Finding Peace with Money After Years of Feeling “Responsibly Broke”

“A big part of financial freedom is having your heart and mind free from worry about the what-ifs of life.” ~Suze Orman

During my upbringing, my parents often fought about money since we didn’t have much of it. My mom was more of an occasional spender, while my father would go as far as making me wear shoes that were a size smaller just so he could save money.

This conflict of opposites created real tension in our home, and eventually, my dad instructed my mom to give my father her entire salary so he could manage it. She had to ask for an allowance even for things like menstrual pads or coffee. Today, I understand that this type of dynamic is called financial abuse.

When my mom left my dad, it was very difficult for her to support our family financially since she was making less money than my father while they were together.

Even in spite of that, she wanted us to have more. I remember it like it was yesterday. I was twelve years old, and my mom took me to a clothing store called Mango. I loved that store but could never buy anything from there because it was outside of our price range.

I noticed a simple black sweater and immediately fell in love with it. I showed it to my mom. It was around $20, which was a budget for our groceries for the week. And as any child would, I started begging her to buy it for me. Eventually she gave in and said okay.

I remember we were standing by the register. She was to my right side, and when I looked at her, I could not only see but literally feel the stress she was going through by spending $20 on a sweater she couldn’t afford. My excitement was immediately replaced by profound guilt and shame that I was the reason she was stressed and sad.

Although I didn’t realize it for many years, this was a defining moment when I unconsciously decided I wasn’t deserving or worthy of having more money or making good money.

Years later, when I began my healing work, I understood that these seemingly small and insignificant moments shape the way we see money, how we feel about it, and whether we believe we deserve it or not.

At first, this seemed to have a positive effect. In my twenties, I became an extreme saver.

When I was twenty-two, I moved to the US. During my first year as an au pair, I lived with a generous family and still managed to save, believing I was good with money.

After my year was up, I moved to Florida on my own and started to become aware of how the financial system works in the US. My husband at that time told me I needed to build credit because, well, everybody does it. We all need credit to live in this country. So I got my very first credit card. This was the time when my saving muscles began to weaken.

The standard of living I was used to in Slovakia was different here since I was starting from zero. Being a customer service representative, my mani-pedis, haircuts, and the desire to live the high life because I was in America ate a significant portion of my earnings while leaving me high and dry at the end of the month.

Looking back now, I’d say the breaking point happened when I had a tooth emergency. I woke up with my right side completely swollen and had to rush to my dentist for an emergency appointment.

I had insurance, but I wasn’t aware that often there is a significant portion you must pay out of pocket. Once the emergency was averted, I was standing at the reception desk, handing the receptionist my insurance card. After a few moments, she looked at me with a smile and said, “Your total out of pocket is $1,600.”

I froze, cold sweat pouring over my anesthetized face. Say what? I don’t have $1,600. She looked at me again, smiled, and said, “That shouldn’t be a problem. We have a payment plan available.”

And that’s how my path of debt cycles began.

Could I sit here and tell you that the reason I was in such a bad financial position was the system or the bankers and lenders that so freely offered me their money? Of course. But that is a very small part of the equation, and it actually isn’t the reason I ended up broke.

After about eight years of personal loans, medical debt, a car loan, and about six credit cards, I hit rock bottom and eventually filed for bankruptcy.

One thing I couldn’t wrap my head around was that I was responsible, reliable, and capable in other areas of my life, but when it came to money, I was failing horribly. Even my payment history was perfect because, well, I was a responsible borrower. Later on, I used to joke that I was responsibly broke.

The bankruptcy was a turning point for me. Once everything was over and my case was settled, I remember sitting on my bed in my studio apartment, asking myself: “How did I actually get here?”

After I reflected, I recognized that it was a combination of three things. First, I never healed my money blocks and beliefs, which affected my income level. Second, I refused to educate myself about money. And third, I was using debt as a way to finance my lifestyle, although I couldn’t afford it at the time.

Once I sat with this for a while, I made a commitment to myself that I would never again find myself in such a financial position. I decided to face my financial fears head-on and purchased my very first financial book, Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey.

As one of the first steps, he suggests you should save your first $1,000. I couldn’t see how I would be able to do that, but I stood strongly in my faith. I started with $50. Then it was $100, $200, and eventually, within two months, I saved my first $1,000.

Saving my first $1,000 was less about money and more about self-trust while rebuilding confidence in my choices. Suddenly, I felt more capable and reliable when it came to money, a feeling I wasn’t familiar with.

Step by step over the years, I started to make healthier financial choices. I opened my first brokerage account and started investing, and no matter what point system a credit card company offers, I am staying away from having any.

Looking back at this journey of financial struggle and how I tied it to my self-worth, there are three pieces of advice I’d offer when it comes to money.

1. Address your financial trauma.

Whether people grew up with money or without it, many of us have financial limiting beliefs that hold us back.

Five minutes in a clothing store with my mom at the age of twelve directed another twenty years of financial stress for me. Money directly affects our nervous system as well as our mental and emotional well-being.

Of course, for people who are truly struggling or living at poverty level, financial stress is inevitable. But for many of us, a paycheck-to-paycheck lifestyle is a combination of bad financial habits, a negative relationship with money, and a lack of financial knowledge.

Addressing your relationship with money won’t only help you understand your current financial situation but also uncover deeper wounds you might be carrying, like feelings of unworthiness or a desire for validation. Money problems are often symptoms of a deeper issue.

2. Spirituality and money can coexist.

I grew up atheist, so when I started to explore spirituality later in life, I developed a certain obliviousness toward money. I saw it as something materialistic that didn’t belong in the spiritual world.

I later realized that spirituality became another way for me to avoid my financial trauma, justifying that I was above money and could manifest my way out of being broke. Although I’m not minimizing the power of attraction and manifestation, I think it’s important to be practical and logical when it comes to our finances.

The hardest lesson was learning that I can’t reach higher states of consciousness or heal much of my trauma when I’m stuck in constant survival mode and my nervous system is paralyzed by fight-or-flight mode because I don’t know how I’m going to tackle my rent next month. We must take care of the survival aspects of our life before we can dive deeper.

