Why I Stopped Trying to Be Thin and Started Trying to Be Strong

“The resistance that you fight physically in the gym and the resistance that you fight in life can only build a strong character.” ~Arnold Schwarzenegger

The gym. Just saying the word makes some people break into a sweat—and not the good kind. Bright lights. Mirrors everywhere. What do I wear? That “everyone is staring at me” feeling (spoiler: they’re not; they’re staring at themselves).

For others, it’s their safe place, their happy zone. So how do you go from “I’d rather chew glass” to actually wanting to walk through those doors? I’ll share from personal experience.

I have always been one of those people who worked out. I enjoyed it. Until I didn’t. I used to run—miles and miles—endless pavement pounding that started as a coping mechanism when I lost my grandmother at seventeen. I didn’t know what else to do with the pain.

Back then, there were no phones to scroll through, and counseling wasn’t something people encouraged. The message was to “get over it.” So, running became my escape and my comfort zone. I became so enamored with it that I ran two marathons, about six half marathons, and endless other races. The running went on for decades.

But it also became something else. I noticed that it made me lose weight. Growing up in the nineties and early 2000s, we were taught that the secret to being “fit” was endless cardio and as little food as possible.

The waif look was in—more heroin chic than healthy. As a former chubby teen, I found that losing weight got me attention, and in my adolescent mind, that was a win-win. I didn’t realize I was creating a mindset built on restriction, not resilience.

Fast-forward thirty years. Add multiple pregnancies, jobs, college, and all the beautiful chaos that comes with family life, and the weight doesn’t just slide off anymore. Each pregnancy left behind a few pounds that refused to budge.

Years of undereating and overtraining left my metabolism shot. The stress of work, raising kids, and managing life on our acreage didn’t help either. My body was constantly tired, hungry, and inflamed, yet I blamed myself for not working hard enough.

Then came the curveballs. A nine-month battle with histoplasmosis that made just being exhausting. Later, an ankle fracture—probably not from the horse that bucked me, but from years of undernourishment and stress on my body.

When I say “undereating,” I don’t mean too few calories. I mean poor-quality food choices—lots of carbs, not enough fat or protein. I thought that bread and diet Coke could sustain me as a young woman.

The ankle kept me sidelined for months, and the timing was right over the holidays. Think of Christmas cookies on the couch. And just when I thought I was coming back, I had a thyroidectomy last year after thyroid cancer. No wonder my body was confused and angry.

Through it all, I tried to stay active, but often, it was just going through the motions. I’d see influencers doing light weights and high reps to “tone,” and I fell into the trap. Lies. All lies.

The running that once saved me became something I dreaded. It’s hard to find joy in running when your ankle won’t bend and your body feels like it’s fighting against you. I had always been able to run off the extra pounds. That was no longer the case.

Eventually, I reached a breaking point. I decided to try something new—to actually learn. My husband had been lifting weights and eating high protein for years, and guess what? He wasn’t struggling. (Granted, he didn’t get to experience four pregnancies—lucky him.)

But it got me thinking. Maybe there was something to this whole strength thing. Maybe what I’d been missing wasn’t motivation—it was muscle. And I mean actual muscle, not pink, five-pound dumbbells.

So, I humbled myself, did the research, and realized I had to unlearn everything I thought I knew about fitness. The truth? The gym bros might actually be onto something. Lifting heavy doesn’t make you bulky. The “bulk” most of us fear is fat covering underdeveloped muscle.

Building strength builds shape, confidence, and power—not size. How did I miss this for so long? And why was I lied to for years? Or maybe just misinformed. And I’m a nurse. So, if I can’t figure it out, how do I expect my patients to understand?

Still, walking into the gym again felt awkward. Even when I knew the exercises, that little voice in my head whispered, “Maybe you don’t.” I had to tell her to hush. After a few sessions, my body remembered what it could do. But the hardest part wasn’t the workouts—it was my mindset. For thirty years, I believed I had to be smaller. Now I am learning to be stronger.

That shift was not easy. Eating to build muscle felt wrong at first. After decades of restriction, it’s hard to accept that food—real food, not diet soda and low-fat everything—is your friend. But it’s true. To gain muscle, you must fuel your body. You must trust the process and let go of the fear of the scale.

Some days I nail it, and others I fall short, but the difference now is grace. Growth takes time, and strength—real strength—is built one rep and one meal at a time. This is so frustrating when we are all promised that we can be shredded in twenty-one days. 

Now, lifting heavy things makes me feel powerful, not punished. It’s not about chasing a number on the scale or fitting into my twenty-year-old jeans. It’s about showing up for myself, proving that I can do hard things, and learning that resistance—in the gym and in life—is what truly builds strength.

I have realized that the gym is a good place. It can be a place of peace, motivation, and escape. Kind of like the running used to be. However, I am now building my body instead of tearing it down. This means that I feel better. Mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. It is all related. I am thankful I tried something different.

So be humble and realize we do not know it all. Because Arnold was right. The same resistance that tests you also transforms you. And sometimes, that transformation begins the moment you decide to pick up the weight—both literally and metaphorically—and refuse to put it down.

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About Shannon McDonald

Shannon McDonald is a Nurse Practitioner and holistic nutrition coach who helps midlife women restore energy and build strength through her "Strong + Steady" methodology. With over 20 years of nursing experience, she guides women to work with their bodies through protein optimization and progressive strength training rather than restrictive dieting. Shannon integrates clinical expertise with faith-based wellness principles from her Nebraska homestead, where she trades scrubs for muck boots between working and client sessions. Visit her at navigatingtowellness.com.

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The Moment That Brought Me Hope When Life Felt Joyless

“If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change.” ~Buddha

There are seasons when life feels stripped of joy, when hope seems far away, unreachable, or unreal. Seasons when you wake up already exhausted, and it feels like there’s nothing soft left in the world—no beauty, no connection, nothing to rest in. I’ve been living in that season lately.

I’m losing my vision to macular degeneration. I’m a caregiver for my ninety-six-year-old mother. I’m navigating disability, financial strain, and the feeling that the future is shrinking instead of widening. Most days, I move through the world numb and tired, trying to remember who I used to be.

I keep trying to find something to hold on to, but joy feels like vapor—something I can see briefly but not touch. Something other people have. Something I can’t seem to reside in.

Every Other Friday

Twice a month, I go to my eye doctor for injections that slow the loss of my vision. The waiting room is always filled with quiet tension—fearful eyes, deep breaths, people trying not to crumble. I sit and breathe, waiting for my name to be called.

And every time, without fail, there is a woman—maybe in her late fifties or early sixties—who enters already furious. Before she even sits down, she’s fighting with the receptionist.

“This is ridiculous. I’ve been waiting forever. None of you know what you’re doing!”

If someone steps too close to the counter, she lashes out:

“Don’t you dare cut in front of me!”

She screams into her phone, cursing the driver who brought her there for free. She talks loudly about how the world has abandoned her. Once, she turned to me and said:

“People like you don’t know what it’s like. You’re privileged. You don’t care.”

Everyone in the room freezes. Heads sink. Bodies tighten. The air turns sharp. It feels like all safety disappears.

