.

But neither now nor faith can be forced. Both require surrender.

There is the part of me that wants my mother. Then there is the part of me that braces myself against her.

Stability doesn’t require things to stay the same. It requires the honesty of letting them fall apart.

Cortisol is addictive. It’s fast, it’s urgent, and it’s sexy like a car chase in an action movie. Most of us don't realize that our self-criticism and "drive" are actually just an attempt to gain an illusion of control over a nervous system that’s fighting for air.

The nervous system doesn’t learn by thinking, understanding, or knowing. It learns by practicing. What noise do you keep in your life to distract you from the noise in your head? What mess do you tolerate so the mess inside can stay the same?

Living with addiction is an endless cycle of self-hatred and denial. Denial of the pain, the self-abandonment, and the fact that life is actually better without the addiction. We look through rose-colored glasses and find ways to justify the behavior so that we can keep it safe.

Because we believe it’s what keeps us safe.

If we’ve always learned to farm out our safety to the reactions, microexpressions, the next move of someone else, it’s no wonder our entire body has learned to hold its breath.

If you’ve felt like the only way to survive was to disconnect, no wonder it feels like the ickiest, full body cringe thing to slow down now. It might feel like weakness, or quitting. I’ve fully been in that boat too and it’s hard feeling like you’re barely staying afloat most of the time.

We often see triggers as limitations—places we aren’t willing to go. But what if they were 'entry points' instead? Learn how to turn emotional pain into a catalyst for growth and radical gentleness.

It’s amazing how quickly the storms stop when we finally say, “enough.”

Places I used to look for happiness: alcohol, ecstasy, weed, cocaine.

Places I looked after sobriety: sex, romance, desire, junk food, unhealthy attachment to “fitness,” social media.

Places I looked after that: success, money, achievements.

Places where I find happiness now:

What’s already here.

Not more.

Not less, either. 

I’m noticing that there’s no fear around things ending anymore. 

Because there is always equilibrium.

The process of “cultivating happiness” is taking an honest look at what needs to be removed, what needs to be added. And that adding requires removal.

Patience isn’t an outward expression. It’s an inner dialogue that requires utmost honesty.

It is hard work that requires softness when we want to attack tension with aggression.

It requires us to stay here, to act out love - in precisely the moments when we don’t feel we deserve it.

Shame for allowing it to go on so long. Shame for laughing it off and even making a joke out of it to ease the tension I felt. To hope to dissolve any sexual tension so that it’d make it easier for both of us to pretend it was harmless.

Saying to myself, “It’s okay,” when it wasn’t.