3 Tools for Burnout Relief (That I’m Using Right Now)

**This post contains a giveaway. Scroll to the bottom to learn more!

Burnout has been on my mind a lot lately, and that’s saying a lot since my burnout brain has trouble focusing these days.

Between working from home while raising two young kids and traveling back and forth across the country to spend time with a sick loved one, I’ve felt stretched in more directions than I thought possible. I know many of you can relate to the constant push to keep going even when your body and mind are begging for rest.

That’s why I’m excited to share a resource that feels both timely for me personally and, I think, deeply valuable for this community.

Therapist Morgan Johnson’s 8 Keys to Healing, Managing, and Preventing Burnout is part of the long-running 8 Keys series, which focuses on a variety of mental health issues.

What sets this book apart is its broad perspective: it doesn’t just talk about work stress, but also acknowledges the toll of caregiving, parenting, social pressures, and cultural systems. And it offers a wide range of practical, research-backed exercises to help us move through burnout and start to heal.

Instead of quick fixes, it gives you ways to reconnect with your body, your emotions, and your sense of meaning—so you can feel less depleted and more alive in your daily life.

I’ve chosen three exercises from the book that stood out to me as especially powerful. Each one is simple, actionable, and surprisingly effective. I hope you’ll find them as helpful as I did!

ACTIVITY 4B: Name It to Tame It

When you experience significant internal tension and anxiety, you can reduce stress by up to 50% by simply noticing and naming your state.
—David Rock

Goal
To get familiar with interpersonal neurobiologist Dan Siegel’s technique “Name it to tame it” (Siegel, 2013) to downregulate—calm—the threat detection centers in your brain and help decrease distress. This can be used both individually and in relationships and families.

Side quest for parents: Search “Dan Siegel hand-brain model video,” which helps kids as young as 5 begin to understand how their brain works and impacts changes in emotions.

Instructions
Please read Siegel’s (2023) description below and the example that follows. Then, complete the subsequent prompts to help you think through how you might use this in a practical way in your own unique context.

In the brain, naming an emotion can help calm it. Here is where finding words to label an internal experience becomes really helpful. We can call this “Name it to tame it.” And sometimes these [automatic] states can go beyond being unpleasant and confusing—they can even make life feel terrifying. If that is going on, talk about it. Sharing your experience with others can often make even terrifying moments understood and not traumatizing.

For example, imagine you’ve arrived home from work—which already felt like one of the longest shifts in recorded history—and you are exhausted and overstimulated. Today, you helped everyone and their dog, just not really yourself. When you walk in the door at home, your toddler is having a meltdown on the floor, screaming bloody murder. Your partner gives you the “S.O.S.” look.

Even if you do need to lend a hand in the moment, you can quite literally calm your body in this moment of stress just by naming it, something like, “I’m feeling overwhelmed.” If your partner then says, with a supportive tone, “You’re overwhelmed—was it a long shift?”, that’s even better, because now the primitive parts of your body sense, “I’m not alone here.”

Other Examples of Naming Your Internal Experiences

• I’m sad.
• I’m feeling stressed about work.
• My face and ears feel hot, I’m so angry right now.
• The thought of ___ (concern/worry; e.g., not having a break this weekend) has me feeling really anxious right now.
• I’m feeling a bit defensive right now. The story I’m telling myself is it’s not okay to make mistakes and that what I do right won’t be noticed.
• When I hear you say ___ (repeat the exact words they used), I notice that I feel ___ (emotions/feelings or sensations; e.g., lonely, stressed, sad, my heart start to race, my stomach drop).

Please note: Depending on the situation/context, you can name things in many different ways:

• Aloud to yourself
• Internally to yourself
• Written out journaling style
• Aloud to someone else (e.g., partner, therapist, therapy group)
• Internally to someone else (e.g., prayer, connection with ancestors, loving-kindness meditation)

In your life presently, if you wanted to practice naming things aloud, who might be a safe person/people to try this with? Who might not be a good candidate?

If sharing this way is not something you’ve really done before, what might you say to recruit someone you trust? (For example, “I’ve read that just saying out loud how I feel might help with my stress. Would it be okay if sometimes I let you know that I just need someone to listen and not give advice?”)

How was talking about feelings modeled in your environment growing up? Are there any parts of you that feel like this is a bad idea or like it would not be helpful to name things?

Feel invited to design your own experiment! Perhaps you let your partner know that you’re going to “name it to tame it” when you come in the door at the end of the day. Notice what it feels like before and after you put words to your state. Does it work better if you write it in a journal? If you say it out loud? If you name it to a friend? Everyone is different, so give yourself some grace and permission to try multiple approaches.

ACTIVITY 4C: Joyful Movement and Exercise

Peace is joy at rest, and joy is peace on its feet.
—Reverend Veronica Goines

Goal
To assess your current physical activity level relative to your abilities and to think through some ways to keep your body moving while minimizing/removing body negativity.

Instructions
Read through the following brief definition of joyful movement, some examples from me, and then respond to the prompts that follow, jotting down any notes that feel helpful.

Joyful movement: movement that is fun and enjoyable, not punishing or for the sole purpose of making/keeping your body smaller. (Tribole & Resch, 2017)

Potential sources of joyful movement include:

• Gardening
• Gentle stretching
• Playing with kids
• Taking a pet for a walk
• Swimming or gently moving in water
• Activities adapted for disabled people, like wheelchair basketball or water skiing
• Trying a trampoline park
• Dance or gently moving part of your body to music
• Horseback riding
• Dodgeball
• Yoga
• Intimate activities or sex
• Hiking
• Tai Chi
• Cycling or social biking
• Paddleboarding

Please note: Be aware that emotional and mental wellness can be negatively impacted if movement is motivated solely by self-critical thoughts, fear, or punishment. Workouts that have an exclusively brutal, self-punishing feel confuse the primitive parts of your body into thinking you’re not safe. Joyful movement, in contrast, gives your body signals of safety.

Do you already have an intentional routine including physical movement or exercise? How consistent is it?

What do you notice about your thoughts about yourself when you’re about to move, exercise, or work out? While you’re active? After you’ve finished?

What kinds of physical activities/movement have tended to make you feel joyful, during and after? If it’s been a while, think about what you liked to do as a kid or in school (e.g., walking the dog, playing outside, taking a hike, biking to work).

If you don’t already have a routine that includes a little joyful movement at least once a week, what is one way you could add in half an hour, even 10 minutes, without significantly disrupting your schedule?

If you frequently think, “I have no free time!” or feel like, “When am I supposed to do more things?!”, please know that small things daily often have the biggest impact. Where are there some small moments in your day-to-day when you could move your body in a way that feels joyful (or distinctly not awful)?

Hint: Clients often report that transitions, such as going from work to home, provide solid opportunities for a little focus on joyful movement (e.g., getting in/out of bed, walking to the car, going to the grocery store).

ACTIVITY 4D: Coming Up for Air

Caring for myself is not self-indulgence. It’s self-preservation.
—Audre Lorde

Goal
To get familiar with some ways to feel refreshed and reinvigorated and to come up with some ideas for how to use your precious free time in ways that are actually renewing.