Each time I witness her rage, a quiet thought echoes inside me: Is this what we’ve become? A world without empathy, without warmth, without joy?

It reminds me of what so many of us are feeling today—an overwhelming sense of isolation, fear, and disconnection. A society where people carry so much pain that anger becomes the only language they have left.

And I feel it inside myself too.

A Moment That Changed Something

But recently, something happened that shifted the way I saw everything.

A few days before one of my appointments, I was sitting with my mother. I don’t remember what we were talking about—something small, ordinary. But suddenly, we both laughed. Not a polite laugh or a small smile. A real laugh—full, surprising, alive.

I heard the joy in her voice. I saw her face light up. I felt my chest soften and my shoulders loosen. I felt a release of tension I didn’t even realize I was holding. For a few seconds, I felt a deep, fleeting happiness.

And while it was happening, I knew the moment was special. It arrived suddenly and disappeared quickly, but it was real. And it reminded me that I am still capable of joy—that my heart isn’t broken beyond repair, just tired.

Seeing Her Differently

So when I returned to the eye clinic and the angry woman erupted into the room again—shouting, cursing, accusing—something shifted.

I looked at her, and instead of feeling threatened, I saw someone drowning in pain. Someone whose suffering has nowhere to go. Someone who might not have laughed in years. Someone abandoned by a world that keeps moving without her.

Her anger wasn’t power. It was heartbreak in disguise. It was grief with no place to land.

And I realized that she is not the problem—she is the symptom.

A symptom of a society where people feel unseen, where suffering is ignored, where fear becomes louder than compassion, and where joy is treated like a luxury instead of nourishment.

Hope Is Not a Grand Emotion

I used to think hope meant a major turning point—a dramatic transformation, a clear moment of redemption. I thought joy needed to be big to matter.

Now I understand something different:

Hope is small.

Hope is brief.

Hope is quiet.

Hope is a spark, not a fire.

Hope is hearing your mother laugh.

Hope is a breath that loosens tension.

Hope is noticing a moment while it’s happening.

Hope is refusing to let pain define the story.

One Small Moment Can Save Us

The world may feel joyless at times. It may feel harsh and divided. It may feel full of anger like the woman in the waiting room. But every time someone laughs—every time someone softens—every time a moment breaks through the darkness, it proves something essential:

Life is still here. Joy is still possible. The heart still remembers.

We don’t have to wait for everything to be okay to allow something small to matter.

A Practice for When Hope Feels Gone

Close your eyes for a moment. Take a slow breath.

Remember one moment—however tiny—when you felt warmth or connection.

A laugh. A smile. A hand held. Sunlight on your face. Anything.

Hold that memory gently for five breaths. Watch what happens inside you.

That feeling is the seed of healing.

A question: When was the last time you felt even a small spark of joy?

What would happen if you let that moment matter?

My answer: I heard my mother laugh. And today, I’m choosing to let that be enough.

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About Tony Collins

Edward “Tony” Collins, EdD, MFA, is a documentary filmmaker, writer, educator, and disability advocate living with progressive vision loss from macular degeneration. His work explores presence, caregiving, resilience, and the quiet power of small moments. He is currently completing books on creative scholarship and collaborative documentary filmmaking and shares personal essays about meaning, hope, and disability on Substack. Connect: tonycollins.substack.com | iefilm.com

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The Growth That Came from Not Saying Sorry

“You are not responsible for other people’s emotional reactions.” ~Susan Forward

This morning, in our usual rush and routine heading to school, my son was looking for something, as per usual. I calmly asked what he was doing, and he snapped at me. That’s not uncommon.

I stayed regulated and grounded to help him regulate. But sometimes, that calm turns into overfunctioning.

Codependency has a way of sneaking in the back door. As someone who was once deeply codependent, I still fall into old habits—being the one who holds it together, who stays calm for others. And if they don’t stay calm, I assume I must have done something wrong. Maybe I raised my voice slightly. Maybe my tone changed. If they react, it must be my fault.

This reinforces an old belief I’ve carried for as long as I can remember: I’m to blame.

My needs go on the back burner. I become the regulator, the rock. The one who has to hold it all together. I carry that role implicitly, and I have to unlearn it—over and over again.

So when my son snapped this morning, I looked at him and said, “I’m not okay with you talking to me that way.”

He replied, “Well, your tone—I didn’t like it.”

I told him, “There was nothing wrong with my tone. It’s not okay for you to raise your voice at me because you don’t like the way you perceive a tone shift.”

He wouldn’t take responsibility. That’s normal for him when he’s in that place. I bit my tongue, got in the car, and waited while he found what he needed.

When he got in the car, he said, “I’m sorry, Mom.”

And here’s where I did something new.

In the past, I would’ve said, “I’m sorry too,” or “You didn’t do anything wrong—it was my fault,” or “Don’t worry about it.” Anything to ease the moment. Anything to absorb his guilt.

But I didn’t do that this time.

I said, “Thank you for saying that.”

Everything shifted.

There was no guilt or shame hanging in the air. Just appreciation—and a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. He looked at me and said, “Thank you for saying that to me, Mom.”

He shifted. I did too. And while it felt like a small moment, I know it wasn’t.

The night before, I had done a short brainspotting session on myself (a therapeutic approach I use in my work as a trauma therapist that helps me when something needs to move emotionally).

I only worked for about fifteen minutes, but something long overdue finally shifted.

What surfaced were memories—times I chased love and tried to earn the right to feel good or be seen as good. I thought I had to work for it. I remembered people who projected their own shame onto me and how easily I absorbed it. Hook, line, and sinker. I believed what I already suspected deep down: that I was bad.

What I was grieving wasn’t the loss of those relationships. It was the loss of myself.

I had spent years abandoning my own inner child. Years forgetting who I was—soft, kind, perceptive. I had never turned to that part of me in my earlier adult years and said, “You are the sweetest, kindest, purest soul I know.” But that night, I did, as I have done repeatedly more recently these past seven years.

And when my son raised his voice the next morning, that part of me—the one I used to abandon—was still with me.

I didn’t collapse into guilt. I didn’t question myself. I didn’t apologize for something I didn’t do.

I had stayed grounded. He had raised his voice. That was the objective reality.

In the past, I would’ve found a way to own some piece of it because my baseline belief was always “It must be my fault.” And without meaning to, I passed that belief to my kids. I modeled self-blame. I absorbed responsibility for things that weren’t mine—and they learned to expect it.

So even when they did apologize, it came with heaviness. Guilt. Shame. Because they were mirroring my nervous system.

But this morning, I didn’t offer guilt. I offered truth and appreciation.

And that gave us something new.

That new response, that small moment, is what neuroplasticity looks like in real time. The brainspotting session the night before allowed a shift inside me. The next day, I had a new choice available. I acted differently, and that action created a different outcome. One that felt easier, lighter, truer.

That’s how new neural pathways are formed—not just by thinking about change but by doing something new and feeling the difference.

My “thank you” helped create a moment of mutual presence. No one had to be the villain. No one had to fix it. Just two people, regulating together.

