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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How I Found Peace When Everything Suddenly Felt Out of My Control

“That which does not kill us makes us stronger.” ~Friedrich Nietzsche

I was twenty-five weeks pregnant when I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Still working, still showing up, still dreaming of a gentle homebirth.

We had an event at work that day, and I had to walk to it. I remember feeling so out of breath that I had to stop every few steps. Walking upstairs became impossible without pausing. Something wasn’t right.

I’d also noticed I was losing weight, especially in my face. My cheeks had sunken in. Not exactly the glowing pregnancy look I’d envisioned. More “heroin chic” than “earth goddess.”

Until that point, I’d had what many would call a healthy pregnancy. I was eating well, walking, and reading all the Ina May books, picturing the beautiful, candlelit birth I was planning at home.

That dream came crashing down the day my husband looked at me and said, “You need to go to the doctor’s. You look like death.”

The Moment Everything Changed

I thought it was something minor—maybe my lungs, a chest infection? I popped into the clinic with a sample pot of urine (standard pregnancy accessory in the UK), and after the doctor tested it, everything happened fast.

She left the room, brought in a more senior doctor, and asked me to lie down on the exam table.

Ten minutes later, I was in an ambulance, sirens on, racing to the hospital.

I remember being more concerned about my parked car and the ticket I was going to get than what was happening to me.

In A&E, they started saying the word “diabetes.”

I had no idea what that even meant.

A doctor there finally told me I was hours away from slipping into a coma. My blood sugar was dangerously high.

It wasn’t gestational. It was a full-blown autoimmune condition. And it was terrifying.

I spent the next seven days in the hospital learning to inject insulin, scan my blood sugar, count every gram of carbohydrate, and try not to cry while hearing that my pregnancy was now “high risk.”

When I told one midwife that I still wanted a homebirth, she laughed in my face.

I cried for two weeks straight. Every night when the lights would go out, I was there bawling my eyes out, mourning the life I once had.

The Weight of Numbers

Pregnancy is often painted as this beautiful, glowing experience. But with type 1 diabetes, it becomes data-driven.

Everything was measured. Fasting sugars. Post-meal targets. Daily insulin. Growth scans. HbA1c. Carb counts. Basal rates. Corrections—extra insulin to fix everything number that went wrong.

I was terrified of doing something wrong. Eating too much. Not moving enough. Spiking after a bowl of oats.

It felt like my body had become a science project for others to monitor. Each appointment felt like an exam I was failing. I felt betrayed by my own body, and worse, as if I was betraying my baby.

Despite doing everything I could, the pressure to get it all “perfect” was relentless.

The Turning Point: Surrender, Not Control

One afternoon after a tough appointment, I sat in my car and cried. I’d just been told the obstetrician would be deciding when they would deliver my baby.

Not if. Not how. When.

I remember whispering, “This is my body. This is my baby.”

That was the shift.

I realized I didn’t want to fight anymore, not with doctors, or numbers, or even myself.

I wanted to surrender. Not passively. But consciously. Intentionally.

I hired private midwives who trusted my body. I doubled down on preparation. I learned to manage my blood sugars calmly. I started practicing hypnobirthing, something I’d once dismissed as “too woo-woo,” and it brought me home to myself.

I began listening to relaxation tracks. I visualized my baby surrounded by love and safety. I whispered affirmations I didn’t believe at first:

“I am doing enough.”
“My baby and I are working together.”
“I can handle this moment.”

Eventually, I believed them.

Calm in the Chaos

Surrender didn’t mean giving up. It meant tuning in.

I still counted carbs. Still injected insulin. But I stopped obsessing. I gave myself permission to rest. To feel joy. To actually enjoy parts of my pregnancy again.

I also realized something heartbreaking: there was no one supporting mums like me.

Not the endocrinologists. Not the obstetricians. Not even the specialist diabetes nurses. They knew the data, but they didn’t know the life.

They didn’t know what it was to grow a baby while chasing perfect blood sugars. No lived experience. Just leaflets.

I realized I was becoming the expert of my own experience. I was learning how to tame a wild stallion, and that stallion was my blood sugar.

What I Learned About Strength

We think of strength as grit. Powering through. Staying in control.

But type 1 taught me a different kind of strength, one that’s quieter. Softer. Still fierce. One that involved acceptance and surrender.

At first, I was angry. But as I learned to live with this new way of being, I began to find joy in it. Testing new foods. Watching trends. Experimenting with walks and insulin and “sugar squats” (quick sets of squats I’d do during a blood sugar high to help bring it down naturally.)

I learned that sometimes, strength means:

• Eating the thing you know will spike your sugars because your body is begging for it and then walking it off without shame.
• Letting go of the birth you planned and embracing the one that’s unfolding.
• Doubling down on your dream, even when medics dismiss it.
• And sometimes, letting go of that dream entirely and finding power in the birth you never expected.

Both My Babies, Both My Births

With my daughter, I held on to my homebirth plan. I went in for daily checks. I resisted induction. My midwives were ready. My husband filled the pool. Labor started. It was beautiful.

Until it wasn’t.

After many hours of pushing, we transferred to the hospital. I gave birth on my back, legs in stirrups, the opposite of what I imagined.

But I still felt powerful. Because I chose it. Because I stayed connected to myself.