Instructions
Read through the brief summary of research findings from the 2021 study by Clément Ginoux, Sandrine Isoard-Gautheur, and Philippe Sarrazin on activities for renewal from burnout, and then complete the prompts that follow.

Ginoux et al. (2021) found five characteristics of activities that most impact renewal and recovery from burnout:

1. Detachment (e.g., not doing work-related things on the weekend, reading things unrelated to work, practicing redirection/distraction when thoughts of work arise)
2. Relaxation (e.g., solo, with your partner/family, or with a group of friends)
3. Mastery (e.g., doing things in your free time that allow you to notice your talents and appreciate your skills)
4. Control (e.g., working to influence groups that contribute to your sense of meaning or identity, or doing activities where you have a felt sense of control)
5. Relatedness (e.g., connecting and collaborating with others, spending time with loved ones)

When you think about your free time, which of these characteristics already describe the activities you engage in? How consistently do you have these experiences month to month?

If you haven’t been doing much with the little free time you have, which characteristic(s) might be the easiest to increase in or add to your present life? Which might be more challenging?

If you have very little free time and you wanted to curate an activity that includes two or more of the above characteristics, what might be some possibilities? What would absolutely not work?

If you draw a Venn diagram in your mind of your social connections—those associated with work and those outside of work—how much overlap is there?

If most of your social interactions involve people from work, how much time do you spend talking/thinking about work together outside of work? You need to spend time together that has absolutely nothing to do with work. How might you let a colleague know you’re working at this? Do you have any friends outside of work you haven’t seen in a while who might be fun to reconnect with? It can be worth checking out some meetups or local community organizations and events, if you are at this point thinking, but . . . I have no friends.

Positive social connection completes the stress cycle, as you know, and we’re healthier, medically and emotionally, when we sense that someone has our back when things get tough.

Relational Activity Add-On: If you work with your partner or loved one and it’s hard for you to spend time together without bringing up work, brainstorm one thing you could try together at least 30–60 minutes each week to disconnect from work. If you try it and like it, how can you carve out time for it regularly?

Reprinted from “8 Keys to Healing, Managing, and Preventing Burnout” Copyright (c) 2025 by Morgan Johnson. Used with permission of the publisher, Norton Professional Books, a division of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. All rights reserved.

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If you found these exercises helpful, I highly recommend grabbing a copy of the book. 8 Keys to Healing, Managing, and Preventing Burnout is full of practical tools you can return to whenever you need them.

You can order your copy here—and get 20% off and free shipping!

To enter to win one of THREE FREE COPIES (US only), join the Tiny Buddha mailing list here. I’ll email the winners on Monday, October 6^th.

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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 Power I Now Carry Because of My Illness

“Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it.” ~Eckhart Tolle

For years, I thought strength meant pushing through. Getting on with it. Holding it together no matter what. Not showing weakness. Not needing help. Not slowing down.

Even when I was diagnosed with a chronic illness, I wore that mindset like armor. I was determined not to let it define me—let alone derail me.

But eventually, it did. Not because I was weak. But because I was human. And that was the beginning of a different kind of strength.

The Diagnosis That Didn’t Fit My Story

I was thirty-two when I was diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease. It’s a chronic inflammatory condition that can be painful, unpredictable, and exhausting. There is no cure.

At the time, I had three young kids and a to-do list longer than my arm. I was busy, stretched thin, and moving fast—chasing achievement like it could protect me from everything uncertain.

The diagnosis didn’t land like a crisis. It landed more like an inconvenience. I had no time for illness. No space for it. No story in which it belonged.

I started medication, but the side effects were rough, and the results were inconsistent. I quickly became obsessed with finding the “right” diet, the “right” routine, the “right” alternative therapy to manage it all myself.

Strength, Control, and the Problem with Hyper-Independence

Looking back, I can see that control was my coping mechanism. Control over my body. Control over the narrative.

I didn’t want to be “someone with a chronic illness.” I wanted to be someone who could handle a chronic illness and still perform at a high level. Someone who could live life on her own terms—without needing medication, or help, or rest.

So when things stabilized a little, I made a quiet decision: I’d stop the medication.

I told myself I could manage it naturally. I adjusted my diet, doubled down on my routines, tried to control every variable. But inevitably, flare-ups would return. And when they did, I’d end up back on steroids. They worked—but made me manic. So I’d taper off. The cycle continued.

Somewhere in the midst of this, we moved countries for my husband’s job. I left behind my career ambitions, my social network, and my medical team. I started to quietly adapt to a life of background symptoms: pain, exhaustion, urgency.

I didn’t talk about it. I didn’t cancel things unless I absolutely had to. And when I did, I worried people thought I was flaky or rude or just didn’t care.

In truth, I was trying so hard to be “fine” that I was hurting myself.

The Turning Point: Meditation & Stillness

Eventually, I got tired.

Not just physically—but emotionally, spiritually, existentially. Tired of the constant vigilance. Tired of trying to outrun my own body. Tired of believing that if I just tried harder, I could conquer this thing on sheer willpower.

I had built an identity around being capable, reliable, strong. Hyper-independent. I didn’t ask for help. I didn’t want to need anyone—or anything, especially not medication. Illness felt like weakness. And weakness was unacceptable.

But that relentless self-sufficiency didn’t save me. It wore me down.

That’s when I found mindfulness. Not as a fix—but as a kind of quiet company. A way of softening the grip I had on control. A way of meeting myself as I actually was, not as I thought I should be.

At first, I treated mindfulness the way I treated everything else: as something to master. But over time, the practice worked on me. It started dismantling the war I had declared on my body. I began to see: my body wasn’t failing me. It was in conversation with me. And I had never truly listened.

That changed everything.

Mindfulness helped me stop seeing my illness as something to battle and started teaching me how to respond—with self-compassion instead of control. With care instead of critique.

The diagnosis was still there. The symptoms came and went. But something in me had started to soften. I was no longer treating every flare-up as a personal failure or a crisis to conquer. The illness was real, but maybe it didn’t have to be a war. I wasn’t fully at peace, but I was learning to pay attention. And then came the call that changed everything.

The Wake-Up Call That Brought It All Home

It had been more than five years since my last colonoscopy, and based on my medical history, my primary care doctor recommended I schedule one. I agreed, of course. I felt fine—strong, even. I was training on the treadmill at home for an upcoming marathon, proud of what my body could still do.

The procedure itself felt routine. But one evening shortly afterward, around 8 p.m., the phone rang.

It was the doctor who had performed the colonoscopy—calling me personally.

He didn’t sound casual.

He told me I was in trouble.

If I didn’t get on medication right away, my condition could worsen dramatically—and start impacting other systems in my body, even my eyesight.

I was horrified. And humbled.

This wasn’t something I could outrun. This wasn’t something I could discipline away. This was my body, urgently asking to be heard.

Letting Illness Be a Messenger, not a Failure

I got back on medication. This time, the right kind. And I committed to it—not from a place of defeat, but from a deeper alignment with care.

