Yes, that 9/11. I’d been in New York City for less than a week, a college freshman studying acting partly because I fantasized about becoming the brown Kate Winslet, but mostly because my high school girlfriend (let’s call her Tammy) had gone to college in New York a year earlier.

Tammy and I had been together for 3 tumultuous years. Tumultuous because my parents didn’t allow gay people in their house. Tumultuous because I started taking copious amounts of drugs (Tammy was a drug dealer). Tumultuous because the rejection of my parents put me in a spiraling depression, and I ended up in a psychiatric hospital for teens where I was put on even more copious amounts of drugs.

When Tammy left for art school, and I still had senior year to complete, our nighttime long-distance calls were my lifeline. She’d tell me about the parties she was going to, the homework she had, the amazing weed she was smoking. And I’d cry about how much I missed her.

I was living at my parents’ house, but I wasn’t at home. Tammy was my home. My home was in New York. Soon I would move there, and we’d spend the rest of our lives together.

The problem was that during summer break, a week before I was headed to college, she dumped me while we sat in her 80s Volvo listening to Aphex Twin.

So there I was, heartbroken and utterly alone in a new city when, on a sunny Tuesday morning, 15 minutes into my 2nd day of college, a woman from the office told us classes were canceled, but she couldn’t or wouldn’t tell us why. Total chaos on the sidewalk in front of the school on 72nd Street as all of us students tried to figure out what the hell was going on. I didn’t have a cellphone, but it didn’t matter because nobody’s cellphones were working. Someone said a plane crashed into the World Trade Center. Then someone said another plane hit. We were being attacked.

Not knowing what else to do, I started walking south to my dorm on 55th despite nearly everyone on the street walking north away from the attack. Panicked faces everywhere. A group of people gathered around a man’s red portable radio, listening to the news. I thought to myself: this is a scene from a movie. I’m in a movie. I started running. Sweat gathered in every crevice of my 18-year-old body. All I wanted was to get to the landline phone in my room and call Tammy. Make sure she was ok. Find a place to meet up. Her apartment in Brooklyn would be safe. Hopefully.

Inside the 30-story student housing, the chaos continued. Cell phones were still down. Kids couldn’t get a hold of their parents. A girl in the hallway told me she heard they were probably going to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge. Everyone was making plans to leave Manhattan. Inside my dorm, my roommate was nowhere to be found. I figured she was already on her way out of the city. I dialed Tammy’s cellphone. Its touch-tone melody was as familiar as my heartbeat. It went straight to voicemail. Damnit. I called my parents in Texas. My dad was unemotional and said everything would be fine. I didn’t believe him. I tried Tammy again. No luck. I wished I was Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz and could tap my feet together home, into Tammy’s arms or at least on her couch. Off this island of skyscrapers that had morphed into giant targets for violence. For 2 hours I sat on my bunk bed hitting the redial button over and over again, staring at the linoleum floor like some disturbed monk performing an end-times ritual. Until finally, the call went through.

Hey, Tammy said, with no sign of alarm in her voice.

Are you ok? I asked. Where are you?

Yeah, I’m fine. I’m at my apartment.

This is nuts, I said. Can I come there? I don’t feel safe here.

No. Sorry. I’m with someone.

The walls of the dorm room spiraled like a kaleidoscope. I lost all feeling in my throat. Tears that I had managed to hold back for fear they would take me to an emotional abyss from which I would never return…now poured out of me like a geyser.

I was no longer in my body. But floating above, watching myself on the phone, pleading to her.

Please, Tammy, I need to see you. I love you.

She wouldn’t budge. She hung up on me.

There are times in your life where you lose control completely. Over what you want to happen, over your sense of safety, predictability, and understanding. Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, the homes you built in relationships, careers, plans for the future, ideas about who you are, and the purpose of your life tumble into rubble.

Of course, in the scheme of things, I was totally ok. All of my family members and friends were safe. I didn’t know a single first responder. I was a naive 18-year-old scared for my life, crying over my ex-girlfriend in my mid-Manhattan dorm room.

I got a hold of a friend from high school who went to Juilliard. We met up in his dorm and watched the news in a shock-induced silence as they showed footage of the towers going down, people jumping from the smoking buildings to their deaths.

