Rebuilding Myself After Divorce: How I Found Healing and Hope

“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” ~ Rumi

I never imagined I’d be here at forty-nine—divorced, disoriented, and drowning in an identity crisis. I had met him just before my sixteenth birthday. He was all I knew. We built an entire life together—nearly three decades of marriage, raising children, shared memories, traditions, routines. And then, one day, it all collapsed with five haunting words: “I need some space, Heather.”

At first, I thought it was a phase. But the space became silence, the silence became separation, and soon after, I was signing divorce papers. The man I had built my entire adult life around was gone—and I was left looking in the mirror, asking, who am I without him?

I wasn’t just grieving a relationship. I was grieving myself. The version of me that had given everything. The version that bent and adapted and compromised for the sake of “us.” And underneath the heartbreak was a heavy cocktail of blame and resentment—toward him, toward myself, and honestly, toward time.

I blamed him for blindsiding me, for giving up, for not fighting for us. I resented him for having the freedom to walk away while I was left holding the pieces of a shattered dream. But deeper down, I blamed myself for not seeing the signs. For ignoring the subtle shifts. For losing myself in the process of trying to keep a marriage alive that had slowly stopped breathing.

The truth is our marriage ended because we grew apart. I had started evolving—becoming more spiritual, more curious, more self-aware. He didn’t come with me. And after years of unspoken tension, emotional distance, and mismatched values, we were no longer on the same path. Still, even with that understanding, it didn’t make the grief easier.

For months, I was in survival mode—smiling through social events, working, taking care of my responsibilities. Outwardly composed. But inside? I was crumbling. The nights were the hardest. That’s when the questions haunted me:

What did I do wrong? Why wasn’t I enough? Will anyone ever love me again?

Then, one quiet afternoon—nothing particularly special about it—I sat in my bedroom, surrounded by silence, sunlight pouring through the window, and I just… stopped. I was exhausted from my own thoughts. There was no dramatic trigger—just an overwhelming stillness that finally gave space for a new question to enter:

What if this isn’t the end? What if this is the beginning of coming home to myself?

That was the moment everything shifted. I decided I was no longer going to be the woman waiting to be rescued. I was going to become the woman who rescued herself.

Heartbreak lives in the body. And mine was screaming.  Tight shoulders, restless sleep, a dull ache in my chest that never left. I had spent so long disassociating from my body—ignoring its cries while tending to everyone else’s needs.

But healing demanded presence. So, I began walking the dogs daily—feeling my feet on the earth, breathing deeply again. I returned to gentle movement through Pilates. I swapped comfort food for nourishing meals that made me feel alive. Each small act of care was a message to myself: You matter. You’re worth tending to.

The most toxic place I lived in wasn’t my house post-divorce—it was my own mind. The narrative was cruel: You failed. You’re too old. You’re fat.  You’re unlovable. You’ll always be alone.

But I started catching those thoughts and asking, Would I say this to my daughter or my best friend? Of course not. So why was I saying them to myself?

I started journaling affirmations: I am enough. I am healing. I am lovable. I am whole. Slowly, my inner critic softened. I began rewriting my story—not as the woman who was left, but as the woman who rose

The next chapter was the most magical—and the most confronting. When your life revolves around someone else for nearly thirty years, you forget who you are outside of that. I began to remember.

I remembered I love writing.

I remembered how healing it is to dance barefoot to music I adore.

I remembered my curiosity, my dreams, my longing for meaning.

I began meditating each morning, journaling. and going on solo nature walks. I talked to my guides, my angels. I cried. I created sacred space just for me.

And slowly… the woman I was before him, and the woman I was becoming after him, started to meet. And they liked each other.

Healing isn’t a straight line. Some days you feel fierce. Other days, fragile. But both are part of the process.

Even now—with a wonderful new man in my life—grief still visits me from time to time. Milestones like our children’s weddings or the births of our grandchildren have stirred old emotions I thought I’d already processed. Moments where the “what was” collides with the “what is.”

But now, instead of meeting that sadness with shame or self-judgment, I greet it with compassion. It’s okay to hold joy in one hand and grief in the other. That’s what healing really looks like.

If you’re in the middle of your own heartbreak, here’s what I’ve learned that might help:

Care for your body: Movement, nourishment, rest. Your nervous system needs it.

Challenge your inner critic: Speak to yourself with the love you gave so freely to others.

Rediscover your essence: You are more than someone’s partner. You are a soul, a fire, a force.

Let go with love: Blame binds you to the past. Forgiveness sets you free.

You are not broken. You are rebuilding. Every tear, every setback, every breakthrough is sculpting a more radiant, wiser version of you.

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About Heather Prince

Heather Prince is a spiritual relationship coach who helps women over forty heal from heartbreak and reclaim their self-worth. Her journey through divorce now fuels her mission to guide others back to wholeness. Download her free workbook, From Heartbreak to Wholeness, at fmf90.com/giftfunnels.

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How to Speak from the Heart: Let Your First Word Be a Breath

“Mindfulness is a pause—the space between stimulus and response: that’s where choice lies.” ~Tara Brach

We’ve all been there.

A sharp reply. A snide remark. A moment when we said something that didn’t come from our heart but from somewhere else entirely—a need to be right, to sound smart, to prove a point, to stay in control, or simply to defend ourselves.

What follows is the spinning. The knowing that what was said didn’t align with our soul. The overthinking, the replaying of the moment, the rumination, the regret, the tightening in the chest, the wish we could take it back.

We justify, we rationalize—but deep down, we know those words weren’t true to who we really are. They weren’t true to the part of us that longs to connect.

For many years, I lived in that loop.

I prided myself on being kind, thoughtful, intelligent, articulate, in control. I made every effort to be so. But I was operating from a place filled with expectations and invisible scripts—needing to prove, impress, or protect. I was filling roles: the composed professional, the high achiever, the witty and loyal friend, the perfect daughter and sister, the confident partner, and the ideal mother.

And so, although my words were often considered, they lacked something deeper and essential: heart.