With my second baby, he came early. Too early for our midwives to attend at home. At thirty-six weeks, I walked into the hospital and roared my son into the world.

He was healthy. I was healthy.

And I was strong, just not in the way I originally thought I needed to be.

A Message for Anyone Facing the Unexpected

This isn’t just about pregnancy. It’s about life taking a turn you didn’t choose.

A diagnosis. A shift. A loss. A plan to follow that’s no longer yours.

Here’s what I’ve learned, and what I hope you take away from this:

You have not failed.

You are adapting in real time, and that is a form of brilliance.

There is no “right” way to get through a hard season. It’s more about finding your way, day to day, and trusting it’s enough, even when it’s messy.

Let go of the guilt. Let go of perfection. Find pockets of stillness. Speak kindly to yourself.

And remember it’s still possible to enjoy parts of your life, even when it looks nothing like you imagined.

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About Aby Antochow

Aby Antochow is a hypnobirthing coach living with type 1 diabetes who supports pregnant women with chronic conditions to feel calm, confident, and in control. Diagnosed at twenty-five weeks pregnant, she’s now on a mission to help others find peace in the chaos. Visit thehypnobirthing.com to download her free Relaxation for Pregnancy with Diabetes audio. You can also join her Type 1 Pregnancy Circle on Facebook or follow on Instagram @hypnobirthing_aby

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What I Learned About Love and Worth When Money Was Gone

“The greatest discovery of all time is that a person can change his future by merely changing his attitude.” ~Oprah Winfrey

The fluorescent lights of the grocery store hummed, a cruel counterpoint to the silence in my head. I watched the cashier scan the items, the familiar beep-boop-beep of the register a countdown to my humiliation.

Pasta, milk, a loaf of bread, eggs—each item was a tiny weight on a scale, and I knew the final tally would tip it into the red.

“I’m sorry,” the cashier said, her voice a soft, sympathetic murmur as she removed the items one by one. I nodded, my throat tight, and watched as my cart grew emptier, mirroring the hole in my stomach. The ride home was a suffocating silence, each mile marking the distance that had grown between me and my husband.

This wasn’t a one-off embarrassment. It was the crushing peak of months of mounting financial stress. Every bill, every unexpected expense, felt like a personal failure. The pressure had created an unspoken tension in our marriage, a wall of silence where there used to be easy conversation.

The feeling of being a failure followed me everywhere, a heavy shadow that I couldn’t outrun.

I remember a particularly cold Tuesday evening, sitting across the dinner table from my husband. The week had been hard, and the car’s check engine light had just come on. We ate in a tense quiet, but then I looked up and saw it—the flash of pure exhaustion and worry on his face.

He quickly looked down, pretending to be focused on his plate, but the damage was done. In that instant, I felt the deepest shame. I wasn’t just failing myself; I was failing him. The emotional cost of our situation was far greater than any dollar amount. It was costing us our connection.

The Thought in the Dark (The Turning Point)

Dinner was a quiet affair, just the clink of silverware and the unspoken resentment hanging in the air. Afterwards, I sat alone in the dim light of the living room, the weight of the day pressing down on me. I felt a total, profound hopelessness, as if I had failed at the most basic responsibility of adulthood: providing.

Then, a single thought broke through the despair: What if my worth isn’t in my wallet? It was a simple question, but it hit me like a revelation.

For so long, I had equated my value as a husband and a human being with the number in my bank account. When that number was zero, my worth felt like it was too. But what if I was wrong? What if my worth was something that couldn’t be measured in dollars and cents? This one thought began to shift my entire perspective from focusing on what I lacked to what I still had.

How I Started to Rebuild

I didn’t suddenly get a new, high-paying job. The financial problems didn’t magically disappear. Instead, I started a different kind of work—the inner work of rebuilding my self-worth. Here are three things I did that you can do too.

Tip 1: Redefine your role from provider to partner.

I realized my husband didn’t need a provider; he needed a partner.

I started providing in non-financial ways. I made his favorite meal when he had a stressful day. I listened to his fears without trying to fix them. I made sure our home was a peaceful, clean sanctuary, a place where we could both breathe. These small acts of service and emotional support didn’t cost a dime, but they filled our relationship with a new kind of wealth.

The first test came a few days later.

My husband came home, his shoulders slumped from exhaustion after a long day of job searching. The old me would have retreated into silence, afraid of saying the wrong thing. Instead, I walked over, handed him a cup of tea, and just said, “You look like you’ve had a day.”

That was it. But the look of relief on his face was worth more than any paycheck. It was the moment he realized I was no longer a silent judge but a teammate in the trenches.

Tip 2: Have the conversation about fear, not just bills.

Instead of saying, “We can’t afford that,” which felt like a judgment on both of us, I learned to say, “I feel scared when we spend money right now.”

This simple shift from accusation to vulnerability changed everything. It invited my husband to share his own fears, and together, we started to see each other not as sources of stress but as allies in a shared struggle.

That first “scared conversation” was terrifying. I remember my hands shaking as I approached him after we got yet another overdue notice. I took a deep breath, and, instead of talking about the bill itself, I just said, “I’m so scared right now.”

The vulnerability was difficult, but the result was incredible. My husband looked at me, his own face softening, and said, “I am too.” That single admission of shared fear broke the dam of unspoken tension that had been building between us for months. It felt like we were finally standing on the same side of a canyon, instead of shouting across it.