In the days that followed, the city was in a daze. It slowly became apparent that everything had changed. The country. The world. Me.

Trust eluded me. Relationships were ticking time bombs. The world wasn’t safe. Neither were people. And when the shit hit the fan, all you could rely on was yourself. I found myself in one toxic relationship after another, each one confirming the belief that finding a love that felt like home was a silly little girl’s dream.

When you first begin healing, a common mistake for the uninitiated is to believe the past is something you must disinfect, a stain on your rap sheet, a barrier to your self-worth. You feel embarrassed and resentful for the things you didn’t know, even though there was no way you could have. You go back and forth from blaming other people for your so-called inadequacies to blaming yourself. Until someone lets you in on the mind-altering truth that healing isn’t about erasing the past, but accepting it as part of your wholeness. The ways your experiences, good and bad, have shaped your sensitivities, needs, desires, and dreams are part of the beautiful tapestry that makes you, you.

For me, that person was a therapist I saw in my early 30s who told me everyone needs relationships that are predictable, dependable, and trustworthy. That my desire for a love that feels like home is a basic human need, yes, compounded by the trauma I had experienced, but no less valid.

It’s been 25 years since that Tuesday morning in September. 25 years since one of the most formative moments of my life set me on a journey to understand the kind of love that matters most to me.

A love that feels like home is a sanctuary, a place where peace is prioritized, and growth is nurtured. A love that feels like home is a refuge from the chaos and unpredictability of the world.

A list of moments that feel like home in relationships:

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I’ve been sharing a lot about being in a time of deep transition, and I've gotten so many messages from people in the same boat. So in this ep I share the technique I have found essential to getting clarity on who I want to be in my next era. I think you will find it very helpful in these uncertain times.

love you!

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I remember being terrified the chrysalis would get knocked over by some wandering animal or a strong gust of wind or my friend’s alcoholic older brother stumbling home from a night out drinking 40s of Mickey’s malt liquor. So for 3 days we kept vigil, and when the green became translucent and we could make out the black edges of the monarch wings forming inside, we cried like we were the first people in the world to witness its metamorphic miracle.

Unfortunately, when the chrysalis spawned its butterfly, we were at Walgreens buying Lip Smackers and Arizona Iced Tea and returned only to find the once ethereal shell lifeless on the lawn like a discarded gum wrapper; its aviating newborn nowhere to be found.

I wondered if the butterfly had any sense of the journey that just transpired. Did it remember us watching over its radical transformation like hypnotized giants? Had all its conscious past been discarded with the chrysalis?

Friend, I’m in a chrysalis phase of life. A stage of growth where my old self no longer fits, but my future self is obscured like a distant land beyond the open sea in an impressionist painting.

A chrysalis phase of life is where the transformation is so deep that it requires absolute stillness. You can’t move forward. You can’t go back. You’re in a kind of waiting period. On the outside, it looks like nothing is happening, but on the inside, so much is. Like enzymes dissolving caterpillar carcasses veiled behind an anthropodic sarcophagus, chemical and spiritual transformations are unfolding within you. Intuitively, you know you are not the same person, but those changes haven’t manifested in the material realm. Not yet.

A chrysalis phase of life is also distinguishable in that it requires a kind of minimization. A decluttering. A distillation to what is absolutely necessary. Because there is only so much room in the chrysalis. Whatever cannot fit into your carry-on, whatever will not nourish your new era, can’t come with you. And you will notice things dissolving away, not forcefully but organically: relationships, habits, even goals that used to feel important no longer do. And it’s difficult to explain, to wrap your head around; they just no longer feel aligned, even though what you will replace them with on the other side of this change is unknown.

A chrysalis phase feels like you are a stranger recognizing yourself. It feels exciting and euphoric. It feels isolating and disorienting. Like one of those sensory deprivation tanks or like you are a nickel floating in Jell-O. Ok, let me explain about the Jell-O:

A couple of years ago, I saw a TikTok where a pilot was demonstrating why turbulence on a plane was much safer than it felt. She held one of those single-serving Jell-O cups, took a nickel, and put it in the center of the Jell-O. She then shook the Jell-O cup and said that a plane flying in the air is like a suspended nickel in Jell-O because the air pressure that surrounds the plane keeps it stable. When you shake the Jell-O cup, the nickel stays suspended. It doesn’t fall to the bottom; it’s safely held up by the air pressure.