I thought being thoughtful meant thinking more. Planning my responses. Winning debates. But what I didn’t realize was that thinking without presence can become a wall, not a bridge.

It wasn’t until I learned to pause—to breathe—to allow space between stimulus and response, and to use that space to connect within, that I began to understand a different kind of thoughtfulness. A deeper kind: heartfulness.

This is wisdom—not intellectual but embodied. It lives not in the mind, but in the body. In the breath. In the heart.

The Journey Back to the Heart

This shift didn’t happen overnight.

It came slowly as I gave myself permission to pause, to reflect, to grow. I started noticing how my words were shaping my relationships and my experience of life overall. I wanted to feel better. Calmer. More connected. Ruminate less. Regret less. Suffer less. Feel happier, more relaxed, more authentic.

Mindfulness opened that door.

Through meditation, self-inquiry, and contemplative reading, I began to understand the power of being impeccable with my words.

Books like The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz—and its core teaching: be impeccable with your word—resonated deeply. So did the Buddhist teaching on Right Speech, which invites us to ask before speaking: Is this kind? Is this honest? Is this timely? Does it add value?

These questions became my framework.

I would repeat them silently each morning during meditation. I would return to them during conversations, especially the difficult ones. Eventually, they became part of me.

And here’s what I realized: being impeccable with our words isn’t just about avoiding gossip or negativity.

It’s about creating love.

It’s about adding to the world rather than taking from it.

It’s about using words to build, not break.

That meant pausing before I spoke. Feeling into my body. Listening for what was true beneath the surface.

And slowly, my words began to change.

I began to feel the quiet power of responding instead of reacting. I was no longer using my energy to defend or ruminate.  Instead, I was using it to create connection and kindness.

This was a new kind of power—not the kind that makes us feel “in control,” but the kind that offers space. Space to connect with who I really am. Space to choose love.

A Simple, Yet Powerful Phrase to Remember

Just a few weeks ago, I came across a podcast where Jefferson Fisher, a Texas trial lawyer who speaks often about emotional regulation and grounded communication was being interviewed.

He suggested:

“May your first word be a breath.”

And in that moment, I felt the wisdom of the years of practice, reflection, and self-inquiry come together in one clear, simple, and practical sentence, something I could share with others to help implement and integrate the power of pausing before speaking.

This quote offered the simplest reminder for the wisdom I have spent years cultivating.

If there is one thing that you take away from this article, let it be this: “Let a breath be your first response,” and see what happens.

This phrase has become a kind of shorthand for me.

A phrase I carry into parenting, relationships, conversations, and teaching.

Because when your first word is a breath…

You create space. You reconnect with the part of you that knows who you want to be. You return to the heart—before habitual reactivity takes over.

Why This Matters

Our brains are wired for efficiency. Most of us live and act from a place of patterned reactivity, what neuroscience calls the default mode network. This is the brain’s autopilot, built from years of conditioning and past experiences. It’s like mental autopilot: fast, familiar, and often defensive.

The brain does not distinguish from good or bad, from positive or negative, from happier or unhappy. It doesn’t filter for what’s kind, truthful, or wise—it simply scans for what’s familiar and safe. It’s designed for survival, not fulfilment.

And when we’re triggered—by stress, conflict, or fear—our nervous system kicks into fight-or-flight mode. In this state, we’re primed to protect, defend, or escape. Our field of vision narrows. Our breath shortens. Our first words are often fast, defensive, sharp—not because we’re unkind, but because we’re unsafe.

This is why we say things we regret.

It’s why we speak without consideration, even when we know better.

It’s why our words can feel out of sync with who we truly are.

But mindfulness interrupts that cycle.

It invites us to pause. To observe. To breathe.

And in that pause, we return to ourselves. We reconnect with the part of us that knows. And we get to choose again.

This matters because when we give ourselves permission to pause, to check in, and to bring more heart into our lives, we begin to create something more meaningful.

We stop living in reaction.

We stop creating pain for ourselves and others.

And instead, we begin to cultivate an inner peace that radiates outward, into our relationships, our work, and our presence in the world.

Let This Be Your Invitation

“May my first word be a breath.”

Not because you have to believe in it, but because you can experience its benefits immediately.

Try it the next time you’re in a difficult moment—before replying to that message. Before responding to your child’s cry. Before defending yourself in an argument.

Pause. Feel your feet on the ground. Feel your body.

Breathe in for two seconds. Hold for two seconds. Breathe out for two seconds.

And ask yourself: What would my heart want to say here?

The Life That Becomes Possible

Imagine a life where your words feel true. Where your voice comes from clarity, not chaos. Where you speak, not to prove, impress, or control, but to connect.

A life where your presence calms the room, not because you’ve mastered perfection, but because you’ve learned to pause.

This is the life I live now.

Not perfectly, but intentionally.

It’s the life that opened up when I stopped performing and started pausing. When I chose presence over reactivity. When I let my heart lead instead of habit.

It’s available to all of us.

And it begins not with a plan, a list, or a big transformation. It begins with something much simpler.

A breath.

So if you’re looking for one practice to change your life—one small shift that creates ripples in how you speak, relate, and live—let it be this:

May your first word be a breath.

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About Carolina Gonzalez

Carolina Gonzalez is a certified mindfulness and meditation teacher based in Sydney, Australia. After navigating self-doubt and emotional depletion, she created Renew & Rise: Your 90-Day Pathway to Rediscover Clarity, Confidence, and Self-Worth. She helps people reconnect with their inner strength, cultivate self-worth, and feel empowered to make aligned life choices. Feeling overwhelmed or stuck? Carolina’s free 5-minute quiz can help you understand your coping style and offer a mindful step forward. Connect with her via Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

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Healing Through Grief: How I Found Myself in the Metaphors of Loss and Love

“When the soul wishes to experience something, she throws an image of the experience out before her and enters into her own image.” ~Meister Eckhart

For most of my life, something in me felt off—misaligned, too much, not enough. I moved through the world trying to fix a thing I couldn’t name.

Then, a beautiful chapter emerged where I no longer questioned myself. I met my husband—and through his love, I experienced the life-changing magic of being seen. His presence felt like sunlight. I softened. I bloomed. For the first time, I felt safe.