That was almost two years ago. Since then, my body has slowly begun to heal. My most recent colonoscopy—early this year—showed dramatic improvement. The inflammation is down. The symptoms are manageable. I’m tolerating the medication well, even with the added complexity of reactivated TB, a side effect of the immunosuppression that I’m now treating with another course of medication.

It’s not perfect. It’s not linear. But it’s honest. It’s mine.

And most importantly, I’m no longer at war with my body. I’ve stopped bracing against what is, and started responding with care, clarity, and compassion.

Because real strength isn’t pushing through at all costs.

It’s listening. It’s allowing. It’s staying with yourself—even when it’s hard.

Mindfulness didn’t fix everything. But it became an ally—steady and unshakable.

It taught me I can’t control the storm, but I can anchor myself within it. And in that anchoring, I found something I never expected: power.

Not the power of force—but the quiet, unwavering power of presence. Of meeting life on its terms.
Of knowing I can be with whatever comes—and still be whole.

That’s the power I carry now. Not in spite of illness. But shaped by it.

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About Eimear Zone

Eimear Zone is a certified mindfulness teacher, confidence coach, and host of the Girl, Choose Yourself! podcast. Her work helps women build confidence from the inside out. Start your day differently with her free Morning Reset audio:  Follow her on Instagram @eimearzonecoach.

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The Truth About My Inner Critic: It Was Trauma Talking

“I will not let the bullies and critics of my early life win by joining and agreeing with them.” ~Pete Walker

For most of my life, there was a voice in my head that narrated everything I did, and it was kind of an a**hole.

You know the one. That voice that jumps in before you even finish a thought:

“Don’t say that. You’ll sound stupid.”

“Why would anyone care what you think?”

 “You’re too much. You’re not enough. You’re a mess.”

No matter what I did, the critic had notes. Brutal ones. And the worst part? I believed every word. I didn’t know it was a critic. I thought I just had “realistic self-awareness.” Like everyone else had a little tape playing in their head on repeat, telling them how flawed they were. Turns out, that voice was trauma talking, and it never seemed to stop.

My Inner Critic Wasn’t Born, It Was Built

CPTSD doesn’t just mess with your sense of safety. It hijacks your internal dialogue. When your early life feels unsafe or unpredictable, criticism becomes your compass. You learn to scan for danger, to anticipate what might trigger rejection or anger. You start blaming yourself for things that weren’t your fault, just to keep the peace.

Over time, you don’t need anyone else to tear you down, you’ve got that covered all on your own. The critic lives inside. It’s relentless. It’s like a hyper-alert security guard that’s been working overtime for decades. One who has a bone to pick.

That inner critic wasn’t trying to be cruel. It was trying to protect me. Twisted, but true. It believed if it shamed me first, I’d beat everyone else to it. If I kept myself small, or perfect, or invisible, I wouldn’t become a target. If I could control myself enough, maybe the chaos would leave me alone.

That voice became familiar. And familiarity, even when it’s toxic, can feel like home.

The Turning Point: When I Realized That Voice Was Lying

Healing began the day I noticed a strange disconnect. The people I cared about didn’t talk to me the way my inner critic did. They weren’t disgusted when I made mistakes. They didn’t roll their eyes when I showed up with all my messy feelings. They didn’t act like I was a problem to be solved or a disappointment to be managed. In fact, they were… pretty warm. Even when I wasn’t “on.”

This realization felt like looking in a funhouse mirror and suddenly seeing my true reflection. If they weren’t seeing me through the lens of judgment and shame, who was I really listening to? That voice in my head, or the people who cared?

That was the moment I started to doubt the inner critic’s authority. Because that voice? It wasn’t truth. It was trauma. A protective but outdated part of me that no longer needed to run the show.

How I Actually Started Healing (the real first steps)

The very first real step wasn’t dramatic. I noticed the mismatch, my head yelling “you’re a mess” while everyone around me treated me like a person, not a problem. Once I noticed that disconnect, things shifted from “this is just how I am” to “oh, maybe this is something I can change.”

So my early moves were small and boring, but they mattered.

I booked a therapist who knew trauma work and stayed long enough to stop the band-aid fixes. I learned one therapy that actually landed for me, Internal Family Systems, which helped me stop fighting the critic and start talking with it. I started writing, not to fix myself, but to give that voice a page to vomit onto so I could see how ridiculous and repetitive it sounded in black and white.

I also leaned on a few safe people, friends and a therapist who would call me out when the critic lied and remind me I wasn’t actually the person I believed I was, over clouded with shame.

The harder work, though, was going underneath the critic. The voice was just a symptom. What sat beneath it was grief, anger, and fear I’d carried since childhood. For the first time in therapy, I wasn’t just trying to outsmart the critic, I was learning to sit with those younger parts of me who never felt safe. That’s when healing really started to shift: not by silencing the critic, but by finally listening to the trauma underneath it.

I Didn’t “Silence” My Inner Critic, But I Did Start Questioning It

Some days, that voice still shows up, loud and obnoxious. Healing didn’t make it disappear. It’s still there, popping up like an annoying pop-up ad you can’t quite close.

For years, the critic zeroed in on my appearance. I carried so much shame and self-hatred that I didn’t need anyone else to tear me down, I was already doing the job for them. Trauma and CPTSD made sure of it. Even when no one said a word, the critic filled in the silence with insults.

But I learned to give it a pause button. Instead of obeying it automatically, I started getting curious.

One morning, I caught my reflection and the critic immediately sneered: ‘You look disgusting.’ Normally, I’d believe it and spiral. But that time, I paused and asked: Whose voice is this really? It felt like my child abusers. What’s it trying to protect me from? Probably the fear and shame rooted in that abuse. Is it true, or just familiar? Familiar. That shift didn’t erase the shame instantly, but it gave me a crack of daylight. Instead of hating myself all day, I was able to shrug and think, yeah, that’s the critic, not the truth. That tiny pause was progress

Sometimes I imagine my inner critic as a grumpy, overworked security guard who’s stuck in the past. He’s cranky and exhausted, working overtime to keep me “safe,” but he’s also out of touch with the present. I don’t hate him. I just don’t hand him the mic anymore. These days, I keep him behind the glass with metaphorical noise-canceling headphones on. He can rant all he wants, but I’ve got Otis Redding and boundaries turned all the way up.

What Actually Helped Me Push Back

Therapy: Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy helped me see the critic as just one part of me, not my whole self. It gave me tools to speak with that part, instead of battling it.

Writing: Putting the critic’s voice on paper was a game changer. Seeing those harsh words in black and white helped me realize how cruel they really were.

Safe People: Talking openly with trusted friends and therapists helped shatter the illusion that I was unlovable or broken.

New Scripts: Instead of empty affirmations, I practiced gentle reality checks: “It’s okay that part of me feels that way. That doesn’t mean it’s true.”

Compassion: Learning to treat myself like a friend rather than an enemy—clumsy, imperfect, but worthy.

Why This Matters: The Cost of Believing the Critic

Believing that inner voice isn’t just uncomfortable, it’s dangerous. It shapes how you show up in the world. It keeps you stuck in self-doubt. It makes you shrink when you want to grow. It convinces you to stay silent when your voice needs to be heard.