Tip 3: Create a daily log of your non-financial value.

I started a “Proof of Worth” list. Every day, I would physically write down evidence that I was a valuable human being beyond my income. Things like “Made my husband laugh,” “Fixed a broken faucet,” and “Helped a stranger carry their groceries.”

This simple practice forced me to see the good I was doing in the world, one small act at a time. It became a powerful daily reminder that my worth was inherent, not earned.

The first day I did it, I felt ridiculous. I wrote down, “Cleaned the kitchen” and “Remembered to water the plants,” feeling like I was just listing chores. But by day ten, the entries were more meaningful: “Gave my husband a back rub without being asked,” “Listened to my brother’s problems without offering advice,” “Didn’t get angry in traffic.”

By day thirty, I was looking for these moments. This small act didn’t just document my value; it started to rewire my brain. I was no longer a person defined by a number but a person defined by my actions. This little list was proof that I was a good human being, regardless of my circumstances.

Rich in a Different Way

The money problems aren’t completely gone. We still have to budget carefully and sometimes make difficult choices. But the emotional atmosphere in our home has changed completely. We are no longer two stressed individuals living parallel lives; we are a team, facing our challenges side by side. We have learned that we are more than the sum of our assets and liabilities.

A few weeks ago, the washing machine broke. In the past, this would have been a financial crisis—a silent, resentful burden. This time, we looked at each other, and my husband said, “Okay, we’ll figure it out together.”

We went online, researched repair options, and decided to try to fix it ourselves with a YouTube tutorial. It was a messy, frustrating hour, but we were laughing and problem-solving together. That’s our new normal.

You are not your bank balance. You are not your debt. Your true worth is measured in your kindness, your effort, and your courage. Start there, and you will find you are richer than you ever imagined.

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About Badmus Dayo

Badmus Dayo is a writer and home cook who believes that our true value is found in the love we share and the care we provide. He writes about rebuilding a rich life from the inside out and shares comforting recipes at his website, kobokitchen.com.ng.

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Finding Peace When You Don’t Know What Comes Next

“Sometimes letting things go is an act of far greater power than defending or hanging on.” ~Eckhart Tolle

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been the kind of person who plans everything.

My calendar was color-coded, my to-do lists perfectly alphabetized, and I could tell you what I’d be doing six months from now almost down to the hour.

I thought control meant safety. If I could organize my world tightly enough, maybe nothing bad would happen.

For a long time, that illusion worked. I graduated near the top of my class, got a good job, and built a life that looked stable on the outside. Inside, though, I was wound tight. I woke up with tension in my chest most mornings, and my brain rarely stopped spinning. What if I missed something? What if I made the wrong choice?

I told myself that once everything settled—once I achieved enough, earned enough, planned enough—then I’d finally relax. Of course, that day never came.

The Year Everything Fell Apart

Then came the year when everything I’d carefully constructed began to crumble.

It started with my relationship. After three years together, my partner sat me down one evening and said the words no one ever wants to hear: “I don’t think we’re right for each other anymore.”

I remember nodding calmly, trying to sound reasonable, even while my stomach churned. After he left, I spent the night staring at the ceiling, replaying every moment, trying to find the exact point where I could have changed the outcome.

A month later, the company I worked for announced a round of layoffs. My department was “restructured.” I had two weeks to pack up my desk.

Losing both my relationship and job in the same season felt like freefall. I’d built my life around control—around keeping everything secure—and now there was nothing left to hold onto.

I told myself I’d bounce back quickly. I made lists of places to apply, people to network with, and backup career options. I filled every minute of my day with activity because sitting still felt unbearable.

But the harder I tried to fix my life, the more lost I felt.

The Moment I Finally Stopped

One gray afternoon, I was sitting in my car outside a coffee shop, surrounded by job applications and empty takeout cups. I was supposed to be preparing for another interview, but I couldn’t make myself move. My hands were trembling on the steering wheel.

In that moment, something inside me just broke. I remember whispering out loud, “I don’t know what I’m doing anymore.”

And then, for the first time in months, I stopped trying.

I sat there in silence for what must have been twenty minutes, staring out the window at the rain streaking down the glass. My breath came slow and heavy. There was nothing left to plan or fix.

Strangely, instead of panic, I felt something else: relief.

It was as if the world had been waiting for me to stop fighting it.

Learning to Live Without a Plan

That day marked the beginning of something I didn’t yet have words for: surrender.

At first, it wasn’t graceful. I felt uncomfortable doing “nothing.” My mind would jump in, demanding answers—What’s next? What if you fail? What if people think you’ve given up?

But each time those thoughts came, I tried something new. Instead of reacting, I just noticed them. Sometimes I’d say quietly to myself, “Maybe I don’t need to know right now.”

I started taking long walks without my phone. I paid attention to small things—the sound of leaves scraping the sidewalk, the rhythm of my steps, the way the air felt against my skin.

At night, I stopped forcing solutions. Instead, I’d write down a question like What do I really want? and let it sit there, unanswered.

Slowly, the space that used to be filled with anxiety began to soften.