3. Learn about money.

There are so many negative financial statements we hear all the time. Things like “money can’t buy happiness” or “money is the root of all evil” when in fact, there is nothing wrong with being interested in money, understanding it, and effectively working with it. Money is simply one of the many essential aspects of living a healthy and balanced lifestyle.

You don’t need to strive to be the richest person in the world, but understanding your budget, having an emergency fund, and saving for retirement are the basis of your financial health.

When I started learning about money, it gave me a sense of empowerment and competency. It made me feel more confident, gave me clarity, and brought a sense of peace into my day-to-day life. There is so much I was able to accomplish on a deeper personal level and heal because I wasn’t consumed by daily financial stress.

Today, I no longer carry the shame of that moment at the register. Instead, I carry the knowledge that I am capable, worthy, and deserving of financial stability, and so are you.

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About Silvia Turonova

Silvia helps financially independent women transform their relationship with money, addressing both the emotional and the practical side through a personalized money system. She created the HerEaseWithMoney Starter, a free 10-minute money guide for women ready to take their first step. Get it here. You can also find her on Instagram.

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The Sounds That Helped Calm my Mind

I recently had the opportunity to take an online Sound as Medicine workshop with Phyllicia Victoria through the Omega Institute, and what a beautiful experience it was.

As you may know from my previous emails, I’ve been moving through the hardest time in my adult life for the past eighteen months.

I’ve been back and forth across the country numerous times to support my father through brain cancer treatment. All the while, I’ve been homeschooling my oldest son, adapting to changes in my industry, and in recent months, coping with estrangement from one of the closest people in my life.

Life has felt heavy, overwhelming, and relentless, and I’ve depended on my self-care routines, like walking in nature and reading in the tub, to maintain a sense of equilibrium.

After taking this workshop, I now feel confident that sound baths should be a regular part of that routine.

First, about Phyllicia—an artist, yoga teacher, reiki practitioner, and sound healer. I’d read on her website that she grew up feeling broken, lonely, and unworthy, with trust issues, and I instantly felt a sense of connection because I could relate.

She started facilitating sound baths because she felt how the sound helped settle her thoughts and quiet some of the chatter in her head.

That’s exactly what this workshop did for me. The combination of Phyllicia’s soothing voice, her uplifting words, and the resonant, hypnotic sounds created a truly transcendent experience.

After the practice, she led us through some gentle movements and stretches and then invited us to journal about what came up in the meditation.

I started by writing a number of words that came to mind:

• Release
• Peace
• Spaciousness
• Ease
• Clarity
• Calmness
• Gratitude

And then I wrote the following:

I felt a deep sense of relief from the stressful thoughts that had been gripping me earlier. The sound transported me in a way words alone could not. I felt the vibrations deep within my body, and it felt like they were cleansing me of the noise of my own mind and creating space to just be, without judgment.

When I heard other sounds—some that I think came from her environment and some in my own, like my father moving around and turning on the faucet in the kitchen—my mind thought, “No judgment—just new sounds.”

I was reminding myself to simply hear them, mixed in with the more calming sounds of her singing bowls and chimes, and then release them without thinking they “shouldn’t” have been part of the experience.

And I thought to myself, what a wonderful practice for life. Often, we hear more dissonance than harmony in our days, but sometimes it’s the other way around. It’s a tremendous gift to be able to train the mind to hear the dissonance without getting lost in the story of it, so we can shift our focus back to what’s beautiful and healing.

—

The journaling practice ended after this, and I decided not to listen to the Q&A at the end of the workshop so I could just be in the space I’d created within myself for a bit.

I’ve read that sound baths can not only calm the nervous system and reduce stress, but they can also help relieve tension and physical pain. And I can see why. I ended my session feeling deeply relaxed, physically and mentally, and honestly better equipped to handle whatever might come in the day ahead.

I’ve been grateful for my recent partnership with Omega because I truly love what they offer.

I also appreciate that they put together a page of free resources specifically for the Tiny Buddha community, which you can access here.

If you’re interested in attending a workshop on their campus in New York this summer, here are a few that caught my eye:

• Get Healthy with Sound: Tuning Forks & Voice for Vibrant Health
• The Journey Inward: Frequency, Neuroscience & Longevity
• Holotropic Breathwork: Sacred Geometry & the Healing Nature of Mandalas

And in case you missed my previous email, I wanted to reshare some of the programs I recommended last month, including:

• Omega’s emotional resilience workshops, which focus on training your mind for your best life possible, healing from betrayal and toxic relationships, and more,
• And Omega’s nervous system regulation workshops, with programs focused on accessing neuroplasticity, healing your nervous system, and more.

That’s a picture from their campus above. If I could take an in-person workshop at this time in my life, I’d be there in a heartbeat, as I know it’s a true sanctuary and a place for meaningful connection and deep healing.

If you’re feeling the way I’ve been feeling lately, I encourage you to explore the free resources, and if you decide to take a workshop, I’d love to know what the experience was like for you!

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About Lori Deschene

Lori Deschene is the founder of Tiny Buddha. She started the site after struggling with depression, bulimia, c-PTSD, and toxic shame so she could recycle her former pain into something useful and inspire others to do the same. You can find her books, including Tiny Buddha’s Gratitude Journal and Tiny Buddha’s Worry Journal, here and learn more about her eCourse, Recreate Your Life Story, if you’re ready to transform your life and become the person you want to be.

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The Beautiful Gift We Give Without Even Knowing

“The most precious gift we can offer anyone is our attention.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

Five years ago, my son missed a basketball tryout.

We had been out of town, and by the time we got back, the rosters were already set. I made a few calls anyway, hoping someone might give a kid a late shot. One coach said yes. He had a spot left, and he was willing to take a chance on a name he’d never heard from a father he’d never met.

That coach became one of my closest friends.

I started coming to practices to help out. Then I kept coming back. Five years later, I’m still his assistant coach, and somewhere along the way, a basketball court became the place where one of the most meaningful friendships of my adult life took hold. He’s forty. I’m fifty-two. He tells people I’m like an older brother to him, and I don’t take that lightly.