The chrysalis is similar. It’s turbulent and you can’t find the ground beneath your feet. But just because so much is still “in the air” doesn’t mean you aren’t safe. In fact, you are held by something greater than yourself. Now is not the time to force outcomes. It’s the time to surrender to your metamorphosis and trust its Divine timing.

So with that in mind, I’d like to share with you some helpful guidelines I’ve put together should you find yourself in a chrysalis phase. These come from my own experience, as it’s not my first go around. A couple of days ago, I posted a reel about feeling stuck in the canal of birthing a new era that got nearly 300 comments, so I imagine this eclipse season and general collective unrest are prompting massive chrysalis transformations. Good to know that we are in this together.

1. A chrysalis phase is not a time for doing, it’s a time for noticing. We are not used to slowing down. We are generally an impatient species. We have been trained to force outcomes. But forcing outcomes during a chrysalis phase can destroy its delicate process. Instead, take notice of how you feel. What environments, people, and behaviors feel fresh, supportive, and healthy? What environments, people, and behaviors don’t? Don’t do anything about it now, just notice it. Write your observations down in a journal. These observations and feelings will probably change over the course of this phase. So don’t take it too seriously or become too attached. Think about it like taking a snapshot of a moment of time. Eventually these observations will culminate to clarity. Just not yet. Trust the process.

2. Prepare yourself for some grief and a general feeling of emptiness. As things that no longer serve slip away without anything new to replace them, the void

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p.s. I filmed this in the bathroom of my hotel room in Hawaii lol

sen…

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As if the stranger you were talking to at a pretentious cocktail bar in Dumbo, was the arbiter of coolness and you failed their pop quiz of social acceptability? Do you ever feel responsible for uncomfortable pauses in conversation and end up believing you are the most uninteresting pile of millennial mush at your nextdoor neighbor’s game night? Have you ever told a joke at a friend of a friend’s birthday party, and when it didn’t land, you assumed you should get your head examined for believing that joke could be funny in the first place, replaying the encounter in bed like a peep show of your most embarrassing moments?

Do you ever watch the IG stories of the girl who showed no interest in being your friend, and find them eerily reminiscent of times when you gazed at the popular girls at the other end of your high school cafeteria, while scarfing down your mozzarella sticks? Have you ever been ghosted by a date and immediately saw it as an indication you are, in fact, undatable? Doomed for a lifetime of streaming Lifetime movies alone, trapped in a hamster wheel of DoorDash orders that conveniently supply your dinner and lunch the following day?

Why is it that when we are not for someone, we assume it’s because we don’t measure up? Why is it that when we don’t fit in, we feel like a walking apology? A streak of a crayon outside the lines? Crumbs on your mom’s new couch? A freak in the suburban streets?

There’s this thing that happens to us around 11, 12, 13…we get put under a spell. The I-need-to-fit-in-and-be-loved-by-everyone spell. This spell can be carbon-dated to our cave-dwelling ancestors who understood that not fitting into the tribe would lead to banishment and certain death by sabertooth tiger. In other words, to fit in feels like survival. Well, what happens when the tribe is your entire school or your entire job site or everyone at every social event you ever attend or the entire population of the internet? You learn to become your best editor, trimming the fat of your unwanted edges: the weirdness, the oddities, the parts of you that at some point you learned were too much or too little. All with the goal of becoming smooth like tap water, shape-shifting to every container you’re poured into, until you hardly recognize yourself, until what remains is merely the reflection of whoever is looking at you.

And who can blame you? There’s no better feeling than the feeling that you belong. That people see you and think to themselves, that person is great! Let’s include them! Every cult leader knows you can manipulate a person’s heart by offering them a draconian laundry list of do’s and don’ts for belonging.

The problem is, of course, that no matter how much you attempt to bend to a composition you believe will make you the most likable to the most people, someone will find some reason to think you are trash. Because that’s how human beings are. People see what they want to see. And you have very little control over it.