Losing him to young-onset colorectal cancer was like watching that sunlight disappear. With his last breath, the safety I had finally found evaporated. And in the long, aching months that followed, I began to reflect on all the environments I’d moved through—childhood, adolescence, adulthood, relationships—as gardens. And myself as a plant, either nurtured or wilting depending on the conditions and my individual constitution.

His absence clarified the kind of care I had—and hadn’t—known.

I was never defective. I am a being with specific needs for thriving—just the right light, language, and nourishment required for blooming.

When I look back, I can see that while my basic needs—shelter and food—were met, I didn’t understand what it meant to feel emotionally safe or deeply seen. I cycled through endless loops of What’s wrong with me?—never realizing I wasn’t broken. I was just trying. Surviving.

Presence. Attunement. Emotional safety.

These aren’t things you can name as missing when you’ve never known them. Not because anyone was overtly cruel but because no one had ever been taught to ask, What kind of care does this particular being require?

Humans don’t come with cue cards. No tags that say, “partial sun, low stimulation, daily emotional attunement.” We enter this world as mysteries.

My mom carries a sixth sense with her plants. As if she can smell it, she knows when they need water or tending without even looking at them. She is attuned to her garden in ways I only experienced years later with my husband.

After he died, I longed for the kind of care we cultivated together—the way he could sense what I was feeling without looking at my face. The way my heart used to sing when he looked at me. The way he listened.

My relationship with my mother has been tenuous at best in adulthood. But after my husband passed, I saw her try—in the ways she knew how. Fixing. Filling space. Masking the pain with doing. On our occasional phone calls, she’d talk about her plants: who was dry, who needed new soil, who was ready for a bigger pot. No performance. No expectation. Just attention.

I recognized in those moments that she couldn’t offer me the kind of gaze she gave her plants—and for the first time, I understood why. Her care was real. She’d just never encountered a plant like me before.

Before I met my husband, I’d already been living in survival mode for years—self-medicating in the wake of emotional upheaval and familial crisis, eroding what little trust I had in myself. His love opened something in me I hadn’t known was possible: safety. And after he died, I had to learn what safety meant in my body at this stage of my journey.

Most of us are raised in environments shaped by inherited urgency, unexamined patterns, and a generational lack of curiosity. There is no fault here, but there is consequence.

The body, in its wisdom, keeps score. It holds unmet needs and unspoken truths like a second skin.

And it’s often when we encounter a metaphor—one that mirrors our inner experience—that something in us exhales.

That metaphor becomes a form of attunement. Not a solution, but a shift. A felt sense that maybe nothing is wrong—only unrecognized. It doesn’t fix the past, but through meaning-making, the body is able to rest. To breathe.

We speak of regulation like it’s a technique. Breathe like this. Move like that. But often, the truest form of regulation is recognition.

Something outside of us that echoes what lives within. A melody in our favorite song. A story. A metaphor that reminds us: You are not alone in this shape.

And in that moment, the body softens. The charge lifts. We are seen.

This is why metaphor matters. Not just as art, but as medicine. As orientation. As survival.

When we are mirrored—by a song, a painting, a stretch of sky that looks exactly how grief feels—we are granted a kind of coherence. Our experience, once scattered or silenced, is gathered into form. And form is something we can hold.

Often, it’s not the literal circumstances that make us feel safe. It’s the resonance. The reassurance that someone, somewhere, has known a similar ache.

Even if the path is different, the terrain feels familiar. And that familiarity becomes a nervous system offering—a tether back to self when the ground feels too far away.

The metaphors that make us human are often subtle. Soldiers of our intuition: they arrive as gut feelings, patterns, images, or melodies we keep returning to. The ocean. The desert. A cracked shell. A single tree that blooms late every season.

They take root in us slowly. And then one day, without even realizing it, we see ourselves reflected back in the world—and a sense of belonging begins to ripple through our internal landscape.

Viktor Frankl once wrote that “those who have a why to live can bear almost any how.” He understood what trauma researchers like Bessel van der Kolk and Gabor Maté have continued to illuminate: that suffering, when given meaning, becomes bearable.

Not erased or justified but metabolized. Held. Breathed into.

Meaning doesn’t change what happened. It changes how what happened lives in us.

This is where metaphor becomes more than language. It becomes a vessel—for pain to move through. A frame sturdy enough to hold the unnamable.

Frankl found this truth in a concentration camp. Van der Kolk found it in bodies that refused to forget. Maté found it in the tender ache beneath addiction and illness.

I found it in my mom’s garden.

And I keep finding it—in metaphors that arrive like lifelines when I don’t know how to explain what I’m feeling.

These metaphors don’t heal the wound, but they give it form. And form allows grief to become something we can live beside, something we can integrate instead of suppressing.

Metaphor isn’t something we create in isolation. It’s something we receive—through dreams, through symbols, through the quiet choreography of the natural world.

A bird showing up at your window. Song lyrics that name exactly what you needed to hear. The shape of a tree that mirrors your own posture in grief.

These aren’t just coincidences. They are collaborations. The world, whispering back: I see you. I’m in this with you. In that echo, we find compassion—for the pain, for the path, for ourselves.

We like to think of ourselves as the authors of our stories, but more often, we’re co-writing them with something larger. With the landscape. With our ancestors. With the energy of what’s unresolved and aching to be tended.

Metaphors arrive from this conversation—between the inner and outer, the seen and unseen. They root us in the relational fabric of existence.

This is what it means to be human. Not just to feel, but to recognize. To witness ourselves mirrored in a leaf, a line of poetry, a stranger’s eyes. To belong—not because we fit a mold, but because something in the world has shaped itself to meet us exactly where we are.

—

Perhaps the more honest question isn’t “What’s wrong with me?”

It’s “What shaped me?”
“What conditions was I sprouted within?”
“And what have I learned about the kind of soil, sunlight, and care that allow me to bloom?”

What symbols found me along the way?

We are beings of pattern and story.

Metaphor is how the soul speaks back.