Sometimes healing isn’t about a big breakthrough. Sometimes it’s just one honest, grounded moment—choosing not to apologize for something you didn’t do. Saying “thank you” instead of “I’m sorry.” Staying with yourself instead of abandoning the part that’s finally feeling safe.

Those tiny and seemingly insignificant moments change us. And over time, they change everything.

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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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How to Be Sad on Vacation

“Healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.” ~Pema Chodron

I recently went on vacation with my partner, Jett. I want to tell you it was kind of a disaster, but the truth is, it was just life. I had a lot of expectations placed on this trip (I have a lot of expectations, period), and I thought my issues wouldn’t follow me to Mexico.

We left the chores and the kids and the pets behind, but we still brought ourselves. We were both currently in therapy, working through childhood trauma. It was a lot, so we were both raw and easily triggered. Throw in jet lag, misunderstandings about plans for the trip, and chronic pain for both of us (exacerbated by the teeny tiny seats we were crammed into for the entire flight), and it was not a recipe for success.

We didn’t sleep the first night. After our flight landed and we got settled in our rooms, we went to find me some CBD to treat my anxiety. Even though it doesn’t make you high, it is still cannabis, and I couldn’t bring it with me on the flight. We were in our rental car and couldn’t find parking close to the dispensary.

After ten to twenty minutes of this, my partner asked if I would be okay waiting in the car while he ran in.

My C-PTSD is related to not being kept safe as a child. My partner and I had been working on this issue because I need my safety to be a priority in my relationships in order to feel, well, safe. He tends to be more laid-back about things.

So when he asked me if I would be okay staying in the rental car alone, at night, in Mexico, where I don’t speak the language, I just stared at him in horror.

He immediately took it back, saying that it was just a stupid idea, he wouldn’t have actually left me there alone, etc. I hadn’t eaten in hours and hours. I had no CBD in my system, and that was the thing I relied upon to stay steady. It had been a long flight, and I was exhausted, so I burst into tears.

“No one, literally no one,” said part of me, “cares what happens to you.”

He apologized profusely. I continued to cry. We eventually found a parking space and got my CBD.

I didn’t sleep at all that night. My nervous system went haywire, in a state of panic that I could’ve been left to fend for myself. Anger and sadness scalded like hot pavement on bare feet.

Jett eventually fell asleep. I sat on the patio and watched the sun come up over the ocean.

The second day was hard for both of us. I sat in the private cabana Jett had reserved. As he slept off the jetlag and exhaustion, I stared out at the water. I suddenly had this feeling that I was not alone. And these pictures sprung to mind.

A nonna with her creased face, sitting on the beach, looking out at the ocean, tears traversing her face.

A devastated man staring at the waves, hunched over and defeated.

A small child sitting in the sand, with the water chilling their toes, head thrown back in a wail.

A bride, still in her white dress, looking out at grey water, feeling nothing but emptiness.

I’m not saying these people really existed. But picturing them—all the people throughout all of time, across the entire planet, who had sat crying in front of the ocean—made me feel less alone. I had this strong sense of connection that is hard to explain. It was a deep thrumming in my soul. My pain was not unique. It was universal. I got goosebumps.

The rest of the trip was beautiful. We walked along the beach, we lay by the pool, we went in the ocean, we checked out the local wildlife. We went to a cenote, and floated in the shallow pools, just the two of us. We saw fireworks and fire dancers.

The rest of the trip was challenging. We had hard conversations. I cried. He cried. Even though we had no work or chores to do, my partner still barely slept each night. We had hoped this vacation would help with his insomnia. But it didn’t.

We had ten days of beauty and struggle. We only left our tasks behind, not our problems. Our trauma came too, though it was not invited.

Life follows you. Some trips will be happy. Some will be sad. Most will be a little bit of everything.

Sitting on the beach or at the lodge with your heart bruised? Here’s what I’ve learned about how to be sad on vacation.

1. Stare out at the sea/mountains/canyon (etc.)…

…and think of all the other shattered people who have looked out at this view before you.

2. Let the weather—be it rain, sun or flurries—wash over you, filling your senses.

Do you smell flowers? Sea salt? Snow?

3. If a sad-cation was not what you had in mind, and things have gone awry, practice radical acceptance of the situation.

It is what it is. Yes, I just used that cliche. Because we can’t always change our situation, but we can usually find some way to make it more bearable. Make the vacation about something—the wildlife, the local music scene, or journaling each day of the trip. Make it about something other than the thing you wish it was, but that it isn’t.

4. Be ready for something or someone to make you laugh out loud.

Let it happen. It’s okay to feel many things at once. Laughing doesn’t mean your pain doesn’t matter.

5. Make friends.

Feeling lonely? Keep an eye out for some other travelers in similar situations and find some common ground. Vacation friendships can last a lifetime.

6. Be adventurous!

Rent jet skis, go hang-gliding, or take skiing lessons. Sometimes a little adrenaline is the best medicine. It lets us know we’re still alive.

7. Cry, scream, run—anything to get that pain out of your body.

If you’re an artist, paint or draw. If you don’t have your supplies, find somewhere to buy some. If you’re a photographer, challenge yourself to capture scenes in your own unique way.

8. Eat and sleep as well as you can.

Jet lag and low blood sugar are not a recipe for an enjoyable day. Don’t add “hanger” to your list of problems!

9. Stay present.

Wherever you are, be there fully. Thinking about the past, the future, or even what we believe should be happening in the present means we don’t get to experience what is happening right now.

10. Travelling with kids? Don’t feel you have to keep a constantly happy face.

It’s okay for kids to know that parents have feelings, especially when they get to see their parent managing those feelings in a healthy way. If there’s a kids’ club at your resort, use it! Even a couple of hours to zone out or reflect in peace can make you a more present parent when you see your kids again. Even clunking them down with a sand, pale, and shovels can give you some much-needed respite.

And if your feelings get overwhelming at times, understand that just like this vacation will pass, so will your sadness. Life will always include all of the feelings, so all we can really do is accept them all and make the best of it.

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About Aarathi Selvan

Aarathi Selvan is a Psychotherapist, Mindfulness Guide and a Contemplative Artist. She writes and teaches introspective seekers to live intentional lives over at Pause for Perspective. Take her signature free mini course Calm in Every Step at pauseforperspective.com.

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The Beauty in Brokenness: Why Your Scars Make You Worthy

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

On July 2, 2009, my life shattered with three words: “He is gone.”

I thought my friend meant my love was away on a camping trip, but no. She meant he was gone, as in forever.

My stomach knotted and my breath stopped. My body was reacting to the gravity of the truth before my mind could fully process it. The man I loved more than life itself never came back from his camping trip, and in many ways, neither did I.

My heart broke in a million pieces in a moment, and I’ve spent the last fifteen years devoted to picking myself up and putting the parts of my heart back together.

I’d studied holistic medicine, psychology, and human services, and I thought knowledge would shield me from trauma. It didn’t. For fifteen years I lived with chronic PTSD that no textbook could prepare me for.

It wasn’t until I became pregnant with my daughter that I finally took the steps to get well and become whole so I could be the mother to her that I never had. I finally had another light in my life worth fighting for.