The Unexpected Invitation

About two months later, I got a message from a friend I hadn’t seen in years. She worked at a community center that offered free English classes for newly arrived refugees. One of their teachers had suddenly quit, and they needed a volunteer to fill in temporarily.

“Just a few weeks,” she said. “Until we find someone permanent.”

Old me would have hesitated immediately. I wasn’t a teacher. It didn’t fit my plan. It wasn’t “practical.”

But something in me had shifted. I said yes without overthinking.

The first day, I stood in front of a room of people from half a dozen countries, all smiling nervously, clutching notebooks and pencils. I stumbled through my introduction, certain I was making a fool of myself. But within minutes, the nervousness melted.

We laughed over pronunciation mishaps, drew pictures to communicate when words failed, and celebrated when someone managed a full sentence in English.

Every time one of my students said “thank you” with that bright, genuine smile, something in my heart unfurled.

It wasn’t glamorous. It wasn’t high-paying. But it felt real. I left each class lighter than when I’d arrived.

For the first time in years, I wasn’t chasing an outcome. I was simply showing up.

The Subtle Transformation

That volunteer position ended up lasting six months. By the time it was over, I’d discovered something profound: peace doesn’t come from controlling life. It comes from allowing yourself to be part of it.

When I stopped micromanaging the future, I began to notice the beauty of the present—tiny, easily missed moments that had always been there.

A child laughing on the bus. The smell of fresh rain on concrete. The way sunlight filters through tree branches in the afternoon.

Before, I’d been too busy worrying about what might happen to notice what was happening.

And the more I noticed, the less I needed to control.

I realized that uncertainty isn’t the enemy—it’s the birthplace of possibility. When you stop forcing life to match your expectations, it starts surprising you in the best ways.

Letting Life Lead

Eventually, the experience at the community center led to a job offer at a local nonprofit. I didn’t plan it, didn’t chase it—it just unfolded naturally.

But more than the new job, what stayed with me was a quieter sense of trust.

Now, when things don’t go my way, I still feel disappointment—but I don’t spiral the way I used to. I’ve learned that life has a rhythm of its own, one I can’t always understand but can learn to flow with.

Sometimes the plans that fall apart are the ones that make room for something truer to emerge.

The Ongoing Practice of Letting Go

Letting go isn’t something I mastered once and for all. It’s a daily practice.

There are still days I catch myself gripping too tightly—refreshing my email every five minutes, replaying conversations in my head, worrying about what’s next.

When that happens, I remind myself to breathe. Literally—to take one deep, slow breath and feel the air move through me. It’s a way of returning to the present moment, where life is actually happening.

From there, I ask one gentle question:
What if everything is unfolding exactly as it should?

That single thought softens the tension every time.

What I’ve Learned

Looking back, I can see that losing control wasn’t a failure—it was an invitation. An invitation to trust life instead of managing it, to listen instead of dictate, to experience instead of analyze.

Here’s what I’ve learned:

Control is often a disguise for fear.

When I felt scared or uncertain, I tried to fix everything. But peace didn’t come from fixing—it came from accepting.

Uncertainty is not chaos.

It’s space—space for new growth, for unexpected joy, for learning who you are when the old plans fall away.

Surrender is active, not passive.

It’s not giving up—it’s choosing to participate in life as it unfolds, instead of fighting against it.

Presence changes everything.

The more I stay grounded in the moment, the less I need the illusion of control.

A Quiet Invitation

If you’re in a season of uncertainty right now—if life feels messy and unplanned—I know how uncomfortable that can be. But maybe, just maybe, it’s not something to fix. Maybe it’s something to trust.

Try this:

Stop for a moment and feel your breath move in and out of your body. Notice your surroundings—the texture of the chair beneath you, the sounds in the background, the rhythm of your heartbeat.

Right here, in this ordinary moment, you are safe. You are alive. You are enough.

You don’t need to have it all figured out. You just need to be here, open and willing to let life lead you.

When you release your grip on how you think things should be, you create space for something far better than control: peace.

And peace, I’ve learned, has a way of showing you exactly where to go next.

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About Franco Aison

After years of studying Buddhism, Franco shares insights on life’s deeper truths, karma, and the transformative power of Buddhist mantras. Through reflections and practice, he explores how ancient wisdom can bring peace, clarity, and good fortune in our modern lives. Discover more at startgoodluck.com.

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How to Stop Judging Yourself and the Past Year Harshly

“The way you look at things is the most powerful force shaping your life.” ~John O’Donohue

As often happens at this time of year, I recently found myself lamenting how quickly time had passed. In this agitated headspace, the myriad of goals I did not accomplish and the numerous targets I did not reach sprang to the forefront of my mind.

Though unwelcome and unhelpful, these thoughts pushed their way into my internal dialogue, reinforcing themselves by collecting evidence of where I’d fallen short.

Viewing my past year through a critical lens cultivates a feeling of dislike for myself. It not only robs me of the present moment but also colors my perspective on the year ahead, making optimism and self-trust harder to access.

I know I am not alone in this futile exercise. But the fact is, a judgmental mindset isn’t fixed. Although the word itself implies a rooted outlook, mindset is actually fluid. Your focus determines its orientation at any given moment.

While viewing your past year through a lens of judgment is one way to reflect on the past, viewing it through a lens of empowerment is another.