And meaning is the thread that carries us home.

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About Ayla Casey

Ayla Casey is a writer, grief guide, and integrative health advocate exploring what it means to self-resource through loss and hardship. Her work centers the body as a portal to wholeness, memory, and belonging. She is the creator of Alchemy for Human Hearts, a storytelling platform for grievers, caregivers, and creatives, and author of The Little Book to Remember, a free companion for grief tending and voice work. Her offerings live at www.alchemyforhumanhearts.com.

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Can You Live a Meaningful Life Without Being Exceptional?

“The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.” ~Alan Watts

As I enter the later stage of life, I find myself asking questions that are less about accomplishment and more about meaning. What matters now, when the need to prove myself has softened, but the old voices of expectation still echo in my mind?

In a world that prizes novelty, speed, and success, I wonder what happens when we’re no longer chasing those things. What happens when our energy shifts from striving to listening? Can a life still be meaningful without the spotlight? Can we stop trying to be exceptional—and still feel like we belong?

These questions have taken root in me—not just as passing thoughts, but as deep inquiries that color my mornings, my quiet moments, even my dreams. I don’t think they’re just my questions. I believe they reflect something many of us face as we grow older and begin to see life through a different lens—not the lens of ambition, but of attention.

Some mornings, I wake up unsure of what I am going to do. There’s no urgent project at this time, no one needing my leadership, no schedule pulling me into motion. So I sit. I breathe. I try to listen—not to the noise of the world, but to something quieter: my own breath, my heartbeat, the faint hum of presence beneath it all.

I’ve had a life full of meaningful work. I’ve been a filmmaker, a teacher, a musician, a writer, a nonprofit director. I’ve worked across cultures and disciplines, often off the beaten path. It was never glamorous, but it was sincere. Still, despite all of that, a voice used to whisper: not enough.

I wasn’t the last one picked, but I was rarely the first. I wasn’t overlooked, but I wasn’t the standout. I didn’t collect awards or titles. I walked a different road—and somewhere along the way, I absorbed the belief that being “enough” meant being exceptional: chosen, praised, visible.

Even when I claimed not to care about recognition, part of me still wanted it. And when it didn’t come, I quietly began to doubt the value of the path I’d chosen.

Looking back, I see how early that need took hold. As a child, I often felt peripheral—not excluded, but not essential either. I had ideas, dreams, questions, but I can’t recall anyone asking what they were. The absence of real listening—from teachers, adults, systems—left a subtle wound. It taught me to measure worth by response. If no one asked, maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe I didn’t matter.

That kind of message burrows deep. It doesn’t shout—it whispers. It tells you to prove yourself. To strive. To reach for validation instead of grounding in your own presence. And so, like many, I spent decades chasing a sense of meaning, hoping it would be confirmed by the world around me.

When that confirmation didn’t come, I mistook my quiet path for failure. But now I see it more clearly: I was never failing—I was living. I just didn’t have the cultural mirror to see myself clearly.

Because this isn’t just personal—it’s cultural.

In American life, we talk about honoring our elders, but we rarely do. We celebrate youth, disruption, and innovation but forget continuity, reflection, and memory. Aging is framed as decline, rather than depth. Invisibility becomes a quiet fate.

The workplace retires you. The culture tunes you out. Even family structures shift, often unintentionally, to prioritize the new.

It’s not just individuals who feel this. It’s the society itself losing its anchor.

In other cultures, aging is seen differently. The Stoics called wisdom the highest virtue. Indigenous communities treat elders as keepers of knowledge, not as relics. The Vikings entrusted decision-making to their gray-haired assemblies. The Clan Mothers of the Haudenosaunee and Queen Mothers of West Africa held respected leadership roles rooted in time-earned insight, not in youth.

These cultures understand something we’ve forgotten: that perspective takes time. That wisdom isn’t the product of speed but of stillness. That life becomes more valuable—not less—when it’s been deeply lived.

So the question shifts for me. It’s not just What’s the point of my life now? It becomes What kind of culture no longer sees the point of lives like mine? If we measure human value only by productivity, we end up discarding not just people—but the wisdom they carry.

Still, I don’t want to just critique the culture. I want to live differently. If the world has lost its memory of how to honor elders, perhaps the first step is to remember myself—and live into that role, even if no one names it for me.

In recent years, I’ve found grounding in Buddhist teachings—not as belief, but as a way to walk. The Four Noble Truths speak directly to my experience.

Suffering exists. And one of its roots is tanhā—the craving for things to be other than they are.

That craving once took the form of ambition, of perfectionism, of seeking approval. But now I see it more clearly. I suffered not because I lacked meaning—but because I believed meaning had to look a certain way.

The Third Noble Truth offers something radical: the possibility of release. Not through accomplishment, but through letting go. And the Eightfold Path—Right View, Right Intention, Right Action, Right Livelihood, and so on—doesn’t prescribe a goal—it offers a rhythm. A way to return to the present.

Letting go doesn’t mean retreat. It means softening the grip. Not grasping for certainty, but sitting with what is real. Not proving anything, but living with care.

Carl Jung advised his patients to break a sweat and keep a journal. I try to do both.

Writing is how I make sense of what I feel. It slows me down. It draws me into presence. I don’t write to be known. I write to know myself. Even if the words remain unseen, the process itself feels holy—because it is honest.

I’ve stopped waiting for someone to give me a platform or role. I’ve begun to live as if what I offer matters, even if no one applauds.

And on the best days, that feels like freedom.

There are still mornings when doubt returns: Did I do enough? Did I miss my moment? But I come back to this:

It matters because it’s true. Not because it’s remarkable. Not because it changed the world. But because I lived it sincerely. I stayed close to what mattered to me. I didn’t look away.

That’s what trust feels like to me now—not certainty or success, but a quiet willingness to keep walking, to keep showing up, to keep listening. To live this final chapter not as a decline, but as a deepening.

Maybe the point isn’t to be exceptional. Maybe it’s to be present, to be real, to be kind. Maybe it’s to pass on something quieter than legacy but more lasting than ego: attention, care, perspective.