We talk several times a week. About basketball, yes, but also about our kids, our fears, what we’re proud of, what keeps us up at night, and the bigger questions that don’t have easy answers. We laugh often. We’re there for each other. And we’ve both said, more than once, that what we have is rare. Not because we agree on everything, but because we see each other. The real stuff. The soul underneath the surface.

That kind of friendship is harder to find than people admit.

Which is why what happened recently stopped me cold.

He had been up for a new job, a role that would be a game changer for him and his family. I knew the opportunity was on the horizon, but I didn’t know the timing.

When my phone rang the other day, I picked up the way I always do. We fell into one of our usual conversations, easy and unhurried. Silly jokes. Updates on the kids. The kind of talk that doesn’t require effort because the comfort is already there.

No pep talks. No last-minute prep. No mention of anything high-stakes. Just two guys talking about nothing in particular on an ordinary afternoon.

The next day, he reached out with an update. And then, almost as an afterthought, he mentioned that during our call the day before, he had been sitting in a waiting room, just minutes from walking into his interview.

I sat with that for a moment.

“You didn’t tell me,” I said. “I had no idea you were sitting there in the middle of all of that.”

He laughed the way he does. “I know. I didn’t want to talk about the job. I just wanted to talk to you. It kept me calm. Thanks, man.”

I’ve been thinking about that moment ever since.

I wasn’t doing anything remarkable. I wasn’t coaching him through the moment or offering wisdom about pressure and performance. I was just being myself, which is the only thing I know how to be when we talk. But for him, in that waiting room, our ordinary back-and-forth was exactly the footing he needed.

He just needed a reminder that a world existed outside that office. A world where he was already known. Already liked. Already enough. And without either of us planning it, that’s what our conversation became.

I’ve spent a lot of years measuring my value by the visible things. The advice I gave that someone used. The moment I said the right thing at the right time and watched something useful happen. We tend to think of impact in those terms, the big gesture, the obvious intervention, the moment we can point to and say, “I helped.”

But my friend reminded me that presence is its own kind of power. Not the dramatic kind. The just-answer-the-phone kind.

There’s something I’ve learned from five years of watching him coach my son.

The kids who grow the most under his watch aren’t always the most talented. They’re the ones who feel seen. He has a gift for looking at a young person and communicating, without making a speech about it, that he believes in what’s already there.

My son has become a better basketball player over these years. But more than that, he’s growing into the young man he was always meant to be. And a key part of that is because someone took a chance on his name on a list and then kept welcoming him back.

That’s the thread. Coming back. Paying attention. Being present and paying attention without an agenda.

We move through our days as the main characters of our own stories. We’re managing our own pressures, our own timelines, our own private concerns. And in doing so, we sometimes forget that we’re also essential characters in the stories of the people around us. Although we don’t always know which scene we’re in for someone else.

There are days when I feel like I don’t have much to offer. The path forward isn’t clear, and I wonder whether I’m contributing anything of any real value.

And then I think about my friend sitting in a waiting room, not wanting to talk about the moment ahead of him, calling because the sound of a familiar voice was the one thing that could settle his nerves and remind him to come back to himself.

On the days when we feel smallest, we might be the thing holding someone else together. We might be the calm in a storm we didn’t even know was happening.

We don’t need to be extraordinary to matter. We just need to be present. To answer the phone. To come back to practice the next day. To say yes to a name on a list when everyone else has already moved on.

My friend took a chance on my son five years ago and in doing so, gave both of us more than he’ll ever fully know. I hope that somewhere in our conversations, I’ve offered him something back. Even on the days when it felt like nothing more than two people just hanging out and talking.

We never truly know when an ordinary moment becomes the thing someone needs the most. But we can choose to keep answering, keep returning, and trust that our presence and attention are exactly enough.

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About Daniel H. Shapiro

Dr. Daniel H. Shapiro is keynote speaker, workshop presenter, and mentor. He is passionate about human connection and the stories we carry with us. For more information about his book, The 5 Practices of the Caring Mentor, or his mentoring and speaking services, check out: www.yourinherentgoodness.com.

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A Little-Known Truth About People-Pleasing and How to Stop (for Good)

“Being a people-pleaser may be more than a personality trait; it could be a response to serious trauma.” ~Alex Bachert

Growing up in a home, school, and church that placed a lot of value on good behavior, self-discipline, and corporal punishment, I was a model child. There could have been an American Girl doll designed after me—the well-mannered church girl with a nineties hair bow edition.

I was quiet and pleasant and never got sent to the principal’s office. Complaining and “ugly” emotions were simply not allowed. Though I was very rambunctious and “rebellious” as a toddler, all of that was cleansed from my personality by the time I was school-aged.

I had no other choice. I felt unsafe in my body at the slightest hint that someone was upset with me. It was enough to tame my inner rebel, at least for many years.

I carried this pattern into adulthood. I found myself in jobs with supervisors who would fly off the handle at every opportunity. I worked extra hard, more than anyone else, to avoid getting in trouble. When my colleagues got yelled at over their mistakes, they laughed with amusement under their breath—but when the anger was directed at me, I was ridden with anxiety.

How could my coworkers brush off our manager’s anger, but I felt triggered for hours afterward?

It took me many years to learn the answer—that some of us are conditioned from a young age to develop a deep-seated fear of losing our sense of belonging and safety in our relationships. To cope with this fear, we develop strategies to safeguard ourselves, which, for some, turn into a habit of people-pleasing.

There’s one clear common denominator for people-pleasers—feeling beholden to others. You put your needs last and feel obligated to manage everyone else’s happiness. You’re hypersensitive to being judged, shamed, and rejected. You worry about what other people think about you. You overextend yourself to be helpful. When you dare to stand up for yourself, you suffer from anxiety and guilt.

When you don’t address and change these patterns, you may eventually feel resentful, frustrated, and angry. It compromises your emotional and physical well-being and contributes to an overwhelming sense of powerlessness.

And it lights a blazing fire under your ass.

Because we aren’t responsible for juggling other people’s emotions.

We don’t owe anyone comfort.