Even as I had something new to live for, the question lingered in the back of my mind, “Who would I have been if I hadn’t been broken first?” Had the trauma already stolen too much for me to start over?

As I rebuilt my life, I couldn’t help but wonder who I would have been without that trauma. I saw other women in their twenties and thought they had their whole life ahead of them. Although I was in my thirties, I felt like I had already lost my chance, that my past had set me too far back, that I was damaged beyond repair.

How could I ever help others when I’m still not over my loss, still locked in anxiety and depression, and still learning to deal with a broken heart?  How can I help others when deep inside my heart still hurts?

It took a while, but I finally learned helping and being of service to others does not require perfection, 100% joy, or a scar-free past. It requires the courage to be authentic in each moment and to know that even when we feel broken, we still have worth.

Behind the stacks of undone to-do lists, the unfolded laundry, the clutter in my car, the overdraft fees, and the wrinkled clothes, I still had value. I was able to derive that value when I allowed myself to be vulnerable and to show the parts of myself that weren’t polished, that didn’t have the answers, and that were still stuck in confusion and still holding out faith for the healing process.

I began to wonder if maybe my imperfections and struggles weren’t detours at all but part of the path itself. Were the things I once perceived to be roadblocks and detours actually crucial lessons I needed for my path and my grand purpose?

Had it not been for the loss, the trauma, and the struggle, would I have been inclined to do the inner work? It is neither here nor there at this phase of the journey, but now I am on the other side of this healing process, and I see that no matter what we go through in life, it’s how we deal with it that makes the difference.

By not having something to consciously fight for and work for, I was unconsciously letting myself decay inside by not continuing to grow and heal. I was on shutdown mode for so long because I couldn’t process the magnitude of the life experiences I was going through.

Through conscious somatic breathwork, bodywork, yoga, and Ayurvedic restorative practices, I learned how to nurture and process the “broken,” vulnerable, healing parts. Rather than being sources of continual discomfort, shame, and secretiveness, they transformed into strength, wisdom, and parts that could connect deeper with others. Slowly, my pain stopped being something I carried and started becoming something I could transform.

I once believed “he is gone” meant my own life was over too. Now I see that loss, scars, and struggle don’t erase our value; they help to reveal it. What matters is not what leaves us but how we choose to rise with what remains.

My life forever changed, and the version of what I thought things were supposed to be and who I was supposed to be has shifted, but I have learned to take each experience and process it to take the good and release what no longer serves me.

I spent years believing my scars made me unworthy of helping others. Now I see that they are the very reason I can. We don’t lose our value in the pains that make us feel broken; we actually increase it when we find a way to keep moving forward even when life gets messy.

So ask yourself, are you hiding scars or letting them light the way for someone else? The very thing you are hiding may be the thing that helps someone else feel seen and able to move past their secret pain. 

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About Lynn Hanger

Lynn Hanger is an Ayurvedic Life Mastery Coach who helps burned-out, service-based women restore their energy, balance their hormones, and realign with their authentic self and soul purpose. After healing from years of complex health struggles, trauma, and burnout through Ayurveda, she now empowers others with the tools, education, and embodiment practices needed to heal from the root, reclaim their vitality, and build a life that feels good. Take her Discover Your Ayurvedic Burnout Type quiz here.

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Why Your Friendships Make You Feel Anxious and Overthink Everything

“Many of our relationship struggles are not character flaws but survival strategies that once made sense.” ~Unknown

Throughout my life I’ve often been described as confident and outgoing. I can be the “life and soul” of a party and am able to strike up conversations with a wide variety of people.

But what nobody would have guessed is that I secretly struggled to navigate close friendships. I used to overthink every unanswered text, I felt I needed to please to keep friends close, and I even pushed friends away because I thought they didn’t care.

What made it worse was feeling ashamed because I thought everyone else found friendships easy and I was the only one that didn’t.

I found navigating friendships so stressful that I almost gave up and tried to convince myself I didn’t need them. But deep down, I felt isolated, craved connection, and thought there was something wrong with me.

Eventually, in my early forties, I trained to be a therapist and was taught about “attachment styles.” This is when everything started to fall into place.

What Are Attachment Styles?

Attachment styles describe how we think and behave in our closest adult relationships and are shaped by our childhood experiences.

For example, if we are securely attached, we believe we’re good enough and trust that people will stick around to meet our needs because that’s what we’ve experienced from our caregivers growing up.

On the other hand, a person with insecure attachments will not feel lovable enough deep down, will feel they need to change themselves to be loved, and will always be on guard for rejection. This is normally caused by caregivers who were emotionally unavailable, critical, or unpredictable.

When I first heard this in class, we were taught that attachment styles are the blueprint for romantic relationships. Everyone in my class agreed that it helped make sense of the typical “clingy” partner or someone with “trust issues.”

I remember feeling confused and secretly thinking to myself, “But this is how I behave in friendships.”

I felt ashamed to admit it out loud, and because it wasn’t being discussed, I assumed I was the only one.

But then, when I qualified as a therapist, I heard story after story from clients who felt insecure in their platonic relationships too. The overthinking consumed them, but the worst part was feeling ashamed because friendships “should be easy” and they thought they were somehow childish for finding them stressful.

I’ve now made it my mission to raise awareness about friendship insecurity and how attachment styles can affect friendships just as much as other close relationships.

But before that, I need to finish my story. The good news is that I didn’t give up on friendship. Instead, understanding how my attachment style affected my friendships was the start of me being able to work on it, and I now have fulfilling and satisfying friendships with women who I feel safe and secure with.

If you find friendships stressful rather than satisfying and have often wondered why, here are six signs you could be insecurely attached to your friends. Being aware of this is the first step to healing.

6 Signs of Insecure Attachments in Friendships:

1. You often worry that your friends are mad at you or even secretly hate you.

A friend doesn’t answer a text or seems distant generally, so you spiral into anxious overthinking, wondering, “What have I done?!” You want to reach out but feel needy, and this makes you feel worse about yourself.

You start to doubt whether your friend even likes you anymore and keep checking your messages for reassurance. You only feel okay again when the inevitable reply comes through: “I’m so sorry I was busy.” Until next time!

2. You feel like you always need to please your friends for them to stick around.

It’s important to help our friends and be available when we can, but this does not mean prioritizing their needs over your own.

If you have an insecure attachment style, you will feel guilty for saying no and think your friends will disapprove and ditch you. This suggests your friendships are only based on what you do for people, not who you are, and that you base decisions on a fear of rejection rather than kindness.  So you say yes when you don’t want to and spiral with anxiety when you want to say no.

3. You experience strong feelings of rejection.

A friend cancels on you last minute or turns down an invitation, but instead of feeling a little disappointed, it crushes you and feels like a punch in the gut.

Nobody likes being rejected because we have a human need for acceptance. But if rejection feels deeply painful, it could be because it triggers old feelings of not being loved or being abandoned.

The thing is, this can happen whether you have been rejected or not, because your nervous system will jump to conclusions if it feels familiar. This means you feel rejected even if you haven’t been, and you may struggle to know the difference.