For years, I hid behind that critic’s fog. I avoided risks, pushed down feelings, and avoided intimacy because I thought I wasn’t enough. That voice stole years of my life. I lost people I cared about because I couldn’t believe I was good enough or deserving of love, and that does a number on you.

Healing isn’t about erasing the critic, it’s about learning when to listen, when to question, and when to change the channel.

I’m thankful that, with therapy and the work I’ve put into my healing, I’ve been able to reclaim some of that space for myself. It’s by no means easy and there are a lot of starts and stops, but it is worth it. I am here today testament to that.

If You’re Living With That Voice Right Now

If your inner critic sounds convincing, like it has a PhD in your failures, I get it. I lived there. But here’s the truth:

You are not the sum of your worst thoughts. You are not the voice that calls you a burden.You are not unworthy just because you’ve been told that.

That critic might be loud, but it’s not honest. It’s scared. And scared doesn’t get the final say.

You get to question it. You get to rewrite the script. You get to take up space, even if your voice shakes. Even if it whispers, “Who do you think you are?”

Because the answer is: Someone healing. Someone trying. Someone finally learning that voice isn’t the truth anymore.

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About Jack Brody

Jack is a writer, dad, and recovering overthinker living in NYC. He writes about CPTSD, healing, and untangling your worth from your wounds at aboutthatjack.com. He no longer believes everything his inner critic says, though they’re still in couples counseling.

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The Surprising Freedom in Not Having Life All Figured Out

“Sometimes you have to let go of the life you planned to make room for the life that’s waiting for you.” ~Joseph Campbell

My new motto? Always have a backup plan.

Life rarely goes as you’d imagined.

January 16^th, 2001. That’s the day my life trajectory changed irrevocably. That’s the day that would lead me to, eventually, living alone—to being divorced. That’s the day my ex had a ski accident that changed the lives of every member of our immediate family. But today, I don’t want to talk about him or that. I want to talk about my story, about me. About my aftermath of living alone.

Several years ago, when the last of my daughters graduated from college, loaded her ‘how-can-she-possibly-carry-that!’ backpack, hugged me tight, and boarded a plane for South America with a one-way ticket, I felt a hole in my stomach the size of a meteor crash pit.

I knew so many things at that moment. I knew I had a world of worry ahead of me that would last the duration of her adventure-with-no-end-date.

I knew I’d be going home to an empty house—that was now going to stay empty.

I knew that the axis of my world had suddenly tilted—and nothing would balance the same again.

For years, my married-with-children life had been a whirlwind of stereotypical womanhood: mothering, managing, and multitasking. The house hummed with commotion, packing lunches, planning dinners, visiting teenagers’ shoes haphazardly piled near the front door, family events, lively conversations, and belly laughs—oh, and at a certain point, some derailing by hormone gyrations.

And now? Just me, my omnipresent ADHD-fueled piles of stuff, and a fridge that I wished someone else would clean and organize.

The divorce (after forty years of marriage)? Now, almost a decade in the rearview mirror. The full-time career hustle? Quieted (and mostly regretted). The calendar? More “me-time” than meetings or dates with girlfriends. And let’s not forget the increase in doctors’ appointments compared to before.

On almost every front, I was no longer needed the way I had been.

When my marriage ended, my ex took more than a suitcase and half of our belongings and money. He took our vacations, traditions, and huge parts of my lifestyle—and he unpacked them somewhere new, with someone new.

That reality offered me a chance at a whole new beginning that was all my own but was also utterly unnerving.

Once the noise of change and terrible transitions falls away, what’s left is the deafening question that every fiercely feeling, fabulously flawed woman eventually faces: What do I do with the rest of my life?

The Mirror Doesn’t Lie (But It’s Kind of a Jerk Sometimes)

Here’s the thing nothing can prepare you for when you find yourself alone and start spending real, unfiltered time in solitude:

You meet yourself.

Not the curated version of you that shows up for work, friends, family, or festivities. The real you. The unedited, unmoored, occasionally unhinged version. You with the foibles, flaws, fractures, fixations, fragile truths, and all. At least, that tends to be what you see at first. You’ll also see (sometimes it’s eventually) grace and grit, wisdom and warmth, compassion and courage, intuition and integrity.

And that self you meet, they have questions.

They want to know if you’re proud of how you’ve spent your life. They want to know what you’ve been postponing. And they really want to know why you walked into the kitchen three times today and still forgot what you were looking for.

Being alone strips away distractions. It’s like standing naked in front of a full-length mirror under too-bright lighting. Every flaw feels fluorescent. Every fear comes forward. And every false story and excuse you’ve told yourself asks to be rewritten.

And then there’s the way the outside world begins to see you…

Ma’am? MA’AM?!

I have a calmer demeanor than I used to, but I still feel vibrant. Vivid. Volcanic, even. I know more about the world and myself than I ever have—enough even to realize how little I do know, and that’s half the fun.

And yet, I’ve entered the bizarre “Ma’am Zone.”

You know the one. Where the teenager at the store calls you ma’am while offering to carry your bag. Where the girl in the drive-thru hands you your latte with a chirpy “Here you go, hon.” Grrrrr. (I sometimes educate them that treating ‘older’ people like that is insulting vs respectful).

It’s the zone where people assume you’ve stopped wanting to have wild sex, don’t understand memes, or can’t connect your Wi-Fi extender without calling your child for help. (Um, guilty of the latter. But still.)

It’s where invisibility starts to sneak in—everywhere. You’re not quite old, but you’re no longer relevant or worthy of giving an opinion.

And the most jarring part? You still feel like your younger self is alive and well inside—just now with reading glasses, joint supplements, and a slightly shorter fuse for nonsense.

But here’s the truth: the Ma’am Zone isn’t a punishment. It’s a portal.

Because once you stop chasing approval from the outside, you finally make room for deep reverence on the inside.

Once you stop chasing approval from the outside, you realize your value isn’t measured by someone else’s opinion of you, by your waistline or taut skin, or your appeal to potential partners.

Your value is in how you carry your story, how you exemplify your self-worth, how you show up for others, and how much damn freedom you finally give yourself to just be.

Of course, there are still moments that rattle your chain—like when technology moves faster than your thumbs or when recalling a name or a word requires a full-blown brain excavation.

And it’s not just the memory lapses. It’s the quiet, creeping suspicion that you’re becoming a little… invisible. That in a world obsessed with youth and novelty, you’ve somehow been nudged toward the “used-to-be” pile.

But here’s my radical revelation: This isn’t the end of anything. It’s the beginning of everything.

Learning is My New North Star

This chapter I’ve found myself in—this curious, living-alone, transitional place—it’s a gift. And for me, that gift is the opportunity to dedicate copious amounts of time to learning. Not to impress, not to advance, not to earn letters behind my name. But to be alive.

Learning has become my reason for being in this last season of my life, however many decades that may be.

Oh, I still love deeply. I still mother, I still show up for friends, and I still need connection and community as much as I need air—but these next years of living alone? These are for taking in as much as I’ve given out.

I’ve begun to inhale books, devour documentaries, and dive headfirst into research rabbit holes like a woman on a mission to make up for all the times she didn’t have time and had to put her own curiosity on hold.