We’re not a charity receptacle for others’ emotional venting, unhealed trauma, or misdirected anger.

Our time, energy, and well-being are not up for negotiation.

And we don’t deserve the guilt-tripping manipulation.

Truthfully, we cannot control how other people show up in our relationships, but we can change our patterns of powerlessness and take back our lives, and it doesn’t have to compromise our genuine desire to care for others.

Brain Ruts

It’s not a mystery what you should be doing in lieu of carrying the burden of responsibility that comes with people-pleasing.

You need to set boundaries, speak your truth, be more confrontational, use your voice to advocate for yourself, separate your feelings from others, and put your needs first.

Which begs the question—what’s getting in the way of you taking these steps?

Though you may feel the need to change your patterns through sheer willpower or more self-discipline, that isn’t the answer.

You don’t need to read useless books about how to “grab life by the horns” or “grow some balls” (ew, gross!).

You don’t need to muscle through debilitating anxiety or guilt.

You don’t need to give up your generosity or empathy to take back your power in one-sided relationships.

You don’t need to be “thicker-skinned” or less “sensitive.” (Your sensitivity is a gift.)

Here’s the little-known truth about people-pleasing—it’s a learned pattern that gets “turned on” in your unconscious mind over and over again.

Whether it’s avoiding conflict, freezing up when you need to speak your truth, or feeling guilty, people-pleasing is a survival strategy. And all survival strategies are a set of automated behaviors, thoughts, and emotions that repeatedly get turned on unconsciously.

In a sense, you’re not fully in control of how your people-pleasing habits show up. Which is why just “trying harder” doesn’t work, because you can’t beat the speed at which your unconscious mind is turning on patterns.

Ninety percent of how we show up in life is unconscious and based on our past. Your brain needs to save energy, so it’s automating your decisions, behaviors, and feelings for you. Think of your bad habits as brain ruts.

Every time a people-pleasing habit is presenting itself, your brain is riding down the same neural pathway, deepening the grooves, much like how a dirt path naturally forms over time if you keep walking over the grass.

This well-worn path appears to be safer and easier than walking through the wild, unruly grass, which feels unfamiliar, dangerous, and risky to deal with—you fear being judged, shamed, or rejected out there. Just the thought of standing up to your evil mother-in-law turns on the anxiety.

But you’ve reached a point where you long to be in the wild grass. It represents the life you could be living—taking up space, effortlessly putting your needs first, being in your pleasure, and feeling amazing in your emotional well-being.

So how do you take the leap into the metaphorical grassy field of your “hell yes” life?

By planting new seeds in your unconscious mind and watering them on a regular basis.

Planting Seeds

If people-pleasing wasn’t a problem for you anymore, what would be possible in your life?

Imagine a scenario where you’ve already reconfigured the pathways of your unconscious mind and you feel exactly how you want to feel, showing up exactly how you want to, and it’s just easy. You’re confident, powerful, and unapologetic.

Whose rules would you stop following?

What boundaries, enmeshed in barbed wire, would you put in place?

Whose misdirected emotions would you feel bulletproof against?

What responsibilities would you shamelessly give up?

What self-indulgence would you treat yourself to?

What truths would come spilling from your mouth? (Truths that are SO electric, that you feel you might burst if you don’t say them right now!)

There’s a reason it’s so intoxicating to fantasize about our ideal life. We’re wired to “believe” what we imagine because a part of our brain doesn’t know the difference between what is real and imaginary. It’s the same reason we get emotionally pulled into TV and movies. You do realize it’s acting, right?

When the critical thinking part of your mind goes quiet—as it does when you’re getting wrapped up in a good story—you’re accessing your unconscious mind, where all habits are formed. It’s where we’re most swayed, influenced, and sold on ideas.

To get out of a people-pleasing brain rut, you need to plant seeds in your unconscious mind to “influence” yourself to show up the way you want in your life. Done with repetition, these seeds help build new neural pathways, making it possible to be your best self at home, at work, and in your community.

One of the most powerful ways to plant seeds is to visualize while in a deeply relaxed state of mind. Here are some tips on how to get started.

Start in the Right Frame of Mind

Visualization works best when you’re feeling relaxed and calm in your body. If you’re actively triggered, self-regulate your emotions before jumping into visualization.

One quick and easy way to do this is to combine a breathing exercise with stimulation of the acupressure points on your wrist. Grab one wrist with the opposite hand and squeeze. Take one big inhale, hold at the top of your inhale for a couple seconds, and then exhale twice as long. Repeat two to three times. Once you feel nice and grounded, find a quiet place without any interruptions so you can focus and go inward.

Get Specific

The brain works in very specific, finite ways. If you want to be a badass who lives life on your terms, what exactly does that look like? Imagine yourself in specific places, taking specific actions, feeling a certain way about it. Focus on actions like speaking your truth, confronting people, feeling confident, setting boundaries, etc.

Repetition Counts

Your mind needs enough new information on who you want to be in order to generalize the changes into your life. You don’t need to visualize for long periods of time—two to three minutes at a time is enough, but be sure to make it a part of your routine. Try starting with a handful of times a week.

Water the Seeds

Take real-life action that supports the person you’re becoming. Your brain and nervous system are always learning and adapting when you show up in new ways. It’s like providing the proof to yourself that yes, I can do this. Start with small steps. Choose places where you want to put yourself first and practice using your voice to advocate for yourself. Be tenacious about doing this work—the confidence and bravery you crave will naturally emerge.

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About Krissy Loveman

Krissy Loveman is a neuroscience-informed Life Coach. She works with the conscious and unconscious mind to create deep, lasting change. Get her free toolkit to jumpstart your inner work journey.

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What My Body Actually Needed to Feel Better Again

“Take care of your body. It’s the only place you have to live.” ~Jim Rohn

I used to think tiredness was a personality trait.

I was the person who could work fourteen hours, sleep five, and do it again. I wore my exhaustion like armor. It proved I was serious. It proved I was dedicated. It proved I was worth something.

What it actually proved was that I was running my body into the ground.

The Surgeon Who Could Not Heal Herself

I trained as a surgeon in London. My days started before the sun came up. They ended long after it set. In between, I made decisions that affected people’s lives while running on caffeine and willpower.