4. You don’t open up to friends or feel like you can’t be yourself around them.

Being insecurely attached means having a deep feeling of not being “good enough” as you are.  So you may act like you think your friends want you to (rather than being yourself) and hold back from opening up about your needs or problems.

The issue is that this creates inauthentic friendships, which are difficult to sustain long-term. You may push people away for fear of them getting to know “the real you” or find that friendships don’t deepen because you aren’t opening up or being yourself.

5. You feel jealous or have a fear of being left out. 

Feeling confident and securely attached means knowing that your friendships are strong enough not to be exclusive and that you have your own qualities to bring to a friendship. But if you feel threatened when a good friend spends time with others, worrying they prefer them over you, it’s another sign of insecure attachment.

This can also mean feeling jealous or left out if mutual friends seem particularly close (i.e., if you’re all in the same group) and feeling like friendship is a competition. You may force yourself to “keep up appearances” because you’re scared that you’ll get overlooked or forgotten about, even if it means overriding your needs.

6. You withdraw from friends instead of speaking up if you feel hurt. 

If you don’t hear from a friend on your birthday, you may feel so hurt by their actions that you withdraw. Maybe this is because you’re highly attentive to your friends’ needs and wouldn’t do that, so if they have, you assume they don’t care. But the only way you know how to deal with it is to withdraw rather than say how you feel, which then creates a vicious cycle that can harm the friendship anyway.

—

It can be useful to recognize that most people will display some of these behaviors from time to time in friendship. However, if these traits are prominent, they are likely to cause unnecessary stress, increase anxiety and overthinking, and sometimes make friendships hard to maintain.

Unfortunately, this feeds the original fears of not being good enough, and we don’t even realize we’re the ones sabotaging our platonic relationships.

The good news is that we can learn how to soothe ourselves and be more securely attached in friendships, and I’ve found mindful self-compassion particularly effective.

It helps us to increase awareness of our automatic thoughts and emotions, regulate our body and breath, and actively cultivate a kinder and wiser response to situations. For example, pausing and grounding ourselves if we have been triggered, tuning into our emotions, reminding ourselves we can’t help how we feel, and asking what we would say to someone we cared about in a similar situation.

Understanding the deeply held beliefs about ourselves and others that we bring to friendships and increasing self-worth is also vital so that we aren’t dependent on validation from others to feel good enough.

It takes time, and we may need help from a professional, but with awareness and a commitment to work on ourselves, it’s possible for anyone to build connections that bring joy instead of anxiety.

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About Rebecca Stambridge

Rebecca is a qualified therapist and mindfulness teacher offering one-on-one and group services online to help people feel more secure and confident in their work and personal life by improving their self-esteem. At the moment, she is particularly interested in helping people whose anxiety impacts on their friendships. You can access her free guide, “Break Free from Overthinking Friendships,” here. Or check out her website to work with her now.

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Breaking Free from the Constant Need to Be Better

“Enough is a decision, not a condition.” ~Unknown

The night sky above Disneyland shimmered in color as fireworks burst to life. My daughters leaned against me, sticky-fingered from melted ice cream, eyes wide with wonder. It was supposed to be the happiest place on earth.

Then Mirabel’s voice from Encanto echoed through the speakers: “I will never be good enough. Will I? No matter how hard I try.”

Something inside me broke.

Sitting cross-legged on the pavement surrounded by thousands of smiling families, I sobbed. Not a dainty, delicate tear but the kind of quiet, chest-aching cry you hope no one notices. Because I felt every word of that line to the depth of my soul. I will never be good enough. No matter how hard I try.

It wasn’t just a line from a movie; it was a mirror.

For a long time, I’d been living that sentence. Even there, amid the music and magic, my brain replayed its familiar loop: You could have done more. Planned better. Been better. I had done everything to make this trip perfect: the color-coordinated outfits, the matching Mickey ears, the surprise treats, the sparkly magic I wanted my girls to remember. But as fireworks lit up the castle, all I could see were the cracks.

If a stranger had seen me earlier that day, they would have thought we were a picture-perfect family: two happy children, a smiling mom, laughter caught in a hundred photos. But what I saw were invisible failures: the husband who stayed home so we could enjoy the trip, the work deadlines I’d missed, the credit card balance quietly growing, the school days my girls were skipping, the millions of things I could have done differently … better.

That’s been my pattern for as long as I can remember. I can turn any success into a shortcoming. I could have a beautiful day and still go to bed listing the ways I fell short.

The Job That Stole My Joy

A few months after that trip, I lost a job I hated—one that demanded everything from me and gave very little back. I worked late, missed family dinners, and convinced myself it was all temporary, that the sacrifices would make sense later.

The company bragged about “unlimited leave,” but each day off came with guilt and suspicion. I gave it everything—my time, my peace, my confidence—and when it ended, I felt hollow. I resented the job for stealing my joy, but I also blamed myself for not being able to thrive in it. I told myself I should have been tougher, smarter, better.

Even when I was free from it, I still heard its voice in my head: Not enough. Not enough. Not enough.

It’s strange how we can be both relieved and wrecked at the same time—free from something we didn’t want, yet still mourning the part of ourselves that believes we failed.

Holding Others to a Kinder Standard

The irony is, I would never hold anyone else to the standards I hold myself to.

When my daughter came home one day with a “1” on a test (our school’s version of an F) she was devastated. She cried that she was stupid, that she wasn’t good enough.

I didn’t hesitate. “Sweetheart, you were sick last week. You missed school. You did your best, and that’s all that matters. We’ll talk to your teacher and figure it out.”

I never once thought, “You should have studied harder.” I just wanted to remind her she was loved, safe, and enough.

Later that night, as I tucked her in, it hit me like a lightning bolt: I don’t talk to myself that way. If I miss a goal, make a mistake, or fall short, I don’t respond with grace. I scold, criticize, analyze, and push harder. I’d never speak to my child that way, so why do I speak to myself that way?

That realization stayed with me. It sat quietly in my chest for weeks, whispering every time I said, “I should have” or “I could have.”

The Mirror Moment

That was my real turning point—a bedtime realization whispered in the dark. If I wanted my daughter to grow up believing she was enough, I needed to show her what that looked like. Kids learn from what we model, not just what we say.

So I started asking myself a new question: What if my best really was enough?

Not perfect. Not world-changing. Just enough.

At first, I said it through gritted teeth, like an affirmation I didn’t quite believe. But over time, those words softened into something closer to truth.

Redefining “My Best”

For most of my life, “my best” was a moving target. It meant giving everything I had until I was empty… and then finding more to give. It meant equating outcome with worth: if the results weren’t amazing, the effort didn’t count.

But I’m learning that “my best” changes every day. Some days, my best is productivity and creativity. Other days, it’s showing up tired and still trying. And sometimes, my best is resting—choosing not to push when my body and heart need to heal.

Doing my best isn’t about checking every box. It’s about showing up with love and integrity, even when the outcome isn’t perfect.

It’s about whispering to myself, You did what you could today. That’s enough.

The Lessons I’m Still Learning

I wish I could say I’ve mastered this—that I never fall into the old trap of comparison or self-criticism. But self-kindness, like any form of growth, takes practice.