Maybe that’s what elders were always meant to do.

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About Tony Collins

Tony Collins is a documentary filmmaker, educator, and writer whose work explores creativity, caregiving, and personal growth. He is the author of: Windows to the Sea—a moving collection of essays on love, loss, and presence. Creative Scholarship—a guide for educators and artists rethinking how creative work is valued. Tony writes to reflect on what matters—and to help others feel less alone.

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Mindful Parenting: How to Calm Our Kids and Heal Ourselves

“When we show up for our kids in moments when no one showed up for us, we’re not just healing them. We’re healing ourselves.” ~Dr. Becky Kenedy

I wasn’t taught to pause and breathe when I was overwhelmed.

I was taught to push through. To be a “good girl.” To smile when something inside me was begging to be seen.

I was told to toughen up. Not to cry. Not to feel too much.

But how can we grow into resilient humans when we’re taught to hide the very feelings that make us human?

I thought I was learning strength. But what I was really learning was how to disconnect.

And I carried that disconnection into adulthood… into motherhood… into my work… until it begged to be healed.

Becoming a Mother and Seeing Myself Again

When I became a mother, the past resurfaced in ways I couldn’t ignore.

As a school psychologist, I had spent years working with children, guiding them through emotional regulation, supporting teachers and families, and creating safe spaces in classrooms and therapy rooms. But nothing prepared me for what would rise when my own child began to feel deeply.

At the same time, my soul sister, Sondra, was walking through a similar reckoning.

She had spent years creating spaces for children to express themselves through story and imagination, yet still carried parts of her own childhood she hadn’t been taught how to hold.

We were doing meaningful work in the world, but our children cracked something open. Their meltdowns, their restlessness, their big emotions… all of it held up a mirror.

And instead of just reacting, I saw something deeper: myself.

Because even with all my tools and knowledge, I was still learning how to sit with my own feelings too.

When I Teach My Child, I Re-Teach Myself

That’s when I truly understood: When I teach my child mindfulness, I’m not just raising them. I’m re-raising myself.

I’m learning to do something I was never taught: To feel. To breathe. To stay present in the discomfort. To hold space without fixing or fleeing.

And through that process, I’m healing parts of myself that had been quietly waiting for years.

I remember this moment clearly:

My child was on the floor, overwhelmed by emotion. The kind of meltdown that pulls something primal out of you. Every instinct in me wanted to yell. To leave the room. To shut it down.

But instead, I paused. I sat down. I took a breath. And then another. I whispered, “I’m here.”

That moment wasn’t about control. It was about connection. And that’s what changed everything.

What Mindfulness Looks Like in Real Life

I used to think mindfulness had to look calm and quiet, but it’s not perfect.

• It’s not silent yoga flows and lavender oils (though we love those, too).
• It’s pausing before reacting.
• It’s whispering affirmations under your breath when you want to scream.
• It’s sitting beside my child, breathing together, without trying to make the feeling go away.
• It’s placing a hand on your heart and remembering that you are safe now.
• It’s letting your child see you regulate, repair, and return to love.
• It’s letting a tantrum pass, not because I stopped it, but because I stayed.
• It’s about building homes and classrooms where children don’t have to unlearn their feelings later.

It’s not about perfection. It’s about presence. It’s about co-regulation, what children truly need to feel safe.

Because kids don’t calm down by being told to. They calm down when their nervous system is met with ours. With softness. With breath. With safety.

That’s mindfulness.

That’s the real work.

Healing Myself, Healing My Lineage

The more I practiced this way of parenting, the more I realized I wasn’t just helping my child feel. I was healing emotional patterns that had lived in my family for generations.

I lived in a loving family, but trauma was hard on them. They didn’t know how to regulate their emotions. They didn’t know how to sit with discomfort, how to process instead of project.

So they yelled. They shut down. They pushed through, just like they were taught. And that became the blueprint I inherited, too.

I am part of the first generation trying to raise emotionally attuned children while still learning how to feel safe in my own body.

And it’s not easy. It’s sacred work. It’s spiritual work. It’s lineage work.

Because every time I whisper “I’m here” to my child, I whisper it to the younger version of me who needed it too.

There are moments, gentle, almost sacred, when I hear my child hum softly while striking a chime, eyes closed, saying,“This sound makes my heart feel better.”

No one explained resonance. No one showed them how.

And in that moment, I remember: our children come into this world with a knowing we spend years trying to reclaim.

We believe we’re the teachers. But in their stillness, their play, their pure presence, they become the ones guiding us home.

Planting Seeds of Calm

One day, my son looked up at me with tearful eyes and said, “Mommy, I just need you to sit with me.”

And in that moment, I realized: so did I.

That moment changed everything. It was the beginning of a softer way. A new rhythm rooted in breath, presence, and remembering that we’re not just here to teach our children how to regulate; we’re here to learn how to stay with ourselves, too.

I began to notice the magic in slowing down. To listen. To honor what was happening inside of me so I could meet what was happening inside of them. Not with control but with connection.

Every time a parent sits on the floor and breathes with their child, something ancient is rewritten.

Every time we name emotions instead of shutting them down, we break a pattern.

We don’t just raise mindful children. We raise ourselves.

Because the truth is: Every breath we teach our children to take is one we were never taught to take ourselves.

And now, we get to learn together.

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About Mariana Gordon and Sondra Bakinde

Mariana Gordon and Sondra Bakinde are the co-creators of The Meditating Mantis book and The Mindful Mantis, a heart-led brand offering mindful stories and courses for children and the grown-ups who love them. Mariana is a former school psychologist and energy healer. Sondra is an artist, interior designer, and creative visionary. Together, they bring softness, story, and healing into everyday life. Learn more at themindfulmantis.com and follow on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok.

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When Growth Comes with Grief Because People Still See the Old You

“In the process of letting go, you will lose many things from the past, but you will find yourself.” ~Deepak Chopra

There’s a strange ache that comes with becoming healthy. Not the physical kind. The relational kind. The kind that surfaces when we’re no longer quite so wired to betray ourselves for belonging. When we stop curating ourselves to fit into spaces where we used to shrink, bend, or smile politely through the dissonance.