I was good at my job. I was terrible at taking care of myself.

The irony was not lost on me. I could look at another person’s body and see exactly what was wrong. I could diagnose, treat, and repair. But I could not see what was happening inside my own body.

The Moment Everything Changed

It was not a dramatic collapse. It was a quiet Tuesday. I was walking to check on a patient at 2 a.m. My legs felt heavy. My vision blurred for half a second. I steadied myself against the corridor wall and waited for it to pass.

It was not an emergency. It was something worse. It was a signal I had been ignoring for years.

I was thirty-three. My blood tests were normal. My colleagues said I looked fine. But I knew something was off. I just did not know what.

What I Found When I Stopped Running

A colleague suggested meditation. I laughed. I did not have time to sit still. I barely had time to eat.

But one morning, out of desperation more than curiosity, I sat on the edge of my bed for five minutes before my shift. No phone. No plan. Just breathing.

It felt pointless. But I did it again the next day. And the next.

After two weeks, something shifted. I started noticing things I had been too busy to see. The tension in my jaw. The shallow breathing that had become my default. The way I ate without tasting anything. The way I fell asleep not from rest but from depletion.

Slowing down did not fix anything overnight. But it gave me the clarity to ask a better question: what does my body actually need?

Looking Under the Surface

As a surgeon, I was trained to see damage after it happened. Scarred tissue. Worn joints. Clogged arteries. I treated consequences, not causes.

When I started reading about cellular health, I realized the damage I saw in patients did not appear overnight. It built up over decades in silence, in small increments, in all the moments when the body asked for rest and got stress instead.

I learned that every cell needs specific molecules to produce energy and repair itself. I learned that these molecules decline with age. I learned that the fatigue I felt was not laziness or weakness. It was my cells running low on what they needed.

For the first time, I looked at my own health the way I looked at my patients. With curiosity instead of judgment. With data instead of assumptions.

The Small Changes That Made the Biggest Difference

I did not overhaul my life in a week. I made one change at a time.

First, sleep. I committed to eight hours even when it meant turning down invitations and leaving work earlier. The guilt was real. The results were undeniable.

Then, movement. Not punishing gym sessions. Just walking. Thirty minutes every morning before I looked at my phone. Rain or shine. It became my reset button.

Then, food. I stopped eating for convenience and started eating for my cells. More berries. More vegetables. More olive oil. Less sugar. Less alcohol. Not perfectly but consistently.

Finally, stillness. Those five minutes of morning breathing became ten, then twenty. Meditation was not spiritual for me. It was practical. It helped me notice stress before it became damage.

What I Wish I Had Known Sooner

I wish someone had told me that tiredness is not a character flaw. It is information.

I wish someone had told me that the body does not wait for a convenient time to break down. It accumulates damage in the background, in the nights you did not sleep, in the meals you skipped, in the stress you swallowed.

I wish someone had told me that prevention is not dramatic. It is boring. It is sleep and walks and vegetables and sitting quietly for a few minutes. And it works.

Where I Am Now

Today, I have more energy than I did at thirty. I wake up without an alarm. I exercise because it feels good, not because I feel guilty. I eat slowly. I breathe deeply. I sleep well.

I am not a different person. I just stopped ignoring what my body was telling me.

The surgeon who could not heal herself finally listened. And it turned out the prescription was simple: slow down, pay attention, and take care of the one body you have.

If You Are Running on Empty Right Now

You do not need a complete life overhaul. You need one kind decision today.

Sleep an extra hour. Take a walk without your phone. Eat something colorful. Sit quietly for five minutes and notice how your body feels.

Your body is talking to you. It has been for a while. The question is whether you are willing to listen.

Start there. The rest follows.

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About Dr. Prarthana Venkatesh

Dr. Prarthana Venkatesh is a London-trained surgeon, award-winning researcher, and founder of Longevita, a longevity supplement built on clinical insight and aging science. She writes about health, mindfulness, and the intersection of medicine and daily life.

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How to Feel Safe When Panic Feels Dangerous

“Anxiety isn’t you. It’s something moving through you. It can leave out of the same door it came in.” ~James Clear

Years ago, I had a panic attack while driving across a bridge, and I thought I might die that day.

Suddenly my heart started pounding. My breath became shallow and tight. My chest felt constricted, and a wave of dizziness washed over me.

I was driving sixty miles per hour, and there was nowhere to pull over. The bridge stretched for miles, suspended over open water, and I was alone in the car.

A terrifying thought shot through my mind:

Something is seriously wrong.

I gripped the steering wheel and tried to keep driving, convinced I might pass out before reaching the other side.

In that moment, it felt like my body had completely betrayed me.

For a long time afterward, I was afraid to drive and lived in quiet fear of that feeling returning.

I began avoiding certain activities and situations. I constantly monitored my body for signs that another attack might be starting. Even when I appeared calm on the outside, a part of me was always on high alert.

If you’ve experienced panic attacks, you may know this feeling well.

The racing heart. The dizziness. The sudden sense that something terrible is about to happen.

It’s not just uncomfortable—it’s terrifying.

And most people experiencing panic believe the same thing I did:

Something must be seriously wrong with my body.

But what I eventually learned changed everything.

The Body Isn’t the Enemy

The first idea that really shifted things for me was this: the sensations of panic feel dangerous, but they aren’t.

They’re your nervous system sounding an alarm.

When we perceive danger, the body activates a natural survival response known as fight-or-flight. Adrenaline floods the bloodstream, the heart beats faster, breathing quickens, and muscles prepare to react.

This response evolved to keep humans alive.

If our ancestors encountered a threat, like running away from a predator, their bodies needed to react instantly. When the nervous system is regulated, the rest-and-digest response prompts the body to naturally return to a relaxed state once the threat has passed.

However, if the nervous system has been under stress for a long time, it becomes imbalanced. The fight-or-flight response is working on overdrive, and the rest-and-digest response no longer functions properly. The body doesn’t relax.

The outcome: the nervous system sometimes sounds this alarm even when no real danger is present.