Here’s what helps me when I start to forget:

1. I talk to myself like I talk to my daughters.

When that voice in my head starts listing my shortcomings, I imagine saying those words to them. Instantly, my inner tone softens. I swap “You failed again” for “You tried so hard, and I’m proud of you.” It’s not about letting myself off the hook—it’s about letting myself be human.

2. I look for evidence of effort, not perfection.

Some days, my “proof” is a clean kitchen or a finished project. Other days, it’s the fact that I kept everyone fed and loved. Either way, effort counts. It all matters, even if no one else sees it.

3. I measure progress, not performance.

I remind myself that healing isn’t linear and growth isn’t graded. The goal isn’t to win every day; it’s to keep moving forward with compassion. Some seasons, forward might be inches. Others, miles. Both count.

4. I practice gratitude over guilt.

When my mind replays regrets, I pause and thank myself for trying. Gratitude and guilt can’t share the same breath, and choosing gratitude quiets the noise.

And on the hardest days, I add a fifth quiet mantra: You are learning. You are allowed to be learning.

Choosing Enough

Some days, I still catch myself thinking about the job I lost or the trip I could have planned better or the dinner I burned because I was distracted helping with homework. I still hear the whisper: Not enough.

But then I look at my daughters—at their laughter, their curiosity, their unconditional love—and I remember what’s true: they don’t need a perfect mom. They need a present one.

They need to see a woman who fails sometimes and keeps going. A woman who apologizes, laughs at herself, and tries again. A woman who believes that doing her best—even when it’s messy, even when it’s not much—is enough.

Because enough isn’t a finish line. It’s a choice we make, every day, to love ourselves as we are and trust that effort counts for something.

The next time Mirabel’s voice echoes through those fireworks, maybe I’ll hear it differently. I hope I’ll smile. I hope I’ll squeeze my girls’ hands and think, “We are good enough. We always were. And tomorrow, we’ll keep trying.”

And maybe, just maybe, that’s what “enough” really means.

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About Ashleigh Spurgeon

Ashleigh Spurgeon is a writer, mom, and creative learning to let go of perfection and embrace grace in everyday life. She shares reflections on motherhood, creativity, and finding beauty in small moments at @elliesparkscreative

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What Losing My Faith Taught Me About Being Truly Alive

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

I grew up as the fifth of seven children in a strict religious family where faith shaped everything. From an early age, I learned to follow the rules, perform to be seen, keep the peace, and be good.

My religious upbringing taught me to give my power away. The church held the answers, the authority, and even forgiveness itself. I learned to seek approval from outside sources instead of developing a relationship with my own inner truth. It disconnected me from the very part of me that was meant to guide my life.

For years, I believed goodness was about compliance, not compassion. I was told that being good meant obedience, not connection or genuine concern for others. It kept me disconnected from my own body, my intuition, and my desire to experience life itself as something sacred.

When I began to question that, it was not rebellion. It was the beginning of taking responsibility for my own relationship with myself and my truth.

For a long time, I did what was expected. I was very involved in church and attended regularly, married young, and had a baby. I built a life that looked exactly like it should.

After my divorce in 2013, most of what I had been taught to trust began to unravel. I had (naively) assumed my family would be a source of comfort, but what I found instead was distance. The disapproval came in small but unmistakable ways. It showed me how fragile some of my relationships really were and how easily love could be withdrawn when I stopped fitting the mold.

For the first time, I began to see how deeply religion had shaped the way love was given and withheld.

I kept trying to make it work, like really tried, convincing myself I could still belong if I followed the rules and stayed small. But pretending only made me feel further from myself.

Then, in 2018, everything totally unraveled. A painful conflict within my family led to a level of rejection I could never have imagined. People I loved most turned away from me and my daughter. What I thought would be the place I could lean on became the place that hurt the most. The loss was total.

In the months that followed, I fell into a level of grief and despair I had never known. Days blurred together, and I moved through them feeling only numbness. It was as if color had drained from the world. I was not just sad. I was gone.

I did not know it then, but I was in what some might call a dark night of the soul, and mine lasted for the better part of seven years.

It was depression, yes, but it was also something deeper. I was not just emotionally unwell. I was spiritually unwell. The faith that once gave me meaning no longer worked, and I had nothing real to replace it with. I was lost inside a life that looked objectively fine from the outside but felt hollow at the core.

This is why our spiritual health matters. Spiritual wellness has little to do with religion or anything “woo.” It is about a deep connection to yourself, to others, and to the greater world around you. It is what gives life depth and coherence. When that connection is strong, you feel anchored and alive.

When we lose connection to meaning, we lose connection to ourselves. We start to live from the outside in, measuring worth by output and identity by what others reflect back. Life becomes something to manage rather than something to experience.

For a long time, I kept trying to fix myself the way I had been taught—pray harder, achieve more, be grateful, push through. But that only led me further away from myself. I realized it was mostly performative.

Eventually, survival required surrendering. I stopped trying to get back to who I had been and started asking who I was now. I pulled every lever I could reach—therapy, yoga, journaling, meditation, long walks, finding community, and even psychedelics. None of them were magic, but together they were medicine. Slowly, I began to build a spirituality that was mine.

I learned that I could still believe in something greater without needing someone else to define it for me. I could find reverence in the ordinary, in the breath, the body, and the kindness of strangers. I did not need a church to feel close to something sacred.

That realization did not come with fireworks. It came through small moments: cooking dinner for my daughter, breathing through anxiety, and allowing grief to move through me. Each moment of honesty stitched me back together.

Over time, I came to understand that connection is not something you find once and keep forever. It is something you return to again and again. Some days I still forget, and that is okay. Remembering is part of the practice.

Aliveness is not about chasing a spiritual high or waiting for life to line up perfectly. It is the decision to participate, even when things are uncertain. It grows through honesty, through presence, and through the willingness to be shaped by what is real. That is the work of connection, and it is the work of being human.

Why This Matters

When we lose connection, we lose direction. Without a sense of meaning, it is easy to slip into a version of life that looks fine but feels empty. We move faster, achieve more, and still feel like something is missing.

Reconnection changes that. It restores depth to experience and turns ordinary moments into opportunities for truth and awareness. It reminds us that we are not here to perfect life but to live it, to feel it, to engage with it, and to learn from it.

The world does not need more people performing wellness or chasing enlightenment. It needs people who are awake to their own lives and who bring meaning back into the everyday. People who show up honestly for themselves, for their friends and families, and in service to their community.

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About Katie Krier

Katie Krier is a spiritual wellness coach and longtime yoga teacher who helps people redefine spirituality for themselves after religion or faith transition. She guides them in rebuilding a grounded, non-religious spirituality that feels real and personal, inviting them to discover that deep connection and a framework for a meaningful life are possible without guilt, shame, or pressure to believe the “right” way. Connect with her at katiemkrier.com or on Instagram @katiemkrier

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Trauma, Darkness, and the Powerful Therapy That’s Helping Me Heal

Trigger Warning: This piece contains references to childhood trauma, depression, and suicidal thoughts. Please take care of yourself as you read, and step away if you need to. If you are struggling, you are not alone — support is available through trusted loved ones, a therapist, or resources like the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (in the U.S.).