Years of hard work and effort, slowly unwrapping all those unhealthy ways of being in the world, cleaning off my lenses to see more clearly through the eyes of an authentic, healthy me, rather than the over-functioning codependent, perfectionistic people pleaser I had become.

In the process of becoming, it’s felt—at times—like I’ve lost everything. Not just roles or routines but people too. Many of the main characters who once shared the centre stage of my life have quietly exited because the script no longer fits. And the scene now looks quite different. The cast has changed, the lighting is softer, the dialogue less frantic.

I’m no longer that tightly bound version of me, holding the tension of everyone’s expectations like thread in my hands. I’m a freer version. The one who doesn’t perform for applause or connection. The one who lives more from the inside out.

And while that freedom is hard-earned and beautiful, it doesn’t come without cost. Growth rewrites the story. Sometimes that means letting go of the plotlines that once gave us meaning.

I’m not going to pretend I’m completely there yet on this journey of healthy growth toward a more authentic, more empowered version of myself, but I’m far enough along to become more of an observer in my life than completely identified with everything that is happening to and around me.

Sometimes, though, I find myself standing in front of people who still see the old version of me—the compliant one, the helpful one, the emotionally available-on-demand version who made it easy for them to stay comfortable. But I’ve changed. I’ve chosen sovereignty over survival. Truth over performance. And they don’t quite know what to do with me now.

And to be fair, it must be pretty challenging to be close to a blogging memoirist. To be clear, in the more than ten years I’ve shared my personal growth journey, I have always sought never to “name and shame,” except for my own epiphanies about myself. But I am writing about real life, and I share it so people who are on a similar journey might not feel so alone; they might find pieces of themselves in my words, and it might help.

The grace, then, in being in the many relationships that surround me, is not in pretending to be who they want me to be. It’s in standing as who I am, without making them wrong for not joining me.

That’s the razor’s edge.

To hold my center while others twist away from it. To love people I no longer align with, without making myself small or them bad. To walk with grace among people who are technically close but emotionally far.

Because it hurts. That contrast between the curated self I used to be—relationally attuned, endlessly accommodating—and the fuller self I’m becoming—boundaried, expressive, sovereign. It’s not just growth, it’s grief. Grief for the roles I’ve shed, grief for the versions of connection that relied on my self-abandonment, and grief for the quiet, persistent hope that maybe one day they’d really see me.

But not everyone wants to see clearly; to be fair, I used to be one of them. Some are fighting not to be seen at all.

And after fighting so hard to be seen, that clash doesn’t just sting—it feels like a threat to our core safety. Especially when we were raised, trained, or wired to find security in others’ approval.

It’s deeply frustrating when people who claim to value honesty and trust really mean “as long as it doesn’t make me uncomfortable or challenge my narrative.”

When our authenticity gets met with suspicion, when our reflections are seen as risks rather than offerings, we are speaking a language of truth, and they’re replying in code.

That’s the heartbreak. And the liberation.

Because here’s the quietly powerful thing: We’re no longer playing by their rules. We’re not trying to control how we’re perceived. We’re just being—thoughtful, expressive, intentional.

Well, we’re trying anyway; I’m not quite there yet.

And that, in a world still steeped in performance and image management, is revolutionary.

We’re no longer seeking connection through appeasement. We’re seeking connection through presence. Through truth.

Which means letting relationships be what they are, rather than what we wish they were. It means stepping around old dynamics rather than trying to fix them. It means recognizing patterns—like the nurse archetype, competent and respected, but image-bound and risk-averse—and choosing not to collapse in the face of them.

I’ve been on the other side. I was that person once, not so long ago, really. Carefully curated. Layered in survival. So my clarity now comes with compassion. But it also comes with boundaries.

Because I’ve earned them.

This next chapter? It’s not about being alone—it’s about being true. Not hiding behind titles or roles or team identities, but standing in my own voice, even if no one claps. Even if no one comes. Even if they misunderstand.

I am the Stag now. Poised. Still. Unapologetic.

My solitude isn’t survival—it’s sovereignty.

And my anger? That sacred anger that rises in the face of denial and deflection—it’s not a flaw. It’s a signal. It tells me where the firelight is. It reminds me of what matters. It roots me in the truth that even when others retreat into shadow, I don’t have to follow.

I can stay lit. I can stay me. I can whisper, “This is me, seen or not.”

And that’s the power. Not in being understood. But in being whole.

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About Shona Keachie

Shona teaches by the power of example how to find our inner truth among the often harried day to day practicalities of life. If you enjoyed this article you may enjoy The Hidden Power of Your Conversations: How they are Shaping the World, Not Yours to Fix - How to Release Control and Find Inner Peace and The People Who Hurt Us Are Vehicles for Our Growth. To follow her blog click here. www.shonakeachie.com

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The Whisper That Saved My Life When I Was Drowning

TRIGGER WARNING: This post references rape and suicide attempts, which might be distressing for some readers.

“Our lives only improve when we are willing to take chances, and the first and most difficult risk we can take is to be honest with ourselves.” ~Walter Anderson

This was my third psychiatric hospitalization after my suicide attempts.

On this visit, something shifted. All I knew at that moment was, for the first time, I wasn’t in a hurry to leave.

There was no window or clock. Just blank, pale walls I’d been staring at for twenty-one days.

I lay there, shattered and broken in a way that felt beyond repair. It shouldn’t hurt this much just to be alive.

Then I heard it—a whisper from deep inside me. It was little Jennifer, saying, “There has to be more to my life than this.” I didn’t recognize this voice yet as my inner child, but that whisper marked the beginning of my healing. It was the moment I stopped running and decided to stay with myself.

I used to be so embarrassed by how my life had unfolded. I never believed I’d share my story with anyone, let alone write about it publicly. Now, I’m ready to tell the world.

We rarely discuss grueling topics openly—mental health, suicide attempts, codependency, and shame. That silence is killing us one secret at a time.