This was definitely true for me. I was a single parent, living in San Francisco, running a wedding photography business (hello, super-stressful career).

I was in the car dealing with insane traffic for hours each day: A two-hour roundtrip commute getting my daughter to and from school, client meetings, evening engagement photoshoots…

I photographed weddings most weekends, leaving three to four hours ahead of time because wedding photographers aren’t allowed to be late. Ever.

Rest was something I dreamed about. I was consistently exhausted, burnt out and on edge, and there was no end in sight. So yes, my nervous system was basically fried, which meant my panic attacks became more and more frequent.

I lived in terror of the next attack.

When the body releases adrenaline unexpectedly, the sensations can feel overwhelming.

Many people interpret these sensations as signs of catastrophe.

Am I having a heart attack?

Am I about to faint?

Am I losing control?

Those thoughts create even more fear, which causes the body to release more adrenaline.

And just like that, a cycle forms:

Sensation → fear → more adrenaline → stronger sensations.

It can feel like being trapped in a panic loop you can’t escape.

The Shift That Changed Everything

My healing didn’t begin with trying to control the panic.

It began with understanding it.

For the first time, I saw that my body wasn’t malfunctioning. It was responding exactly the way it had been designed to respond.

My nervous system had simply learned to stay on high alert.

Once that understanding settled in, something subtle but powerful shifted.

The sensations of panic were still uncomfortable, but they no longer felt like proof that something catastrophic was happening.

They became signals from a nervous system that had been carrying too much stress for too long.

And nervous systems can learn new patterns.

Learning Safety Again

I realized that healing from panic isn’t about forcing the body to calm down.

In fact, fighting the sensations often makes them stronger.

Instead, the process involves helping the nervous system relearn what safety feels like.

Sometimes that looks like slowing the breath. I practice a simple breathing technique I call “four-six breathing.” You close your eyes, then inhale, counting to four, then exhale, counting to six.

The longer exhale slows your heart rate and sends a message to the nervous system: “We’re okay.” This activates the rest-and-digest response, and the body relaxes.

Sometimes it means allowing sensations to pass without resisting them. The sensations of a panic attack can be uncomfortable or intense, but they’re not dangerous. Once I understood this simple truth, it was easier to be with the sensations, knowing they came and went, like an ocean wave.

Sometimes it’s simply learning to trust that the body knows how to return to balance. Healing wasn’t an all-at-once event but a gradual process. As my panic attacks became shorter and less intense, I felt more confident, because I knew exactly what to do to care for myself.

Eventually, they went away and have never returned.

Some people believe that panic attacks can’t be cured, but I’ve found that this simply isn’t true.

With practice, the nervous system learns a new pattern and begins to recognize that the alarm is no longer necessary.

The response becomes less intense.

Episodes become shorter.

Eventually, many people find that the cycle of panic dissolves entirely.

A Different Relationship with the Body

My panic attacks were once so severe that I was afraid to drive for years. Today, I drive without fear. Road trips have become a favorite hobby and a meditative experience. This past summer I drove more than 3,500 miles around the country—by myself.

I move through the world with a sense of trust in my body that once felt impossible.

What I discovered during my healing journey eventually became the foundation of a new way of life:

Listening to my body’s signals instead of overriding them.

Prioritizing rest because it’s a key component of health.

Unearthing my own deepest wisdom and ability to maintain my energy, vitality, and well-being.

Gathering tools and practices that allow me to be peaceful and grounded, no matter what’s going on in my life.

Being the calm, confident, joyful person I wanted to be.

Because the truth is this:

If you experience panic attacks, your body isn’t broken.

It’s trying to protect you.

Sometimes healing begins not by fighting what we feel, but by understanding it—and in that understanding, the body slowly remembers how to feel safe again.

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About Grier Cooper

Grier Cooper is a trauma-informed anxiety coach and creator of The Panic-Free Formula. She helps high-functioning women retrain the nervous system patterns behind anxiety and panic so they can feel safe, steady, and fully present. A former professional ballet dancer, she brings a body-based, compassionate approach to healing. Her work focuses on transforming fear into safety and helping women reclaim inner calm and trust. Download her free 3-Minute Panic Reset at GrierCooper.com.

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How I Lost Myself in a Controlling Friendship and What I Know Now

“The most common form of despair is not being who you are.” ~Søren Kierkegaard

I didn’t lose her all at once.

I lost myself first—slowly, quietly, in the way that only happens when someone you trust makes you doubt everything you think and feel.

She was magnetic when I met her. Warm, intense, the kind of person who made you feel chosen just by giving you her attention. I felt lucky to be her friend. That feeling lasted just long enough to blur what came next.

It started with small things. A plan I made that somehow became her plan. An opinion I shared that she gently, persistently dismantled until I wasn’t sure why I’d held it in the first place. A decision I made alone that led to such a heavy silence between us that I found myself apologizing—for what exactly, I wasn’t always sure.

That became the rhythm of things. I would do something. She would react. I would apologize. I would adjust. And each adjustment felt reasonable in the moment, the way a single degree of course correction always does—until you look up and realize you are somewhere completely different from where you intended to go.

What made it so hard to name was that it never looked like what I thought control looked like. There were no raised voices. No threats. Nothing dramatic enough to point at and say, “There, that.”

It was quieter than that. It was the weight of her disappointment. The architecture of guilt she built so fluently, I thought I was the one constructing it. The way I started rehearsing what I would say before I said it, editing myself in advance to avoid the reaction I’d learned to dread.

I stopped trusting my own instincts. Not suddenly, gradually, the way a muscle weakens from disuse. I had been told, in a hundred indirect ways, that my judgment was off. That I was too sensitive. That I misremembered things. That my reactions were the problem, not what had caused them. And somewhere along the way, I started to believe it.

That is the part I didn’t expect—how thoroughly I accepted the story she told about me.

The Signs I Ignored

Looking back now, the signs were there from early on. I just didn’t have the language for them.

She had a way of making everything feel urgent—her needs, her crises, her plans. Whenever I had something going on in my own life, the conversation would somehow circle back to her within minutes. I stopped bringing things to her, not consciously, but gradually. There simply wasn’t space for my problems in a friendship that was always quietly full of hers.