I’m back in therapy. I want to finally let go of the weight I don’t want to carry anymore. I want to learn to expand, to evolve, to live in full-blown self-worth, and to stay awake in a world that wants to lull me into irrelevance.

This isn’t just something I do—this is how I live now. Fully. Inquisitively. Intentionally.

I’m learning how to sit in silence without spiraling into regrets and should-haves. How to laugh at myself without lacerating my spirit. How to treasure time without tallying accomplishments.

My Best Friend at the End of My Pen

Amid all this sorting and shifting, quiet rooms and candid reckonings, new beginnings and necessary becoming, there’s one constant that’s never judged me, rushed me, or asked me to explain myself in under two minutes: my journal.

It’s actually been a good (almost better) substitute for my ex, who has known me since I was in my late teens.

No matter what kind of day I’m having—scattered, soulful, soaring, or stuck—it’s always there, waiting.

The page listens like no one else can.

It holds space when I can’t hold it together. And more often than not, I find my best thoughts, my bravest truths, and my clearest next steps scribbled somewhere between the rambling and the real.

That pen? It’s not just ink. It’s true: caring for and being honest with oneself.

And when my brain short-circuits—when I can’t remember if I paid a bill or why I walked into the kitchen for that third time—I turn to my journal. Not because it fixes everything but because it filters the fuzz.

Journaling is where I untangle the mental spaghetti. It’s my personal pause button, my brain’s backup drive, my place to dump the digital overload of modern life and actually hear myself think again.

Some days, it’s a sanctuary. On other days, it’s a sass-fest. But either way, it saves me. From forgetting. From overthinking. From disconnecting from the woman, I’m becoming.

Permission to Be Real, Forgetful, and Free

I’m learning to get curious instead of compliant.

I’m reclaiming my relevance not by proving myself but by being myself—beautifully, brutally, brilliantly real.

I’ve swapped out striving for savoring.

I’ve put down the perfectionism and picked up the pen.

And on the days when I forget what I was saying mid-sentence, I just say, “Well, clearly it wasn’t worth remembering!” and carry on.

No, I don’t have it all figured out. Thank goodness for that.

Life now feels less like a checklist and more like a what-kind-of-day-do-I-want-today? (Note: It’s sometimes a day in bed with snacks and a streaming obsession).

Some days are disco. Others are enlightening. Some days, I still feel sorry for myself. But all of them are mine.

So, if you’re standing in that strange, sacred space between who you’ve been and who you’re becoming, let this be your permission slip:

You don’t need to reinvent yourself.

You just need to remember yourself.

Not who the world wanted or told you that you were supposed to be. Who you are. Under the roles. Behind the titles. Beneath the noise.

There’s magic there. There’s freedom. And yes, there’s still plenty of fire.

A Few Questions to Light the Way

Who am I becoming now that no one’s watching?

What do I want to learn—not to be useful, but to be lit up?

Where am I still dimming my joy because I think it’s “too late”?

What would it look like to stop fixing and start feeling?

Where do I still matter most—to myself?

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About Jill Grumbache

Jill Grumbache is the sometimes hilarious, always compassionate wit and founder of Holistic Journaling Ink. She is an unwavering advocate of women's self-growth and education. She helps women find clarity, courage, calm, and a sense of humor through the written word. Jill is a lifelong journaler, communications specialist, beneficial journaling educator, certified journaling facilitator, and emotional intelligence coach, as well as an award-winning writer and recovering overthinker with ADHD (the latter being one of her favorite traits!). Reach her at jill@holisticjournaling.ca or www.holisticjournaling.ca.

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Why AI Can Never Replace Us: The Truth About Being Human

“AI accidentally made me believe in the concept of a human soul by showing me what art looks like without it.” ~Unknown

What is intelligence?

I’ve asked this question all my life—as a teacher, a filmmaker, a researcher, and now, as someone losing my vision to macular degeneration.

I ask it when I watch students find their voice.

I ask it when I listen to a close friend of mine, a world-renowned cosmologist, whose knowledge seems limitless but whose humility runs even deeper. He can discuss black holes one minute and quote the Tao Te Ching the next. He doesn’t just know facts—he knows how to listen. He knows how to explain something complicated without making you feel small. That, to me, is real intelligence.

And yet… I’ve started to notice something strange.

Artificial Intelligence is beginning to resemble people like him. It can write fluent sentences. It can summarize books I haven’t read. Sometimes, it surprises me. And I find myself wondering: is this also intelligence?

What AI Gets Right—and What It Will Never Feel

Let me say this clearly: I’m grateful for AI. This very essay was shaped with its help. I have advanced macular degeneration. Proofreading my own writing is difficult—sometimes impossible. Tools like this are not a luxury for me. They are a gift. A lifeline. Without them, I wouldn’t be able to keep writing. For that, I’m thankful.

But there is a kind of intelligence that AI will never know.

It won’t feel the panic of forgetting your lines onstage, or the rush of remembering them mid-breath. It doesn’t lie awake at night wondering whether your work matters. It doesn’t weep when your mother no longer remembers your name. It doesn’t get nervous before a job interview. It hasn’t failed, or recovered, or loved.

It can help express a feeling, but it cannot have one.

A Tool, not a Mind

We call it “artificial intelligence,” but it’s more like artificial fluency. It’s fast. It’s competent. It can impress you. But it doesn’t know in the way we know. It hasn’t spent years practicing an instrument in the dark or teaching a student who doesn’t believe in themselves—until one day, they do. It doesn’t grow from experience.

It doesn’t grieve. It doesn’t heal. It doesn’t change.

So when people say, “AI is going to replace us,” I always wonder—which part of us? The part that fills out forms and writes reports or does other rutinary tasks? Maybe. But the part that authentically and honestly tells a story no one else can tell? Never.

Teaching Students to Show Up

In every class I’ve taught, I’ve said some version of this:

“Don’t stop at the research. Don’t stop at what AI gives you. Learn to show up in your work.”

Some students hide behind information. It’s safer. But I tell them: you are the meaning. You are the insight. You are the risk.

I once had a student who wrote a technically flawless paper. But it had no voice. When I asked her what it meant to her, she hesitated. Then she told me about her father, who had lived through the war the paper was about. Her entire relationship to the topic shifted in that moment. That was the real intelligence. Not the citations. Not the syntax. The courage to speak from the heart.

When Sight Fades, Something Else Comes into View

Losing your vision is not just about reading less. It’s about seeing differently. It’s about slowing down. Listening more. Learning to trust what you can’t verify with your eyes.

It has also deepened my appreciation for tools like AI. I rely on them every day. But I also notice their limits. They help with form, but not with essence. They clean the window, but they can’t show you what’s outside. That still requires you.

Intelligence Is Not the Same as Wisdom

My brilliant cosmologist friend once told me, “The more I learn, the more I realize how little I understand.”

AI doesn’t say things like that.

It doesn’t know humility. Or mystery. Or awe.

Intelligence, in the deepest sense, is not about control or answers. It’s about how we carry ourselves in uncertainty. It’s about grace under pressure. Presence in pain. Humor in despair. Kindness without reward. None of that shows up in a prompt.