If you’re reading this and you’re where I was, I want you to know you’re not alone. No matter how broken you feel, you are worth fighting for.

Before that hospital stay, I had spent years surviving. Much of that survival was wrapped around someone I loved deeply. I’ll call him Ethan.

He supported me through surgeries, breakdowns, and diagnoses. Even after we broke up, we stayed entangled in each other’s lives, emotionally dependent and clinging to a connection I didn’t know how to navigate without.

My world shattered around me when I was raped. Then my rape kit and other records went missing.  That’s when my second suicide attempt happened, landing me in the ICU. I felt violated twice, leaving an internal scar on me.

I was consumed with rage at the world and myself. I didn’t trust anyone. I pushed everyone away, even the ones trying to love me. Friends and family didn’t feel safe. Nothing did.

I couldn’t face the reality of my life, so I buried my head in the sand of online shopping, sleeping, and eating. It reached the point where I couldn’t function on a day-to-day basis.

My nightmares were so intense that I’d wake myself up screaming. Then I’d look down and realize I had ripped my sheets in half while I was sleeping. I was terrified to fall asleep.

When I was awake, it felt like I was fading. I didn’t even recognize myself anymore. The fear and depression were so heavy, I couldn’t be touched—not even by things that were supposed to feel normal.

The shower water hitting my skin would make me flinch. The blow dryer made me panic. I had crying spells that came out of nowhere. During flashbacks, I would grind my teeth unconsciously and crack a tooth.

After the rape, I was unable to remain in the apartment where the assault had occurred. Thankfully, being the kind friend he was, Ethan let me move back into his apartment, which I had previously lived in when we were dating.

I fell apart in every way. I hadn’t showered in weeks and was still wearing the same Victoria’s Secret flannel pajamas, which had become loose from constant wear over the weeks.

My hair was a wild lion’s mane, the kind you’d expect from a creature lost in the jungle, only ever softened when Ethan sat me down and brushed it with gentle care. The cold hardwood floors shocked my bare feet during those brief journeys from bed to bathroom or kitchen, my only ventures in a world that had shrunk to the size of his apartment.

Ethan would leave for work before sunrise and return to a dark apartment. He’d turn on the kitchen light and see chocolate wrappers and tissues scattered across the floor, evidence that I’d been up, if only briefly.

He gently encouraged me to shower but never made me feel ashamed of myself. He still hugged me every day.

After two years of caring for me, he reconnected with someone from his past. That night marked the beginning of something new for him and the unraveling of what little stability I had left.

I remember thinking, “How can he fall in love when I’m dying inside?”

I stayed curled up under my pink furry blanket as I watched life pass by. Heavy tears slid down my face and soaked into the only thing that still brought me comfort.

Every time he left the apartment to go out with his new girlfriend, my chest ached with a mix of emotions that flooded me. Jealousy, anger, and confusion bubbled up so fast I couldn’t make sense of it. I felt abandoned, forgotten, and replaced.

As the hours went by after he left, my mind started to race. I imagined what she looked like, what they were doing, and whether he was happier with her than he ever was with me. The thoughts consumed me and fed my depression, and I started binging on food to numb the pain.

He was just a human being attempting to continue with his life, but in my broken state, I saw it as evidence that I was unrepairable, that everyone else could heal and move forward except me.

The problem was that I didn’t have a life to return to. I had no identity outside of him. I didn’t know who I was, what I liked, or how to care for myself emotionally.

When I no longer felt needed, I lost my sense of worth.

That whisper lingered with me. I didn’t realize it at the time, but it was my inner child—little Jennifer—asking me not to give up on her again. Healing her became one of the missing pieces I didn’t even know I was searching for.

For years, I had relied on Ethan to soothe me when I didn’t have the tools to relieve myself. He gave me love when I hated myself, and care when I couldn’t function or forgive who I had become. In many ways, he was mothering the parts of me that I had never learned to nurture.

It took me over a year to stop my old habits when I got out. I finally deleted all my dating apps and promised myself I wouldn’t use men, shopping, or food to escape anymore. I was choosing myself for the first time.

I started buying myself flowers and offering the compliments I used to beg someone else to say: “You’re brilliant. You’re beautiful. I’m proud of you.” Now, I was becoming the one who gave myself the love and attention I was always seeking.

I began going on self-love dates. At first, it was just five minutes of listening to music. Then it became six, and eventually seven. Sitting alone with my thoughts was excruciating for someone like me, who had always escaped with weed, alcohol, or other people’s company.

I didn’t know how to manage my restlessness, but I kept showing up. I added one more minute each week.

Eventually, I wore the prettiest dress and took myself to cafes, meditation classes, and movies. I didn’t know what I liked, so I made a list. I wanted to become someone I could count on. Slowly, I began to love my own company. The woman who once couldn’t stand being alone became someone I looked forward to getting to know.

Those self-love dates didn’t just build my self-esteem—they became the foundation of finding myself.

Each outing helped me rediscover little pieces of myself. I realized I was funny. I could make myself laugh.

I no longer needed distractions. I never would’ve known any of this if I hadn’t kept showing up and learning who I was underneath the pain. Looking back, the most life-changing thing I ever did was stop abandoning myself.

If I had loved and valued myself back then the way I do now, I still would’ve been heartbroken when Ethan moved on, but it wouldn’t have broken me the way it did. I would’ve known I could survive it and still build a life worth living.

We build our relationship with ourselves just as we do with someone we’re dating.

Remember when you first met someone and stayed on the phone for hours, even when you were exhausted, because your curiosity about them kept you awake? That same childlike curiosity is what we need to bring to our relationship with ourselves.

Loving yourself isn’t a luxury. It’s essential. When you build a strong bond with yourself, you don’t fall apart when someone else leaves. You’re no longer waiting to be chosen.

That’s what I was learning on those self-love dates. I asked myself many questions, explored my thoughts, and gradually began to learn about myself.

If you’re feeling lost or unsure of who you are without someone else, start with these gentle questions:

• Is there a book, song, or movie you’ve been wanting to try but haven’t had the chance to yet?
• Think of a food you loved as a child but haven’t had in years.
• What would your younger self be sad about that you stopped doing today?
• What small detail, like an outfit, a scent, or a song, used to make you feel alive?