Reframe Your Year Through Reflective Positive Journaling

One of the simplest ways to shift your lens and guide your mindset toward empowerment is through structured reflection—specifically, reflective positive journaling.

Reflective positive journaling isn’t new, but it remains one of the most effective ways to cultivate a more compassionate and balanced view of your past year and, consequently, yourself. When you focus on what nourished and strengthened you, your year shifts from a list of unfinished goals into a meaningful story of your life.

As I moved through my reflective positive journaling process, I brought to light the many meaningful moments of joy and connection that had nothing to do with a to-do list.

They showed up in moments when I chose rest over productivity, spoke more gently to myself, or allowed “good enough” to be enough. What initially felt like an unremarkable year revealed itself to be one marked by steadiness, self-trust, and subtle courage.

With this reframing in mind, the prompts below are designed to gently guide your attention toward growth, nourishment, and moments you may have overlooked.

Positive Reflective Journal Prompts

Ways I Grew Without Realizing It

It’s easy to overlook the many subtle ways that you’ve changed over the year. Were there times when you made self-care a priority or were successful in upholding your commitment to honor your needs, perhaps saying no to social invitations that didn’t interest you?

Were there instances when you released the need to do everything perfectly or please everybody and instead accepted that you were worthy of love, respect, and admiration just as you are?

Were there periods when you intentionally cared for your body by making healthier eating choices, being more active, and getting a solid night’s sleep?

All of these moments of growth are easy to dismiss when viewed in isolation, but together they form the foundation of real, lasting change. Each small choice you made in your own favor quietly added up to a year of profound growth—growth that deserves to be seen and celebrated.

Looking back, I was surprised by moments when I chose flexibility over rigidity, curiosity over judgment, and patience over urgency. Small acts—such as asking a co-worker about her approach instead of assuming it was wrong, adapting to a change in my travel itinerary after a canceled flight, or slowing my walking pace to accommodate an older friend—became evidence of how I’d grown.

These moments didn’t feel dramatic at the time, yet in hindsight they revealed how much had shifted beneath the surface. This reminded me that growth often shows up not in dramatic achievements, but in the steady willingness to show up for myself and others, even when it feels uncomfortable.

Ways I Am Proud of Myself

It doesn’t matter how big or small the accomplishment; allow yourself to feel proud. Pride in yourself is a quiet, grounded appreciation of yourself.

Perhaps you stood up for yourself in a situation where you would normally remain quiet or worked your way through a scenario that you typically avoided out of fear and discomfort.

Did you help a loved one through a difficult period?

Did you learn something new or stick to a commitment that mattered to you?

What challenges did you overcome?

Each of these moments creates opportunities for you to celebrate your efforts, reflect on your courage, and feel satisfaction in your accomplishments throughout the year.

Reflecting on this prompt, I noticed how easily I had minimized my own efforts. Yet as I looked more closely, moments of quiet pride began to surface.

This year, I recognized when I stood up for myself in the face of a bullying personality instead of shrinking to avoid conflict, the times when I followed through on my commitment to exercise daily, and when I was able to stay present in situations that typically overwhelmed me.

None of these moments came with fanfare, but each required courage. Allowing myself to feel proud didn’t inflate my ego; it grounded me.

Occasions When I Felt Fulfilled

From the standpoint that fulfillment doesn’t equate to accomplishment, recall times when you were emotionally and spiritually nourished.

Did you attend a religious service that cultivated a sense of connection? Or did you have an experience with friends that left you feeling fulfilled and replenished?

Recognizing these moments helps you understand what truly nourishes your spirit and brings deeper meaning into your life.

For me, memories of deep conversations with my best friend, moments of shared laughter with my mom, and being fully present when playing with my four-year-old niece came to mind. These reminded me that deep satisfaction does not always come from checking items off a to-do list.

Moments When I Felt Peaceful and Content

Reflect on times when your nervous system settled and you felt calm and grounded.

Perhaps it was a quiet morning with tea, a slow walk outside, or an evening when you felt more at ease after turning off your devices.

When I reflected on my moments of peace and contentment, I noticed they most often found me when I spent time interacting with the natural world. Immersing myself in a slower-paced environment allowed my brain to decelerate and relax.

Activities That Fueled My Energy

Your energy is a compass; noticing what replenished you helps you understand what supports your well-being.

Which routines, hobbies, or connections left you feeling more energized than when you began?

Whether creative pursuits, athletic endeavors, time alone, or time with others, recognizing what gave you energy helps you hold your year in a more balanced and positive frame.

Looking back on what fueled my energy this year, I realized that some of my most replenishing moments came from time spent alone. Being by myself allowed me to breathe, reset, and reconnect with what truly mattered. Hiking, coloring, or tending my garden gave me a sense of calm focus while quietly refilling my reserves.

Happy, Unexpected Coincidences That Occurred

Unexpected moments of connection or synchronicity can remind you that delight and surprise were woven throughout your year.

Did an old friend you had recently been thinking about reach out, or did you unexpectedly run into a treasured co-worker from a previous job at the market?

Perhaps you found yourself in the right place at the right time to witness a natural wonder, such as a breaching whale or soaring hawk.

Life is full of unexplained coincidences that, when viewed in hindsight, can take on a synchronistic quality, reminding you that connection can arrive without effort.