She was generous too, in ways that always seemed to come with invisible strings attached. If she helped me with something, I would hear about it later—not as a complaint but woven into a sentence that made me feel indebted. “I was there when nobody else was.” That kind of thing. Said lightly, often. Enough that I started keeping a mental tally of what I owed her.

And when I didn’t behave the way she expected—when I made plans without her, or disagreed with something she said, or wasn’t available—there was a coldness that would settle between us. Not anger exactly. Something quieter and harder to address. A withdrawal of warmth that made me work to earn it back, usually by giving up whatever had caused the distance in the first place.

I told myself this was just how close friendships worked. That every relationship requires compromise, flexibility, and adjustment. That I was being too independent, too rigid, too unwilling to prioritize someone who clearly needed me.

I was wrong. But it took me a long time to understand why.

The Turning Point

The moment that changed things wasn’t dramatic. It was a Tuesday.

She was talking about her coworker again. Third time that week. I remember the way she leaned forward when she got to the part where she was right, and everyone else was wrong—she always leaned forward there, like the story was building to something, like I was supposed to feel the injustice alongside her. And I tried. I really did. I made the face. I said, “That’s so unfair” at exactly the right moment, the way I’d learned to.

But somewhere underneath all of it, something had quietly cracked open. I had canceled dinner with someone who actually asks how I’m doing. I had rearranged my entire evening. And I was sitting here, nodding at a story I’d already heard three times, performing caring so convincingly that I’d forgotten to notice I’d stopped actually feeling it.

When she finally paused, I thought, “Maybe now. Maybe she’ll ask.” I took a breath and started to tell her something, something that had been sitting heavy in me for days. I got maybe half a sentence out before she interrupted, added a new detail to her story, and kept going. No pause. No apology. No acknowledgment that I had even spoken. Just her voice, filling the room again, expecting me to follow.

And I did because that’s what I always did.

But something about that moment—being stopped mid-sentence and still expected to nod, still expected to care, still expected to perform—broke something open in me that I couldn’t close again.

I wasn’t her friend. I was her audience. Her doll. And I was afraid to be anything else, because I knew what would come next if I were—the blame, the criticism, and, most of all, her silent treatment. That particular silence she had mastered, the kind that wraps around you until you accept you’re wrong, even when you know you’re not.

The thought came quietly, almost gently: I don’t want to be here. A clear, flat truth I couldn’t push back down anymore. I was tired—tired of faking my opinions, my interests, my emotions. Tired of faking myself.

I drove home and sat with that thought for a long time.

What I started to understand—slowly, over weeks of sitting with it—was that the friendship had been built on a version of me that had no edges. No real preferences. No needs that ever inconvenienced her. And I had cooperated with that construction more than I wanted to admit.

Not because I was weak. Because I had learned, long before her, that the safest way to keep people close was to make yourself easy. To smooth your own corners. To be useful, available, and uncomplicated. She hadn’t created that pattern in me. She had just found it and used it, and it had fit so naturally between us that I had called it closeness.

Understanding that was both painful and quietly freeing. Because it meant that what happened wasn’t just something done to me; it was something I had participated in—and that meant I had the power to stop participating.

What Leaving Actually Looked Like

Leaving wasn’t clean. There was grief in it—real grief for the friendship I had believed it was in the beginning, for the version of me that had been so willing to disappear inside it. There was also guilt, stubborn and irrational, the kind that doesn’t care that you’ve made the right decision.

I kept asking myself whether I was being unfair. Whether I was abandoning someone who genuinely needed support. Whether the whole thing was somehow my fault for not communicating better, for not setting clearer expectations earlier, or for not being patient enough.

Those questions are part of how controlling friendships hold you. The self-doubt doesn’t end when the friendship does. It follows you for a while.

But there was something else in the quiet after. I started to notice things I had stopped noticing. That I had opinions I hadn’t spoken in months. That there were people I had been slowly pulling away from because she found them unnecessary. That I felt lighter on days I didn’t see her—not relieved exactly, just lighter, like something I’d been carrying had finally been set down.

That lightness was information I hadn’t known I was missing.

What I Learned

Controlling relationships don’t always look like control from the inside. They often look like closeness. Intensity. Loyalty. The feeling of being needed and central to someone’s life. That feeling is real. What it costs you is also real, even when you can’t see the invoice until much later.

The clearest signal I’ve found is not any single behavior but a question worth asking honestly: Do I feel more like myself or less like myself in this person’s presence?

Not happier necessarily. Not more comfortable. More like yourself. More free to think what you think, feel what you feel, want what you want—without running it through someone else’s reaction first.

You are allowed to want that. In every relationship in your life—not just the romantic ones. In your friendships, too, you are allowed to take up space. To have edges. To be someone with needs and opinions and preferences that don’t always align with the people around you.

That is not selfishness. That is not being a bad friend. That is just being a person.

And no friendship worth keeping will ever ask you to be anything less.

The version of you that has edges, that sometimes says no, that trusts her own memory and judgment and instincts—that version is not too much. That version is exactly enough and always has been.

It just took losing myself for a while to finally understand that.

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About Mina Benim

Mina Benjm is the founder of Viemina.com—a psychology and self-improvement blog covering relationships, mental health, and personal growth. She writes from lived experience, having navigated controlling relationships, emotional trauma, and burnout. She believes that understanding the patterns that shape us is the first step toward changing them. Read more of her work at viemina.com, where she writes honestly about the things most people feel but rarely say out loud.

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How Being the Strong One in My Family Became a Trap

“The world breaks everyone, and afterward, many are strong at the broken places.” ~Ernest Hemingway

My grandmother had just died. My sister and I had come from the room where her body still lay, and we were standing in the elevator in silence when the doors slid closed. My sister looked at me and said, “Now you’re the last strong one in this family.”

It was comforting to hear her words. I felt proud. And then, almost immediately, something else. My stomach clenched. I just wanted to stop the elevator, run away, and never look back. My sister wasn’t telling me something new. She just gave words to something I had known within for a very long time already, and some part of me recognized I wanted out. But I didn’t know how. Yet.