Neuroscience tells us that we exist differently in everyone’s brain. Because how everyone filters reality is entirely dependent on the context of their experiences.

People don’t see you; they see in you what their brain is wired to see. To expect consensus is like showing the entire population of New Guinea a picture of a cloud and expecting everyone to say it looks like your grandmother’s mashed potatoes.

The impression you leave on another human’s mind is as subjective as a piece of art hanging in a museum. Some people love it. Some are repelled. Some don’t know what all the fuss is about. Some people walk by without even noticing. Some can’t take their eyes off it. Some people’s lives are forever changed.

You are art. You are a reflection of the creative magnitude of the Universe. You are not for everyone. And that is beautiful.

Lately I’ve been thinking of myself as a walking Rorschach inkblot, going grocery shopping, posting pics of my dog, eating at my favorite taco truck, and being excited that I can’t control anyone’s interpretation. Not me basking in the freedom of not being for everyone!

Lately I’ve been noticing that when you let go of needing to be for everyone, you discover you don’t have to feel guilty when someone isn’t for you. That it doesn’t make you a bad person to not want to go to that party with the people whose energy feels like an itchy wool sweater (you know the sweater is cute, it’s well made, it’s vintage for god’s sake! But it just feels fucking bad.)

Lately I’ve been thinking about all the years I spent self-editing, and wondering how much of me remains buried treasure. And I’m getting excited about the new garden gloves I purchased to unearth the most unhinged, most bold, most courageous parts of myself.

But mostly I feel at peace. Because being for everyone is so exhausting. Because feeling inadequate for not meshing with people that aren’t your people is painful. Because telling yourself something is wrong with you for being the only flash of color in a room full of beige curtains is a soul-sucking nightmare.

We are not robots. We are not bowls of buttered noodles. We are not fuzzy pairs of slippers on sale at Amazon. We are not for mass market consumption.

We are not for everyone, and that is beautiful.

So, in the spirit of being some people’s stick in the mud, I wanted to share with you some recent journal reflections on how beautiful it is to not be for everyone, both in my personal life and also inspiring displays of this I’ve noticed in our culture. Perhaps they will be helpful, informative, or at least somewhat amusing.

✧

People are upset that Lupita Nyong’o is playing Helen of Troy in a fictional film adaptation of a fictional story. Can you imagine being upset about that? Can you imagine becoming enraged that Elliot Page, a trans man, is playing Sinon? Can you imagine being one of those talented actors and reading the opinions of thousands of strangers about how the casting of you ruined a film? On one side, it’s probably very hard, but on another, you know it has nothing to do with you. That what anyone sees in you is merely a projection of their limited reality. In fact, because you are so dangerous to their preconceived notions, you give them an opportunity for expansion merely by existing. You have challenged their worldview so completely that you are healing them and thus healing the world. Fuck, that’s beautiful.

✧

Not long ago I hung out with a friend whom I’ve known for a long time. And it became glaringly apparent as I stared into the pale milky green of my matcha that I’ve never felt myself with this person. That for years after we’d hang out, I’d

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Sensitive souls are entering their villain era.

Sensitive souls feel more than anyone in the room. We have mistaken that for a responsibility to caretake. We became the hall monitors of emotional regulation. We uplifted those around us by not shining too brightly, not flying our freak flag of prophetic power, not claiming our lineage in the telepathic order of readers of energy.

We said yes to keep the peace. We said, no worries, when it bothered the fuck out of us. We did this not because we are weak but because we are strong.

We took jobs that masked our talent. We fell in love with men and women who told us we were too much because we feared we must be reigned in. We stifled our tears as if they couldn’t alchemize the world's healing. We swallowed pills that hid ourselves from ourselves.

But this fever dream is dying like a canceled Netflix series.

Sensitive souls are entering their villain era.

Have you noticed the word no barreling out of your intraoral slip-n-slide with the brute gravity of a toddler? Have you felt a propulsion to worship the beauty of your ontological vessel? Have curiosities woken you in the night like forgotten lovers from the memories of your wettest dreams?

Sensitive souls are entering their villain era.

We are now the anti-heroes of a story someone else wrote for us. We are the killers of a character we no longer want to play. We are the destroyers of an unconsensual fantasy.

A villain is an enemy to a system not created for them.