The Final Lesson: Tools Don’t Replace Soul

If there’s one thing I’ve learned—through teaching, through vision loss, through using AI—it’s this:

A tool can help you build something. But it can’t tell you why it matters.

So yes, use the tools. Use AI. Let it support you. I do.

But never forget: you are more than the tool. You are the story behind the sentence. The silence between the notes. The reason the work matters at all.

That’s not artificial. That’s real.

And it’s irreplaceable.

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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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Brilliant, Not Broken: A Powerful Reframe for Neurodivergence

“It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences.” ~Audre Lorde

For most of my life, I asked myself a quiet question:

What’s wrong with me?

I didn’t say it out loud. I didn’t have to. It was stitched into how I moved through the world — hyperaware, self-correcting, and always just a little out of step. I knew how to “pass” in the right settings, but never without effort. Underneath it all, I was exhausted by the daily performance of normal.

Looking back, it’s clear where it started.

I grew up in a home marked by emotional chaos and unpredictability. Like many kids with developmental trauma, I became hypervigilant before I even had words for it. I learned to track mood shifts, tones of voice, the silences between the words. While other kids were absorbing math lessons, I was reading the room.

In elementary school, I wasn’t the loud kid or the front-row overachiever. I was the quiet one in the middle row—not bold enough to be in front where people might see me, and not defiant enough to risk the back, where the “bad kids” got called out, punished, or ignored. I learned early that safety meant staying in the middle: visible enough to avoid trouble, invisible enough not to stand out.

I didn’t know what the lesson was. But I knew who the teacher favored and who she didn’t. Who had a rough night at home. Who was trying too hard. Who had checked out. And who was silently hurting the way I was.

I was always paying attention—even if they said I was unfocused—just not in the way the teacher wanted me to.

I also daydreamed. Constantly. I lived in fantasy worlds that I made up in my head, complete with characters, backstories, and dialogue. I wasn’t trying to avoid reality—I was trying to survive it. And those imagined worlds were often kinder than the one I was stuck in.

So when people say things like, “That child is so distractible,” I want to pause them.

Sometimes, what you’re seeing isn’t a disorder. Sometimes, it’s a child adapting to a world that feels unsafe.

What We Call Disordered Might Just Be a Different Kind of Wisdom

As I got older, I started to realize how many of the things we pathologize—especially in women, neurodivergent folks, and trauma survivors—are actually adaptive or even gifted traits. But because they don’t fit the dominant mold of what “healthy” looks like, we call them broken.

Let me say this clearly: Different doesn’t mean disordered. And even when support is needed, that doesn’t mean the person is lacking.

Take ADHD. It’s often reduced to disorganization or forgetfulness, but for many people, it reflects fast-paced, pattern-jumping brains that crave stimulation and thrive in high-innovation spaces. That same brain might struggle in school but light up in entrepreneurship, the arts, crisis work, or tech.

Take anxiety. Yes, it can be overwhelming. But beneath it is usually a sensitive nervous system attuned to energy, risk, nuance. In trauma survivors, it often reflects the ability to read between the lines—to sense what’s not being said, to prepare for every possible outcome. They keep themselves and others safe by seeing the risks before the bad thing happens.

Take autism, especially in girls and women. What gets labeled as rigidity or social awkwardness might actually be deep authenticity, truth-telling, and sensory brilliance in a world full of noise and social masking.

Even depression can be a form of wisdom—a body demanding rest, a soul refusing to keep performing, a nervous system finally saying “enough.”

What Neurodivergence Really Means

Neurodivergence isn’t one thing. It’s a big umbrella. It includes conditions like:

• ADHD
• Autism
• Learning differences (like dyslexia or dyscalculia)
• Sensory processing differences
• Mood disorders (sometimes)
• PTSD and C-PTSD (especially when they cause long-term brain changes)

For some, it’s hardwired. For others, it’s trauma-shaped. And for many of us, it’s both.

In my own family, neurodivergence runs deep.

My mother lived with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. My oldest son has ADD and anxiety. My youngest is autistic, has an intellectual disability, and also lives with ADHD. I’ve carried complex PTSD, anxiety, depression—and honestly, probably undiagnosed ADD too.

We are not broken. We are not less.

We are a line of deeply sensitive, differently wired humans trying to survive in a world that doesn’t always recognize our kind of brilliance.

I know what it is to be the outcast.

I watched my mom become one—judged and misunderstood by her own family, dismissed by society because her bipolar and schizophrenia made people uncomfortable. I’ve watched my youngest son become one too. He’s autistic, has an intellectual disability, and ADHD. And I know—deeply know—that if I hadn’t chosen to value his wiring, the world might have crushed him. For a little while, it did.

But this kid plays the drums like nobody’s business.

He is fiercely protective, wildly loyal, and more emotionally intuitive than anyone I’ve ever met.
And every once in a while, he’ll say something so specific, so strange, so piercingly true, I swear he’s reading my mind — or someone else’s.

We don’t talk about this kind of intelligence enough. The kind that doesn’t show up on standardized tests or IQ charts, but lives in the bones. In the music. In the knowing.

Neurodivergence simply means your brain functions in a way that diverges from the norm. That’s not bad. That’s essential—because the “norm” was never built with all of us in mind.

The Bigger Picture

We live in a culture that rewards sameness: attention that stays linear, emotions that stay tidy, learning that happens on schedule.

But real life is messier than that. And real people are more complex.

Some of the most powerful thinkers, healers, leaders, and artists I know live with labels that would’ve sidelined them if they hadn’t learned to translate their differences into power.

Different doesn’t take away from the conversation. It adds to it.

And the next time you wonder if something is “wrong” with you,  pause.

What if that part of you isn’t broken?

What if it’s just misunderstood?

What if it’s trying to show you something the world forgot how to hear?

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About Allison Briggs

Allison Jeanette Briggs is a therapist, writer, and speaker specializing in helping women heal from codependency, childhood trauma, and emotional neglect. She blends psychological insight with spiritual depth to guide clients and readers toward self-trust, boundaries, and authentic connection. Allison is the author of the upcoming memoir On Being Real: Healing the Codependent Heart of a Woman and shares reflections on healing, resilience, and inner freedom at on-being-real.com.

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Could Curiosity Be the Best Medicine for Chronic Illness?

“Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t, you’re right.” ~Henry Ford

We’ve all been there: happily ticking off life’s checkboxes, certain we’ve cracked the code, until—bam!—life decides otherwise. Divorce papers, layoffs, grief, or unexpected illness—life’s curveballs don’t discriminate.

For me, it was a sudden mystery illness at sixteen. What should have been a simple infection changed the trajectory of my entire life. Doctors were at a loss, tests offered no answers, and I was left navigating an uncertain reality, desperately clinging to control as my lifeline.

One day I’m cheering at the Friday night football game, and the next I’m navigating a seemingly endless string of endoscopies, colonoscopies, biopsies, EEGs, EKGs, psych tests, countless blood tests, and still no answers.

I remember the day it all went wrong.

I was in high school watching a movie at a friend’s house when we burned the popcorn. Annoying, sure, but not a cause for concern. Except for me, the room started spinning, and my head felt like it was going to explode, so I stepped outside to get some air.