When I reflected on this, I recalled how a spontaneous walk in my neighborhood put me in the right spot to run into my retired high school teacher, or when I followed an impulse to look skyward and witnessed a bald eagle leaving its nest.

I was surprised at how recognizing even small coincidences caused my year to take on a sense of delight, reminding me that magic had been quietly threading through it all along.

—

These prompts are just that—gentle invitations to pause and look back on the past year with a kinder, more balanced perspective. As you sit with your experiences, you will begin to remember the wins, the joys, and the moments of courage that might have otherwise been forgotten.

Carrying this perspective into the new year offers a valuable sense of direction. When you understand what supported your well-being and what fueled your energy, you naturally gain insight into what to prioritize moving forward.

Simple Ways to Use This Momentum in the New Year

Reconnect with people.

Who made an impact on your life this year? Reach out to them with a message or call to say thank you. Whether it’s a mentor, a friend, or a family member, expressing gratitude strengthens your relationships and reinforces the connections that matter most.

Set new intentions, not resolutions.

Instead of rigid resolutions, set intentions that align with the values you rediscovered about yourself. For example, you might aim to “be kinder to yourself,” “explore new opportunities,” or “prioritize rest and self-care without guilt.” Intentions offer direction without the pressure of achieving. 

Create a small ritual to mark the transition.

Mark the end of the year with a simple ritual that feels meaningful to you. Light a candle, say a prayer, or write down what you want to release and safely burn the paper. You might also clean a room, organize a drawer, or clear your workspace. The physical act of making space mirrors the emotional process of creating room for the new year.

If you feel inclined, writing a letter to your future self can help capture what you learned and what you hope to carry forward. Sometimes selecting a single word—such as steadiness, growth, ease, or connection—that reflects how you want to be or what you wish to cultivate is a way of setting a launching point for the year.

As I prepare to welcome 2026, I will let my reflections guide me—reminding me of what truly mattered, the ways I was strengthened, and the seeds of growth I want to nurture in the year ahead. I will carry forward the lessons learned, the moments of courage, and the quiet victories, allowing them to shape my choices with intention and care.

Growth often happens quietly—but when we pause to acknowledge it, we give it space to deepen, allowing us to step into the new year with clarity, purpose, and a grounded sense of pride in how far we have come.

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About Lynn Crocker

Lynn Crocker is passionate about helping people shift their inner dialogue and take charge of their thoughts to create a more purposeful, joyful, and fulfilling life—one thought at a time. If you’d like support carrying this mindset forward or guidance in cultivating steadier, more empowering inner dialogue, she invites you to schedule a free discovery call to see if mindset coaching is right for you. Learn more at lynncrockercoaching.com.

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A Tiny Bit of Tiny Buddha, with You Every Day

I might be just a little biased, but I find this site very soothing. It’s my literal home on the web—built humbly in 2009 with more enthusiasm than expertise and the shoddy wiring (read: early missteps) to prove it.

But it’s not just the grounding tree on top, the calming Buddha logo, or the bright illustrations that fill me with peace. It’s this community. The honest stories. The aha moments. The shared humanity that brings with it a sense that it’s okay—and maybe even beautiful—to be imperfect.

If you too find comfort in this little oasis and appreciate the daily insights and inspiration, I have a feeling you’ll enjoy this year’s day-to-day calendar—my sixth since the first launched in 2022.

Each day’s quote offers guidance, support, or encouragement from me, a site contributor, or an author whose work I’ve found helpful.

With colorful patterned pages, it’s a joyful little addition to your counter or desk, designed to offer a grounding thought to start or guide your day.

More importantly, the quotes speak to the universal struggles we all face—related to happiness, relationships, change, meaning, letting go, and more. So you might find, as many social media followers often note, that the messages feel written just for you.

Or, as one Amazon reviewer wrote, “The messages set the tone for the day. Make it a great one!”

If this sort of thing resonates with you, the Tiny Buddha calendar has been the #1 bestseller in the mind-body-spirit category in both 2024 and 2025—and this year, it seems to be just as popular.

If you’d like to infuse your life with more Tiny Buddha warmth and wisdom, you can grab your copy here.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed creating it!

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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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Why the Breath Is More Powerful Than Willpower in Addiction Recovery

“If you want to conquer the anxiety of life, live in the moment, live in the breath.” ~Amit Ray

I don’t remember the moment I decided I wanted to live again. I just remember the breath that made it possible.

Three weeks earlier, I had been lying in a hospital bed, my liver failing at the age of thirty-six after years of drinking. I knew I wouldn’t survive another relapse; yet the day I was released, I went straight to the liquor store. Unsurprisingly, I ended up back in rehab—completely exhausted, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. I wasn’t looking for hope. I was just trying to survive the next hour.

When the staff announced there would be a yoga class, I almost didn’t go. But something in me—a spark of desperation—wanted to try. I walked into the small recreation room, still detoxing, still shaking uncontrollably. When the teacher asked us to take a deep breath, I realized my body didn’t know how. My chest barely moved.

That moment changed everything. What started as a single breath on the rehab floor became the breath that saved my life.

By the time I entered that final treatment program, my body was shutting down, but I couldn’t stop drinking. I had spent two years in and out of rehab facilities—including an intensive ninety-day program and a special treatment center for trauma survivors. I’d lost my job because I was too sick to show up. I was about to lose my home.