To understand why those words landed the way they did, you have to go back to a hallway. I was six, maybe seven, standing outside my mother’s room. She had come back from the psychiatric hospital some months before. I had waited for that. I had pictured it, the return, the reconnection, life going back to normal, even though by that time I had forgotten what normal actually looked like.

And then she came home, and she closed the door. Behind it, I could hear her typewriter. She was writing a novel.

I knocked politely. By then I had already learned to be polite about my own needs. The answer came quickly: “No. Don’t disturb me.” I recognized the specific tone of her voice. I had heard it before, when she would tell me I was “too much” for her.

So I left. I don’t remember feeling angry. I remember feeling like I understood. Like it made sense that the door would be closed. Like the right response was to take care of myself and not ask again. That decision, made somewhere in a hallway at age six or seven, became the blueprint for the next four decades of my life.

My mother’s absence, even when she was physically present, had started earlier.

When I think back to the days before she was committed to the psychiatric hospital, I mostly remember waiting for her to make some time for me. I remember her telling me to stop crying because it was too much for her. Accusing me of stealing a ring from her, which I didn’t, simply because she had misplaced it. Yelling at my father that I was too strong-willed, and she couldn’t deal with me anymore.

They were all signs of a woman about to break down under the weight of her own psyche, but I didn’t understand that then.

When I was about five years old, she was committed to a psychiatric hospital with a severe psychosis. Honestly, I don’t remember much from those days. My sister had been born a few months before. My grandmother suddenly appeared to take me from school. My grandparents took me and my baby sister in, and suddenly I was in a different city, a different school, with no friends. Something in me must have decided then that I was, in some essential way, on my own.

When she came back, I wanted to believe things would be different. The closed door told me they weren’t. So I became useful. I took care of my little sister. I kept an eye on my father. I monitored the atmosphere in our home the way a small meteorologist monitors weather, always scanning, always adjusting, always making sure nobody would need to worry about me because I was already worrying about everything else.

Later, when my parents divorced and my mother settled elsewhere, I took care of her too. Every two weeks, I traveled with my sister by train to visit her. Never knowing what to expect. Carefully checking for signs of a manic episode. Walking on eggshells not to trigger her.

And when I decided at the age of fourteen not to visit her anymore, I kept track of her from a distance, over the phone. For years. I can’t remember ever being anything other than a mother to her. Never her daughter.

Being strong for everyone didn’t feel like something I had to do then. I thought of it as who I was. It felt like a necessary job. But one that came with a strange sense of safety. As long as I was the one holding things together, there was a role for me. A reason to be needed. And being needed felt, if I am honest, a lot like being loved.

What I didn’t understand then, and what took me decades to see clearly, is that I had also built a prison inside it. Because deep down I believed that if I stopped being strong, everything would fall apart. Not just for the people around me. For me too. Because who would be there to catch me? I had decided, at six years old, standing in that hallway, that the answer was no one.

So I kept going. The wish to be useful and remarkable pushed me through life. I worked two decades as a professional actor. Went back to study and earned a PhD at forty-five. Started a whole new career at a university. Got married, had two children. A life that looked, from the outside, like someone who had it all together. And in many ways, I did. But I was also the person who answered every call, who showed up when asked, who said yes before checking whether I had anything left to give.

The body keeps score, they say. Mine kept very careful records.

Years later, my sister was going through a hard time. Whatever was going on in my own life dropped to the background. Just one clear focus: the strong one switching on. But this time my body pushed back. I felt suddenly cold to the bone. My head started spinning. Nausea. Even if I wanted to spring into action, I couldn’t. I lay down in bed for hours, not because I decided to rest, but because I had no other option.

Lying there under the blankets, trying to get warm, something shifted. My body had made the decision my mind couldn’t make. It had said, “Not today.” And for the first time, I let that be enough. It felt like a relief. The next day, I discovered that my sister had managed. Also without me.

The real turning point came on a vacation. My mother called. She wanted me to come over as soon as I got back and “finally” take care of her. She listed the things she expected of me, things daughters did. When I tried to hold her off, she told me stories about other people’s daughters who did those things. And suddenly, when she paused, I said, calmly and almost surprising myself: “I’m not like that.”

I knew, as I said it, that it wasn’t true. Not in the way she meant it. I had been exactly like that for decades.

I had called every day for years, just to let her vent. I had watched for signs she might need to be hospitalized. I had been, in many ways, more of a parent to her than a child.

But I also knew that what I said was true in the way that mattered to me. I was no longer going to prove otherwise. Not today. Not for this. I hung up and felt something new: relief. The relief of setting something down.

What I’ve come to understand, slowly and imperfectly, is this: Being strong wasn’t only imposed on me. I chose it too. It gave me something I desperately needed: a role, a sense of security, a way to stay close to people I loved without risking the kind of vulnerability that had already cost me so much. Seeing that clearly, without blame and without shame, was the most important part of changing it.

The process since then hasn’t been about becoming less strong. I am still strong. That is genuinely part of who I am. What has changed is what the strength is for. It no longer has to be the price I pay for belonging. It no longer has to prove I deserve my place.

What I’m learning instead is this: I can be present with people I love without taking over their struggle. I can let someone I care about sit with something hard without rushing in to fix it. I can trust that they are capable, that my absence from the role of rescuer is not the same as abandonment.

And slowly, in the space that opens up when I stop managing everything, I am discovering something I didn’t expect. There is room, finally, for someone to ask how I am doing. And room, for the first time, to actually answer.

The decision I made in front of that closed door was not wrong. It was the best a six-year-old could do with what she had. But I am not six anymore.

I was never only the strong one. I’m also the one who gets to be held.

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About Femke E. Bakker

Dr. Femke E. Bakker is a political psychologist, certified meditation teacher, and TEDx speaker. She is the creator of the Selfgentleness Perspective, a practice of radically accepting yourself as the most important person to consistently deserve your own gentleness. She writes and teaches for self-aware adults who keep getting pulled back into self-criticism and people-pleasing, even after years of inner work. Find her at drfemkebakker.com.

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