Next thing I know, the cute boy I had a crush on found me passed out in the driveway. This was the beginning of chasing symptoms that were only getting more mysterious and increasingly worrisome.

Navigating a chronic mystery illness as a young adult felt impossible, devastatingly unfair, and inconsistent. One week I would think the worst was behind me, finally able to put my life back together, and the next I was blindsided once again by some new symptom.

My friends were getting jobs, going to parties, dating, and discovering who they were while I was curled up on the bathroom floor. By my twenties, leaving important meetings at work to throw up blood in the bathroom was my normal.

The hardest part was never knowing if I could trust my own body. Was I going to wake up healthy or in excruciating pain?

I spent years in victim mode, trying to “get it right,” believing if I tried hard enough I could control my way out of the problem. If I could just anticipate every twist, I’d never feel blindsided again.

Spoiler alert: it didn’t work. My health spiraled, my relationships suffered, and financial problems and self-medication replaced self-compassion and security. No amount of control shielded me from the inevitable messiness of being human, especially a human with a chronic illness.

Along the way, there were so many rock bottoms I’m not sure I could choose one pivotal moment. By the time I was approaching thirty, I had been on state disability and was taking so many meds that I was having paranoid, suicidal thoughts. It was clear that whatever uphill battle I was fighting wasn’t working, but I didn’t see another way out, and I was too young to give up. I think they call this being stuck between a rock and a hard place.

There was nowhere to go for advice or more answers, and that is the loneliest I have ever been. The unknown was sitting there, staring me in the face, playing a game of chicken.

Despite any evidence that I was going to win, I wasn’t going to back down either. So I walked away from traditional treatment plans, which weren’t working anyway, and focused on what I could control: my mindset and my attitude. It was time to learn how to make proverbial lemonade from a batch of rotten lemons.

To preserve the small amount of sanity I had left, curiosity became my lifeline. Since resisting or controlling reality didn’t work, what if I got curious about it instead? This wasn’t about blind optimism, toxic positivity, or magical thinking. Frankly, manifesting and cosmic trust felt too far-fetched for someone who didn’t know if they would be able to physically or mentally get out of bed.

I needed something practical, something that felt grounded and possible. “What if?” helped me suspend reality just long enough to see things in a different way. It shifted from a challenging self-experiment to my new guiding principle.

• What if my body wasn’t betraying me but teaching me something crucial?
• What if every upheaval wasn’t punishment but an invitation to deeper self-awareness?
• What if I could find a way to be happy, even if life wasn’t what I thought it would be?
• What if I wasn’t broken; I just needed to do things differently than other people?
• What if it didn’t need to be this hard?

Over time, curiosity helped me open a new reality, one where my biggest pain was also my greatest teacher. I was forced to practice sitting in the discomfort of the unknown and am all the better for it. Eventually, I was diagnosed with a mitochondrial disorder, but at the time, treatment options were limited, so my diagnosis didn’t provide any more certainty than before.

The road was long and bumpy, to say the least. I mean, there was an entire decade I was hopeless, jobless, and puking blood on the daily. But along the way, my medical journey forced me to embrace a new narrative, one where I didn’t see myself as sick. I changed my relationship to not only my body but also to how I look at life. What felt like a limitation was the key to unlocking my liberation—I just didn’t know it at the time.

While not a magic pill, this shift helped me heal and stay healthy for almost ten years. Little did I know that another curveball was waiting for me on my fortieth birthday.

After suffering mold poisoning due to a water leak in my apartment, my mitochondrial disorder came back in full force. I was puking blood on the bathroom floor and all. This time, I wasn’t sixteen, and I had the tools to reclaim my power when everything around me was falling apart. Instead of spiraling about my lack of control or the unfair circumstances, I had the framework to move forward.

This didn’t change my very real and painful challenges. It didn’t lessen the financial blow or logistical upheaval to my life. But it did allow me to traverse a relapse with the curiosity I needed to move forward calmly and confidently, despite this new uncertainty.

If you’ve struggled with Hashimoto’s, perimenopause, gut issues, chronic fatigue, back pain, depression, or any other unwanted diagnosis, maybe you can relate. That’s the thing about chronic illness—the symptoms may be different, but the pain of knowing how to move forward is usually the same.

My lessons were hard-earned, but they helped me transform pain into possibility when everything felt uncertain, and hopefully, they can help you too.

My three steps to navigating life’s uncertainties:

1. Curiosity is the door to possibility.

When life inevitably disrupts your carefully laid plans, allow yourself the space to grieve the loss of your expectations. Let yourself feel the pain because acceptance is key to moving forward. Then gently ask, “What if?”

This can feel disruptive at first because, if you’re like me, you’ll cling to the reality you know like a life raft in a stormy sea. But if you can’t even entertain a different outcome for a moment, then nothing will ever change.

• What if my body isn’t failing but asking me to slow down?
• What if ending this relationship allows space for a deeper connection?
• What if losing my job is forcing me not to settle for good enough?
• What if this situation is asking me to finally face a hard truth I’ve been hiding from?

This isn’t naive positivity; it’s a powerful cognitive shift. Curiosity disrupts habitual thinking and creates space for new truths you previously couldn’t imagine. When you explore different realities, you can start seeing opportunity where before all you saw was pain.

Action: List your current struggles. Beside each, write down one bold, curiosity-driven “What if?” question. It isn’t wishful thinking—it’s challenging yourself to open your mind to a new possibility.

2. Radical responsibility is your personal power.

We’re all storytellers, weaving meaning into the events in our lives. For years, my narrative was, “This isn’t fair,” “Why did this happen to me,” or “I’m sick, so something’s fundamentally wrong with me.”

While not great for my mental health, this narrative provided comfort because there is safety in certainty—and if you’re the victim of your own story, you don’t need to change. But comfort came at the cost of my agency. Even if it isn’t your fault, you are responsible for the state of your life because what you don’t change, you choose.

Over time, I recognized that while the limitations of my illness were real, my identity didn’t have to be defined by them. Radical responsibility doesn’t mean blaming yourself or anyone else for life’s twists. It means reclaiming your ability to choose how you interpret and handle those events.

I eventually chose to rewrite my narrative: my illness wasn’t proof I was broken; it was evidence of my resilience, a catalyst for growth, and my greatest teacher. This allowed me to create a reality where I wasn’t just enduring a chronic illness; I was thriving and learning how to become the best version of myself.

Action: Write down a belief that’s keeping you stuck. Rewrite it starting with, “I choose to believe… because…” Then decide if that belief is serving you, or if you want to make a different choice. Notice how this shift feels. You control the narrative, not the circumstance.

3. Community is the key to courage.

Facing uncertainty alone is overwhelming and counterproductive. Who you surround yourself with not only provides support; it shapes your reality profoundly. I learned quickly that surrounding myself with people who validated my struggles instead of my growth kept me spinning in cycles.

Statements like “Life isn’t fair,” “There is never enough,” or “That’s just how things are” are everywhere, but they become silent saboteurs. What you say and who you spend time with shape what you believe is possible for yourself and others.