The deepest heartbreak, however, came in a letter from the court: I had lost custody of my daughter. I can still remember holding that envelope, the air leaving my lungs. That was my rock bottom. But even rock bottom, I would later learn, can become fertile ground.

Those yoga classes in rehab became the highlight of my week. They were the only hours when I didn’t feel trapped inside my own skin. For the first time, I felt my body and my breath working together instead of against me.

In yoga, teachers often say “root to rise.” It’s an instruction that means to ground down through your base—your feet, your hands, your breath—before expanding upward. I used to think it was just about balance, but I began to see it as a metaphor for recovery.

I couldn’t rise until I learned how to root.

For years I had tried to think my way into staying sober. I made promises, created plans, counted days. But thinking didn’t heal what was broken. I needed to rebuild from the ground up—from my nervous system outward. Yoga became the first safe place where my body could finally exhale.

For months, safety came in glimpses. I noticed it in the quiet moments—my hands no longer shaking when I poured coffee, my shoulders softening when someone said my name, the first night I slept through without waking from panic. It wasn’t perfection; it was presence.

I later learned there was a name for what was happening: somatic healing.

“Somatic” simply means of the body—the understanding that our stories, memories, and emotions don’t just live in our minds; they live in our tissues. Every flinch, every tight muscle, every held breath is the body’s way of remembering what it had to survive.

In yin yoga, while my fascia slowly opened in a long pose, I’d sometimes have memories I didn’t even know existed rise to the surface. There were times I found myself crying in the middle of class, the kind of tears that came from deep inside. But that space on the mat became sacred—an opportunity to finally feel what I had spent years avoiding. On the other side of those tears, I always felt lighter. When this happened, I no longer carried that pain with me in my body.

Each slow stretch and mindful breath became a conversation between my body and my nervous system. When I stayed present through discomfort instead of escaping it, I discovered that healing wasn’t about fixing what was broken; it was about helping my body feel safe enough to release what it had been holding.

Science now confirms what somatic practitioners and yogis have long known: the breath is the bridge between the body and the brain, the conscious and the subconscious. When we breathe deeply and move intentionally, we activate the vagus nerve, the body’s built-in pathway for calm. This is how we shift from survival to safety.

When cravings or anxiety attacked, breathwork became my lifeline—the bridge between my body’s panic and my heart’s calm. These three simple practices helped me rewire my stress response and return to internal safety without reaching for a drink:

1. Anulom Vilom (Alternate Nostril Breathing)

This practice balances the two hemispheres of the brain and restores calm to the nervous system.

Give it a try:

• Sit comfortably with your spine tall and shoulders relaxed.
• Close your right nostril with your thumb and inhale through your left for four counts.
• Close both nostrils and hold for four counts.
• Release your thumb and exhale through your right for eight counts.
• Inhale again through the right for four, hold for four, exhale through the left for eight.
• Continue for five rounds, breathing softly and evenly.

Each inhale is a quiet declaration: I’m still here. Each exhale, a gentle letting go of what no longer serves us.

2. Sama Vritti (Box Breathing)

Known as “equal breath,” this technique creates balance and stability. I used it often in early recovery when anxiety was high or I felt triggered.

Give it a try:

• Inhale through the nose for four counts.
• Hold the breath for four counts.
• Exhale through the nose for four counts.
• Pause and hold empty for four counts.
• Continue this rhythm for a few minutes, lengthening to six or eight counts if it feels natural.

Box Breathing steadies the heart rate, quiets racing thoughts, and gives the body a rhythm it can trust. When the mind spirals, this breath becomes an anchor.

3. Dirgha Pranayama (Three-Part Breath)

This gentle, grounding breath invites the body to expand and release fully. It’s especially supportive when reconnecting with the body after trauma or intense emotion.

Give it a try:

• Sit or lie down comfortably with one hand on your belly and one on your chest.
• Inhale slowly through your nose, first filling your belly, then your ribs, then your upper chest—drawing the breath upward in three parts.
• Exhale in reverse—chest, ribs, belly—allowing the breath to flow out completely.
• Count your inhale. When you exhale, try to lengthen your breath to double the count of your inhale (for example, if you inhaled for a count of three, exhale slowly for a count of six).
• Continue for five or more rounds.

With each cycle, imagine your breath traveling down into your roots, grounding you in safety and presence. This reminds the body that peace isn’t something we find—it’s something we breathe into being.

Practicing these three breathwork styles gave me a larger capacity to deal with triggers. Whenever I felt the urge to drink, I’d pause and practice breathwork instead. Multiple rounds of Sama Vritti had the power to change my state of being just as quickly as a shot of my favorite alcohol.

In the beginning, every day sober felt like climbing a mountain barefoot. But then one month passed, and I was still breathing through the cravings. Then two months. Then three. Slowly, the numbers began to add up until sobriety stopped feeling like something I had to fight for—it simply became who I was.

My yoga teacher used to say, “How we show up on the mat is how we show up in life.” I didn’t understand it at first, but I do now. I started showing up to yoga every day—even when I didn’t want to. I showed up to breathe when I wanted to run. Over time, that practice of staying became my new way of being.

Yoga taught me how to sit with pain rather than run from it. The more I practiced staying with discomfort, the more my brain learned that pain didn’t mean danger—it just meant sensation.