The answers don’t need to excite you right now. They’re just starting points, tiny threads to follow when you’ve lost the map to yourself.

If asking yourself these questions feels overwhelming, start with something smaller. Whisper to yourself: ‘There’s still hope for me.’ Because there is.

Even in my darkest moments, when I couldn’t imagine ever wanting to live again, hope was waiting quietly beneath all that pain. Sometimes, the tiniest spark of hope is enough to keep you going until you’re ready for the next step.

Those questions lead to curiosity. Curiosity leads to action. And action becomes the first step in finding your way back to yourself.

You don’t need to wait for someone else to choose you. You can start by choosing yourself.

That whisper I heard in the hospital became the roadmap to finding me.

My biggest regret is not choosing little Jennifer sooner. I kept waiting for someone else to save her, but she’d been waiting for me to bring her home all along.

If there’s a quiet voice within asking for you to focus on more than just your survival, please listen to it.

It might feel impossible now, but that whisper holds the truth you’ve searched for everywhere. Your journey back to yourself may not look like mine, but I promise you this: you are worth fighting for.

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About Jennifer Conacchio

Jennifer is a certified trauma recovery coach at www.jenniferconacchio.com, guiding women from survival to self-discovery through personalized healing approaches when therapy alone is not enough. Jennifer's approach combines DBT-based skills, inner child healing, and fashion therapy to help clients create actionable roadmaps to reconnect with themselves. Grab Your FREE Inner Child Quiz & Healing Guide to find out which inner child is guiding you.

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A Case for Joy in a Monetized World

“Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.” ~William Bruce Cameron

My gardener and I were talking the other day—his English broken, my Spanish worse—but we found a way to connect.

He told me about his eight-year-old son, a bright, joyful kid who loves baseball. The boy wants to play. His mother wants him in tutoring. And somewhere in that gap, a bigger question emerged: what matters more—discipline or joy?

I didn’t plan to give advice, but it came out anyway. “Let him play ball,” I said. “Let him be part of a team, fall in love with something, feel what it’s like to give yourself to a game you care about.” Maybe there’s room for both—tutoring on weekends or part-time. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that too often, we push kids toward what’s useful before they know what they love.

That conversation stayed with me because it reflects something bigger and more troubling: almost everything in life now feels monetized.

From birth to death, we are priced and processed. Pregnancy is a billing code. Daycare is a business. College is debt. Even death has been streamlined into packages—premium, standard, economy.

Want to talk to a therapist? That’ll cost you. Want clean food? That’s extra. A safe place to live? Depends on your credit score. Even our time with loved ones feels rationed by work schedules and productivity apps. There’s a price tag on presence.

The monetization of everything is more than just an economic system—it’s a cultural atmosphere. It creeps in quietly, turning art into content, friendships into followers, and values into branding strategies. We trade attention for advertising, care for convenience. And as the world becomes more globalized, centralized, and digitized, this way of thinking spreads—efficient, scalable, and soul-numbing.

But there’s something that can’t be priced or faked: flow.

Flow is that immersive state where effort disappears, time softens, and we’re fully absorbed in what we’re doing. It’s the feeling of being completely alive and focused—not because we’re chasing a reward, but because we’re in tune with the task itself.

I remember pitching in Little League when I was ten. I wasn’t the best, but for one brief inning, everything clicked. I stopped thinking. The ball moved like it was part of me. I wasn’t trying to impress anyone—I was just there, inside the game. That was flow. And I’ve spent much of my life chasing that feeling through music, writing, teaching.

I’ve spent most of my life as a teacher, filmmaker, and writer. Not because it made me rich—it didn’t—but because it gave me something to live for. Now, at seventy, I help care for my 96-year-old mother, still trying to finish my life’s work with little to show for it in the bank. But the work still matters. So does she.

My mother’s caregivers—mostly women of color—show up every day. They help her eat, dress, and smile. They aren’t paid nearly enough, but they move through their days with compassion, grace, and humor. Their labor doesn’t fit into a tidy spreadsheet of profit. And yet it holds the world together.

I wonder: What happens to a society that forgets how to value the things that can’t be monetized?

We know something’s wrong, but we don’t know what to do. We still need to pay rent, buy groceries, find a way to survive in a system that rewards efficiency over depth, image over presence. There’s no clear answer. Just tension, quiet resistance, and sometimes—if we’re lucky—a moment of clarity.

So I say again: let the boy play. Not to win, or to be the star, but to feel the joy of running with others, of belonging to a team, of laughing, working hard, and learning—together. Let him build friendships that might last a lifetime. Let him feel what it means to be part of something larger than himself, where improvement matters more than trophies.

And maybe, just maybe, let him find flow. On the field, or even in tutoring, if the conditions are right—if the learning is alive and the focus is real. Because flow is the goal, whether in a game or a classroom. That’s where confidence is born. That’s where joy lives.

Of course, I know Little League can be its own kind of heartbreak. When the game becomes about dominance, when adults project their own regrets or insecurities onto the boys, when coaches forget it’s supposed to be fun—it can damage the very spirit it’s meant to nourish.

That’s why it takes the right coach. One who listens. One who knows it’s a boy’s world for a short while, and that this game, at its best, teaches how to care, to lose with grace, to try again, and to trust others.

I told his father all this in our clumsy mix of English and Spanish. I told him I hoped his son gets to play. Not because it will lead to anything measurable. But because it already is something valuable.

Sometimes, the best thing we can do is willingly open the door—and let the players play.

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About Tony Collins

Tony Collins, EdD, MFA is a documentary filmmaker, teacher, musician, writer, and consultant with forty years of experience. His work explores creative expression, scholarly rigor, and nonfiction storytelling across the USA, Central America, Asia, and the UAE. In 2025, he is self-publishing Creative Scholarship: Rethinking Evaluation in Film and New Media on Amazon, challenging traditional academic assessment in film and new media. Website: anthonycollinsfilm.com

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