Hello, darkness, my old friend.

I can’t push you away—because if I do, you only grow stronger. So I’m learning to let you be here. You settle in my chest like a hollow weight, speaking not in words but in pressure.

At two years old, I could already feel my grandmother’s sadness. She didn’t believe anyone really loved her. I absorbed it for her.

At three, I sat in front of my mother while tears welled in her eyes. A lump rose in my own throat as I told her, “Don’t cry, Mommy. It’s okay.” She needed comfort, so I gave it. I did the best I could.

At four, I can still see myself on the porch, singing a song of longing for my mother, hoping she would come get me. I hadn’t seen her for two years. I had been kidnapped back and forth between my parents—not because of custody battles (my mom never had the money to fight), but because that was the reality of the seventies, when parental abductions, divorces, and conflict between parents were far too common.

My mom was a domestic violence survivor, scarred and traumatized. Her depression deepened over time. All I knew was that I missed her. So I sang.

At twelve, I stood in front of my best friend’s casket—her hands folded, a bruise on one. From then on, the feeling never really left. It would shrink sometimes, but it always lived somewhere in the background.

At fifteen, I shoplifted a pair of floral shorts because my mom couldn’t afford the things that made me fit in. I stared at myself in a mirror lit like a stage: green eyes, smiling on the outside, aching on the inside. I was waiting for my first love to pick me up. Even then I could feel it.

At twenty-two, just before Christmas, I had nowhere to go. I lived in a one-bedroom apartment by myself, just trying to get through the last semester of college. My mom was back in the hospital—the depression that had deepened over the years had become a more permanent fixture. Now I know it was bipolar disorder, sometimes followed by psychosis. I held the sadness silently. No one really knew how much I was hurting.

I went to the kitchen cabinet and grabbed a bottle of household chemicals. I almost did it. I really almost did. Then I didn’t. Maybe I couldn’t let go of hope entirely. Maybe some stubborn strand inside me decided there would be another day.

Instead, I pet my cat and cried. I opened a little book of scripture my aunt had given me and whispered a prayer. My cat purred beside me. I was grateful for his company.

When the darkness returns, it doesn’t always come as me. Sometimes I’m inside the memory, reliving it. Sometimes I’m watching from above, seeing a girl I used to be, hurting quietly.

Darkness, I hear you. I know you’re here because you need to be seen. I can hold you. I can love you. I’m getting better at this.

What follows isn’t a conclusion I arrived at all at once, but an understanding that emerged gradually through my body.

The memories I’ve shared, though not linear, all surfaced in one Brainspotting session.

Brainspotting is, at its core, a deep, focused form of mindfulness: using the eyes to find a spot in the visual field that connects with the body’s felt sense, allowing the subconscious to release what words alone cannot reach.

I first learned about it as a therapist, trying to do my own healing while also searching for what worked with clients who were much like me.

Over the years, I’ve had hundreds of sessions—sometimes on my own, sometimes with my therapist. Each one takes me deeper into myself, my own story, my own inner knowing. My body shows me what my mind can’t access—old grief, stored memories, and the protective patterns I built as a child.

Facing these truths has changed my life in drastic ways. Each session deepens my self-compassion, strengthens my capacity to sit with hard feelings instead of dissociating, and expands my understanding of how trauma lives in the nervous system.

The wisdom isn’t tidy or instant; it’s an ongoing process of seeing the little girl and young woman I once was with gentleness—reclaiming my voice and agency in the present and learning to make choices from the adult me rather than the child me.

One night, while out of town, the ache returned. I had been away from a relationship I was in at the time after a long day. The abandonment wound rose in my chest—not because anything was overtly wrong, but because distance and quiet pressed against something familiar. At other times, space hadn’t been a problem. But that night, something in my subconscious was ready to surface, and I felt it before I could fully understand it.

I went into the bedroom where I was staying, sat down, and found a spot.

Images began flashing—moments of grief, loneliness, and survival my body had been holding for decades. As they moved through me, my chest softened. What had been tight and wordless began to organize itself, allowing my nervous system to release what it was ready to release.

By the next morning, the ache felt different—no longer overwhelming but something I could hold with more space and less fear. I understood more clearly where this pain had roots, even as I stayed curious about how the present moment interacted with the past.

What Brainspotting gave me wasn’t a simple answer—it gave me capacity. Capacity to stay present with sensation, to listen instead of panic, and to remain anchored in myself while navigating intimacy and uncertainty.

Healing doesn’t come from fighting the mud. Pain is wisdom wrapped in mud: messy, heavy, but also the ground from which the lotus rises—when the right conditions allow it.

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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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The Power of Writing for Healing: An Embodied Approach

FREE Live 90-minute Write to Heal class and 20-page guide with prompts, recordings and more to support your healing journey. 

When I was studying writing in college, my personal essay class was my favorite. I’d already been journaling for almost a decade, so I understood the power of exploring life experiences through the written word.

Journaling wasn’t immediately helpful for me. In my younger years, I often wrote to ruminate, beat myself up, count calories, or otherwise reinforce patterns that didn’t support me. But as I worked through childhood trauma in therapy and through other approaches, my writing gradually became healthier.

Instead of dwelling on the negative or obsessively analyzing myself, I began challenging my perceptions, reflecting on what I was learning, noticing patterns, and tracking my growth. Over time, this helped change how I saw myself—and allowed me to rewrite the story I was living.

This is why I’m drawn to writing programs that go beyond journaling alone. Writing can be powerful, but many of us need guidance and structure for it to actually support meaningful change.

If you’d like to explore a more guided approach to writing, I highly recommend this free offering from Tiny Buddha contributor Nadia Colburn. Her free 90-minute Write to Heal class focuses on guided, body-aware writing practices designed to help people relate to their experiences differently rather than simply writing them out.

It’s a facilitated approach meant to help you slow down, stay grounded, and work with your inner experience in a way that feels supportive rather than overwhelming.

In her upcoming class, she’ll share:

• Scientifically proven benefits of writing to heal
• What kinds of writing heals and what kinds of writing don’t heal
• The mistakes most people make in the healing process, and how to avoid them
• What embodied writing is and how to practice it
• Insights from her own healing journey and her experience working with writing as a tool for healing with clients for over past ten years

You’ll come away with:

• practices to bring together mind and body
• a new understanding of what it means to know your story
• ways to avoid being retriggered in the writing and healing process
• new methods to uplift and support you
• a deeper, more supportive relationship to your story
• greater energy
• tools to improve your immune system, mood, sleep, and more

In this 90-minute interactive class, you’ll also have a chance to ask question and will receive a 20-page guide with lessons, prompts, practices, and recordings to work with on your own schedule.

With two date to choose from, you can pick the time that works best for you: 

Thursday January 15th at 3pm ET/ 12pm PT/ 8pm UK

Friday January 16th at 12pm ET/ 9am PT/ 5pm UK

Can’t make it live? Sign up for FREE to get the guide and recording.

About Nadia: PhD; RYT 200. 