Finding people, places, and hobbies that support your curiosity, challenge your perception of what is possible, and encourage your evolution are essential. I’ve been moments away from quitting countless times, only to be saved by those who reminded me of my strength and progress. I look at the people around me with deep love, gratitude, and respect because how they show up in the world reminds me of what’s possible.

Action: Reflect honestly on your relationships. List people who inspire courage and growth and those who reinforce limitations, even if they mean well. Prioritize nurturing the supportive connections.

The Takeaway

My experience navigating a lifetime of chronic illness has taught me that you can’t fight the inevitable, messy parts of life. They aren’t always fair (or fun), but you can find freedom instead of fear during the liminal spaces. Embracing uncertainty, however uncomfortable, has shown me that when everything is unknown, anything is possible.

If you’re skeptical, I understand—I’ve been there. But what if the unknown isn’t something to fear but something to explore? What if embracing uncertainty is the secret superpower you’ve been looking for?

Whether it’s dealing with chronic illness or any other unexpected plot twist life throws your way, stepping into the unknown isn’t easy, but trust me, it’s so worth it. On the other side is a life that is authentically, unapologetically yours—messy, imperfect, and profoundly liberating.

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About Erin Brennan

Erin Brennan is a storyteller and filmmaker who believes the best way through life's messiest moments is to invite fear in for a glass of wine. Erin’s work challenges you to swap certainty for curiosity. With a subtle shift in perspective, she invites you to find possibility in the unknown, if you're brave enough to show up and say yes. Erin is currently working on her first documentary, asking: What if chasing your wildest dreams meant staring down your biggest fears? Her writing delivers tough love and unfiltered honest insights to help people get out of their own way to live life on their own terms.

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When Someone You Love Shuts the Door

“It is one thing to lose people you love. It is another to lose yourself. That is a greater loss.” ~Donna Goddard

We didn’t mean to fall into anything romantic. It started as friendship, collaboration, long voice notes about work, life, trauma, and healing. We helped each other solve problems. We gave each other pep talks before difficult meetings. He liked to say I had good instincts; I told him he had grit.

We shared vulnerabilities like flashlights in the dark—he told me about getting into fights, going to jail, losing jobs because he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. I shared about growing up in a home with yelling, hitting, and silence, and how I used to chase validation in relationships just to feel seen. Somewhere in there, something sparked.

By early May, the friendship shifted. There was a night we were sitting together, talking about emotional sobriety, when I felt it: the weight of his gaze, the stillness between us. We kissed. And then we didn’t stop. I didn’t expect it, but I also didn’t resist it. It felt natural, like picking up a conversation we didn’t realize we’d already started.

But like many things built on intensity, it became complicated fast.

He opened up about wanting to explore something sexually that I couldn’t. It may have felt like shame to him, but that wasn’t my intention—I was simply clear: I wouldn’t feel safe there. He was hurt. Said I’d stepped on his vulnerability. And I didn’t respond perfectly. I froze. That’s what I do when I feel pressure or threat. I don’t yell or lash out—I go quiet, retreat inward, try to understand what’s happening before I respond.

Still, I thought we’d moved past it. I gave him space while traveling, and when we reconnected, he told me he was in love with me. That he accepted my situation. That it was worth it. That he’d be patient.

So I met him in the middle. I softened. I opened a little more.

He was a recovering alcoholic—sober for nearly nineteen years. He had wrecked two long-term relationships in the past, he told me. He’d been arrested multiple times, fired for outbursts, and said he was trying to do better now. I believed him. I saw the way he loved his dog training clients, how he was trying to build something on his own terms.

I shared my own journey—how I’d sought approval in the arms of others when I felt dismissed or invisible in my marriage. How I went to SLAA and learned to sit with my feelings instead of running from them. How I founded a company, Geri-Gadgets, inspired by caring for my mom during her dementia journey. He understood the grief of losing a parent slowly. His mom had dementia too. We bonded over what that does to you—how it softens certain edges while sharpening others.

We had history, shared values, hard-earned wisdom. That’s why I was so unprepared for how it ended.

It started with a question. I asked him what I should wear to dinner with his sister and brother-in-law after a meeting we were attending together. He responded by sending me a photo of a woman in a short leather outfit, over-the-knee stiletto boots, and a dominatrix pose.

I stared at the image, confused. Was it a joke? A test? A dig? Given my past—the abuse, the trauma, the very clear boundaries I’d communicated—I didn’t find it funny. I felt dismissed. Mocked, even. I made a comment about the woman’s body, not because I cared, but because I was triggered. Because I didn’t know how to say, This hurts me.

That set off a chain reaction.

We were supposed to be working on something together—a potential hire for his business—but the conversation turned tense. I felt myself shutting down. I needed time to process. I called to talk, to break through the tension with an actual voice, but he wouldn’t answer. He refused to talk to me—until he’d already decided to be done.

By the time we finally spoke, it was over. He’d already shut the door. The ending didn’t come in one moment—it came in his silence, his refusal to engage when I needed him to. It came when vulnerability met a wall.

This kind of ending triggers old wounds. The kind that taught me to freeze when someone withdraws love. The kind that makes me overfunction to earn back safety.

I was the child who was hit and then ignored. My father would scream and slam a strap against my legs, then bury his head in the newspaper and pretend I didn’t exist. Those are the things that shape a nervous system. Those are the stories we carry into adulthood, whether we want to or not.

In past relationships, I chased. I made excuses. I convinced myself it was my fault. I’d think: If only I were more accommodating… less sensitive… sexier, smarter, cooler… maybe they’d stay. But not this time.

This time, I sat with the ache. I let it wash over me. I didn’t rush to fix it or fill it. I didn’t reach out. I didn’t beg for clarity or closure. I cried. I journaled. I went to meetings. I talked to trusted friends. I worked. I kept my boundaries intact.

Because here’s what I’ve learned: I am worth calm. I am worth communication that doesn’t punish. I am worth someone who doesn’t confuse intensity with depth.

He said I pivoted. But what he saw as inconsistency was actually growth. I was honoring a boundary. I wasn’t trying to wound him—I was trying to protect myself. And yes, sometimes that looks messy. Sometimes healing doesn’t come in a neat package with perfect communication and the right amount of eye contact. Sometimes it means making the best decision you can in real time with the nervous system you have.

I had let him in. I trusted him with my story, my body, my boundaries. I showed up with care and effort and consistency. But I can’t control how someone receives me. I can only control how I respond when they shut the door.

And this time, I didn’t run after it. I let it close. Gently, painfully, finally.

Losing him hurt. But losing myself again would’ve hurt more.

If you opened yourself up to someone and they rejected you, remember it’s not a reflection of your worth. And sometimes when someone walks away, it’s for the best if them staying would have meant you abandoning yourself.

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About Angela Fairhurst

Angela Fairhurst is a writer, television producer, and entrepreneur based in Los Angeles. Her work spans luxury travel journalism, sustainability, and personal essays on grief, healing, and identity. She’s also the founder of Geri-Gadgets®, a line of sensory tools inspired by her caregiving journey with her mother. Through her creative work and lived experience, she explores what it means to find clarity, connection, and strength at any age or stage of life.

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