Over time, I was literally rewiring my neural pathways, teaching my body that calm was possible. Eventually, that pause between trigger and reaction became second nature.

When my body and mind no longer lived in constant battle, life began to flow again. My daughter was allowed to move back home. I returned to my career full-time. For the first time in years, I wasn’t surviving—I was living. In the end, it wasn’t a miracle or a moment—it was my breath that saved my life.

As time went on, recovery stopped being about staying sober and became about staying present. My body began to trust me again, not because I promised to change, but because I kept showing up—on the mat, in the breath, in the quiet moments of life.

Healing moves slowly like this. It doesn’t happen on the mind’s timeline; it unfolds with the body’s. One day, you’ll notice your hands no longer shake, your shoulders soften, and your breath moves freely again. That’s when you’ll realize your body has remembered its safety.

Recovery isn’t about fixing what’s broken—it’s about no longer abandoning yourself when things hurt. Each inhale brings a new beginning, and in the gentle rise and fall of your chest, there is a quiet space where you meet yourself again. The past dissolves with every exhale, and your future waits patiently at the edge of your next breath.

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About Jessica Harris

Jessica Harris is a registered yoga teacher and somatic practitioner specializing in trauma-informed yoga, breathwork, and nervous system healing. She is the founder of RISE to Recover, a method blending yoga and somatic tools to support addiction recovery and mental health. Jessica shares free practices and reflections on her new YouTube channel: youtube.com/@RiseToRecover

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The Truth About Healing I Didn’t Learn in Med School

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

I’ve spent most of my adult life helping people heal.

I’m a podiatrist, a foot and ankle surgeon, and I’ve seen pain in many forms. Torn ligaments. Crushed bones. Wounds that just won’t close. But if I’m being honest, the deepest wounds I’ve encountered weren’t the ones I treated in my clinic. They were the invisible ones, the ones that patients carried silently, and the ones I had unknowingly been carrying myself.

I used to think healing was straightforward. Diagnose. Treat. Follow up. Recover.

That made sense to me. That’s how I was trained. But life and people are rarely that neat.

Years ago, I was treating a woman in her mid-sixties with chronic foot ulcers from diabetes. Medically, we were doing everything right. The right dressings, offloading, antibiotics, regular check-ups. But her wounds weren’t healing. I couldn’t understand why. I grew frustrated. I started questioning my treatment plan. I blamed myself.

Then one day, she said softly, “Sometimes I don’t even want them to heal.”

She wasn’t being difficult. She was being honest.

Her husband had passed, she lived alone, and these appointments were one of the few times someone checked in on her, looked her in the eye, and asked how she was. Her wounds gave her a reason to be seen.

That stopped me in my tracks.

I realized I had been treating her foot, but I wasn’t seeing her, not fully. I was missing the emotional story behind the physical wound. And in doing so, I was also missing something in myself.

I had always prided myself on being composed, efficient, capable. Residency had trained me to push through fatigue, stress, and long hours. It rewarded perfectionism and punished vulnerability. So I wore my resilience like armor.

But under that armor, I was tired. I was emotionally dry. I felt disconnected from the very thing that made me want to become a doctor in the first place: the human connection.

It wasn’t until I saw the pain beneath my patients’ stories—grief, loneliness, shame, fear—that I started to acknowledge the pain I was carrying too.

Not physical pain. Not burnout in the textbook sense. But something softer and harder to name: an unspoken ache to feel more whole.

I’ve had patients apologize to me through tears for “wasting my time,” as if their suffering wasn’t worth attention. I’ve had patients tell me stories of trauma that had nothing to do with their feet but everything to do with why they weren’t healing.

I started listening more. I stopped rushing. I began asking, “How are you, really?” And slowly, as I created space for others to be vulnerable, I began to offer that space to myself too.

I started journaling again. I made peace with taking time off. I reconnected with friends I had been “too busy” to call. I spoke to a therapist, not because I was in a crisis, but because I was curious about the parts of myself I had ignored for too long.

Healing, I learned, isn’t always about fixing what’s broken. Sometimes, it’s about acknowledging what hurts, even if there’s no clear diagnosis.

In medical school, we’re trained to be experts. To have answers. To guide.

But healing, real healing, doesn’t always happen in the exam room. Sometimes it happens in a quiet moment of shared understanding, when two human beings drop their roles and just see each other.

I’ve stopped pretending I have it all together. I’ve started being more honest with myself and with others. My patients sense that, and I think they trust me more because of it. Not because I’m perfect, but because I’m real.

What Have I’ve Learned?

Healing isn’t linear. Neither is growth. People don’t just want to be fixed. They want to be seen.

Pain isn’t always physical. And sometimes the deepest wounds are the quietest.

Presence heals more than performance.

I don’t think I’ll ever stop learning how to be human. But I’m grateful my patients have given me the space to try, not just as their doctor but as a fellow traveler on the road to healing.

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About Rizwan Tai

Dr. Rizwan Tai is a Houston-based podiatrist and former Chief Resident at UT Health San Antonio. He’s passionate about the human side of healing both for patients and providers. When he's not in clinic, Rizwan enjoys reflective writing, long walks, and conversations that go beyond surface level. Visit him at vitalpodiatry.com.

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