Nadia is the author of two award-winning poetry books and has published essays and memoir writing in more than 80 publications, including The New Yorker, Slate, Lion’s Roar, and The Harvard Review. She holds a PhD in English, taught at MIT, and later left academia to found the Nadia Colburn Online Writing School, where she teaches writing using a holistic, trauma-aware approach.

Her work is shaped not only by years of teaching, but by her own healing journey. In moving out of chronic illness and childhood trauma, Nadia explored many paths—talk therapy, EMDR, somatic therapy, meditation, and other healing traditions.

For a long time, writing wasn’t transformative for her. Like many people, she journaled and found that while it helped her feel less alone, it didn’t necessarily lead to change. That shifted when she began integrating writing with embodied practices and other forms of healing.

In her time teaching writing, she’s helped thousands of students step more fully into their creative voices while using writing as a grounded tool for self-understanding and integration—not as a quick fix, but as a practice that can support real, lasting change.

I’m a huge fan of Nadia’s work, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to share this wonderful free resource with you.

If you’d like to reserve your free spot, you can sign up here. I hope it helps you unlock a deep level of healing and create meaningful change in your life!

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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 Question That Helped Me Reclaim My Time and Energy

“You can’t add more to your life until you first let go of what weighs you down.” ~Unknown

I used to think being busy meant being successful. My days were a blur of meetings, notifications, and commitments. My calendar looked impressive, but at night I lay awake wondering why I felt so exhausted and strangely unfulfilled.

One rainy Tuesday, stuck in traffic between two appointments I didn’t really want to attend, it hit me: I wasn’t living my life. I was managing it. I’d filled my days with activity, but not necessarily with value. That moment of realization started a slow but profound shift. I began asking myself a simple question: Does this bring me value?

This is how I learned to spot the waste in my life—the habits, obligations, and even thought patterns that consumed my time and energy but gave nothing back. By identifying and letting go of these, I created space for what truly mattered.

When Busyness Became My Default

Looking back, I see that my busyness was rooted in fear. Fear of missing out. Fear of disappointing people. Fear of slowing down long enough to feel my own emotions. So I said yes to every project, every invitation, every “opportunity.”

At first, it felt good. I felt needed and important. But slowly, my days began to feel like an endless loop of obligations. Even small joys—hobbies, social events—turned into chores when I crammed them between other tasks.

I started to dread my own life.

The Question That Changed Everything

That day in traffic, something inside me asked, “If this were the last year of your life, is this how you’d want to spend it?” My honest answer was no.

So I tried a small experiment. For one week, before saying yes to anything, I paused and asked, “Does this bring me value?” Not “Will this impress someone?” Not “Will this make me money?” Just “Does this nourish me in some way?”

It was harder than I expected. Sometimes the answer was unclear. Sometimes it meant saying no to people I cared about. But slowly, a pattern emerged.

Finding What Brings You Value

I realized I didn’t actually know what “value” meant for me. I’d been measuring it by other people’s expectations. So I sat down with a blank page and drew a line down the middle.

On the left, I listed everything from the past week that had made me feel alive, purposeful, or at peace. On the right, I listed everything that had left me depleted, resentful, or numb.

The results surprised me. Deep conversations with loved ones, time in nature, and writing all went on the left. Endless scrolling, reactive email, and overcommitted evenings filled the right column.

It wasn’t a perfect list, but it was a start. For the first time, I could see—in black and white—what actually nourished me and what drained me.

You can try this too. It’s a simple but powerful exercise. And it becomes even more useful when you revisit it regularly, because what brings value can shift as your life changes.

Spotting Life’s Waste

In manufacturing, waste is anything that uses resources without creating value. In life, waste can be less obvious but just as costly.

Some of my “silent wastes” included:

Multitasking. I thought it made me efficient, but it actually left me more tired and less effective.

Automatic yeses. I accepted every invitation out of habit, even when my body begged for rest.

Endless mental loops. Worrying about things I couldn’t control burned energy I could have used to create something meaningful.

You might have different wastes—relationships that drain you, purchases that bring no lasting joy, or habits that numb rather than nurture. The key is to notice how you feel before, during, and after an activity. Do you feel lighter or heavier? Energized or dulled? That’s your signal.

Letting Go Gently

I didn’t overhaul my life overnight. In fact, trying to cut everything at once can be overwhelming. Instead, I began with small, gentle cuts.

I said no to one low-value commitment each week. I set a time boundary on my most draining habit (for me, it was social media). I replaced one draining activity with something from my “value” list.

For example, I replaced my evening doomscrolling with a short walk outside. That tiny swap improved my sleep and mood more than I expected.

These small experiments built confidence. Each gentle cut made room for more of what mattered. Over time, my calendar felt less like a cage and more like a garden I could tend.

One of the first times I had to apply this to a bigger life/social decision was getting invited out for a beer after work with a group of colleagues I hadn’t talked with in a while. I had made a choice to prioritize time with my daughter, and going would have meant sacrificing my “bath and bedtime” with her and putting that work on my partner.

I was also worried that if I didn’t go, I would be letting my friends down, and they would think less of me. I had to ultimately choose whether I wanted time for myself and friends or time with my daughter, and the ultimate winner was being a better father.

Rather than just telling my colleagues “no” and leaving it at that, I told them why I was saying no and that I would be interested the next time. By telling them why, I was able to communicate my priorities and decision-making process.

I decided that if they had issues with that, I wouldn’t waste my energy on it, because true friends would be empathetic or understanding about my priorities.

Creating a “Lean Life” System

Once I started trimming the waste, I wanted to make sure I didn’t slip back into old habits. So I built a simple weekly ritual:

Each Sunday, I reflect on the past week. What felt valuable? What felt like a waste? Then I choose one small adjustment for the coming week.

It’s not a rigid system. It’s more like a conversation with myself—a chance to realign. And because it’s simple, I actually do it.

Over time, this practice has changed me. I notice waste more quickly now. I’m slower to say yes out of obligation. My days feel calmer and more intentional.

The Freedom of Less

The most surprising part of this journey wasn’t what I lost but what I gained. By cutting the waste, I found time I didn’t know I had. My relationships deepened. My work became more focused and rewarding. I felt more present in my own life.

I’m still learning. Some weeks my “value audit” reveals uncomfortable truths. But each small shift brings me closer to a life that feels like mine.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed or disconnected, I invite you to try this experiment:

For one week, notice what energizes you and what drains you.

Make one gentle cut.

Replace it with something you love.

It’s a humble practice, but it’s powerful. This is how a lean life begins—not with a grand overhaul, but with a single conscious choice.

Closing Thoughts

You can’t live a meaningful life on autopilot. It takes courage to pause, to question, and to let go. But the reward is spaciousness—room to breathe, to grow, to savor.

When you identify and release the waste, you don’t just free up time. You free yourself.

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About Mike Murray

Mike Murray is the author of Lean Life: How to Maximize Time, Minimize Waste, and Enjoy More. He has twelve years of experience in manufacturing and working to find value and reduce waste in businesses. He writes about simple ways to create space for what matters most. Learn more at mybook.to/leanlifebook.

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