Midlife
The Threshold & The Doorway: Surrender into Certainty
Photo by Jonny Gios on Unsplash
“The natural healing force within each of us
is the greatest force in getting well.”
~~ Hippocrates
Greetings to all my precious people,
We have arrived at the door we’ve been walking toward since the first cool morning in September.
Samhain — the Celtic New Year — falls this week. Tonight, the old traditions say, the veil between worlds goes thin enough to cross. Not frightening, exactly, though it can feel that way if you’ve been taught to fear the dark rather than trust it. The ancestors are said to walk close on this night. The harvest is fully in. The wheel completes its turn and, in the same breath, begins again.
This is the final beat of the journey we’ve been walking together all Autumn — the hero returning, not to where she started, but somewhere new, carrying something she didn’t have when she left. The old stories call this the Return with the Elixir. For weeks, I’ve asked you to trust an ember, tend a root, survive a shedding you didn’t fully choose. Here is the truth those weeks were building toward: the elixir was never out there. It isn’t a lesson you bring back from the underworld like a souvenir. It’s the natural healing force Hippocrates named more than two thousand years ago — the one that was in you before any of this Autumn began, simply waiting for enough clearing to be recognized. continue reading
Your Healing Was **Never** Just About You
Photo by Dana Sarsenbekova on Unsplash
“In the shelter of each other, the people live.”
(Ar scáth a chéile a mhaireann na daoine)
~~ Irish proverb
Greetings to all my precious people!!
Longtime readers will remember The C.O.A.C.H. Method I return to again and again — Curiosity, Optimism, Awareness, Courage, and Hope & Healing. (New here? Welcome. You’ve arrived right where you need to be.) Today I want to follow that path one step further than we usually go — past your own healing, to the quiet truth that so many of you have been sensing lately:
Your healing journey was never just about you. continue reading
Finding Your Voice
Photo by Jason Rosewell on Unsplash
“There is no greater agony than
bearing an untold story inside you.”
~~ Maya Angelou
Greetings to all my precious people!
Last month on Mother’s Day, I wrote about the first voice you ever heard: your mother’s voice.
Today, I’m writing about the voice she gave you. Not just the sound of your voice (though that’s part of it). But the POWER of your voice. The capacity to name what you see, speak what you know, call things by their true names, say NO and mean it, say YES and claim it, take up sonic space in the world.
Your mother gave you this. Through her body. Through her voice teaching you language. Through the vocal cords she grew inside you.
And then—over years of conditioning—you learned to silence it. continue reading
Taking Up Space
Photo by Alaeddin Hallak on Unsplash
“We ask ourselves, who am I
to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?”
~~ Marianne Williamson
Greetings to all my precious people!
Your mother’s body taught you your first lesson about space:
You belong here.
Inside her womb, you took up space without apology. You grew. You moved. You EXPANDED. Her body made room for you—not because you earned it, not because you stayed small. Because you existed.
And then you were born. And over the years, culture taught you the opposite: take up less space (lose weight, don’t be “too much”), be smaller (quieter, nicer, more agreeable), apologize for existing, make yourself convenient for everyone but yourself.
You learned to SHRINK.
But here’s what I need you to understand: Your body is not an apology. And taking up space is not selfish. It’s RECLAMATION.
The Neuroscience of Coming Home
Photo by Adrian Mag on Unsplash
“Your brain doesn’t make you small to punish you.
It makes you small to protect you.
The question is: Are you still in danger?
Or is it time to come home?”
~~ Dr. Julia DiGangi
Greetings to all my precious people!
We’ve spent the month of May learning to come HOME:
To your body (Week 5 – body-mind is one).
To your Inner Mentor (Week 6 – listening deeply).
To coherence (Week 7 – interior alignment).
To living FROM home instead of searching for it (Week 8).
And you might be wondering:
“Okay, I understand this conceptually. I even FEEL it sometimes. But why is it so hard? Why do I keep shrinking back? Why does my voice still disappear? Why do I apologize for taking up space even when I know better?”
Here’s why:
Your BRAIN is still running old programming.
And until you understand what your brain is doing (and WHY), you’ll keep fighting yourself.