I don’t know why it took us so long to wake up to our superpower or why it’s happening now. Perhaps a portal was opened by one of us somewhere in a crystalline cave on a dank island. Perhaps the planets had the final word. Perhaps god-by-any-other-name has been preparing the soil and the earthworms are screaming.

Whatever the reason, we can’t go back.

We can’t go back to denying the penetrating light beaming from the center of our chest. We can’t go back to kowtowing behind an I’m not good enough that we have always known is a lie. We can’t go back to pathologizing our shamanic understanding as if it’s a sickness to recognize sickness. We can’t go back to distracting ourselves from the dharmic destiny that has been dormant in the dusty corner of our bedroom closet.

This is our era to be outspoken, courageous, bold, honest and free. This is our era of joy, play, experimentation and self-actualization.

This is our era to stop taking care of others by denying what we need, but rather to set an example of what it looks like to be an unapologetic honey pot of anarchistic stardust.

I do want to warn you, tho, that the repercussions of a villain era can be difficult to endure. There will be grief.

Those who are still aligned with the old story will be uncomfortable with you becoming the villain and attempting to kill it. Most will be happy for you. But some won’t. This is to be expected. There might be an extended period of loneliness until you find the outer support you need.

Dearest darling, keep your eye on the prize.

A villain era is foremost a shift in frequency. These shifts can range from cataclysmic to subtle. It’s important to remember all shifts are deeply meaningful. There is no hierarchy.

Below are some observations I’ve gathered in my journal on how this new frequency shift is showing up for me lately. Obviously, more shifts are coming for me (this is only the beginning). Obviously, our shifts are not meant to be the same. Villain eras are entirely subjective. But I thought it might be helpful for you to read some of mine, and I would encourage you to jot down any and all reflections of villain energy that has been making itself known.

This is our time, and I’m very excited for us.

Personal Reflections:

✦ I am too much for some people. Not because I am too emotional, too loud, or need too much attention, but because I am incredibly open, vulnerable, and expressive. Which is uncomfortable for some people who don’t want open, vulnerable and expressive energy around them. It makes them feel like they have to open up, even though I never asked for that. I’ve lost friendships when those friends were going through stuff in their lives they weren’t prepared to face. My aura unintentionally triggered them, and they didn’t want to hang out with me anymore. I used to feel so hurt by this. Now I see it as grace. This is what my villain era looks like.

✦ I’m having lots of dreams about sex and desire. The other night I had a dream

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Some people want to know you, but don’t really want to know that you have a keen eye for fashion because, when you were 3, you were left alone in a room with colorful vintage wallpaper. That you were touched inappropriately on a fabulous shag rug. That you are a Libra rising, and that means something like rising from a mythos of indecision that isn’t really true but a rumor you identified with, so you say: Sure, let’s go eat at murderrhappsshhhvennnacles, if that’s what you want. And at the table you bring up the toe again. But the centipede digresses to a time when they got a bad pedicure on the day their ex started dating that model that walked for Balenciaga four years ago but put their modeling career on pause due to a bad case of lymes, of which they started a substack (The Quiet Freedom of Lymes) now with six thousand subscribers.

Some people want to know you but don’t really want to know that your loneliness wakes you in the night, a tyrannical gasp cocooned in a sticky hot sweat. That ancestral ghosts scream misanthropic poetry in your ear while you type feverishly on a crumb-covered laptop. That downloads of esoteric messages pop into periphery like angelic shadow puppets. Don’t feed the centipede, you silly goose! You come from a lineage of excommunicated childlike wonders!

Some people want to know you, but don’t really want to know that there might be no other reason for us to be here than to discover ourselves through each other. To join hands as we excavate our internal abyss. To touch toes underneath cathartic cold water. Have you ever noticed it’s warmer if you get your hair wet? Have you ever noticed that the time it takes for your fingers to become wrinkled ranges from 1 minute to sometimes not happening at all? Have you ever noticed there is an endless amount to notice, laugh at, and cry about? Have you ever noticed life is devastatingly beautiful?

Some people want to know you but don’t really want to know you, and that is okay. Because some people really, really, really do.

And we are everywhere.

This is a free post. If you would like to support my writing and receive access to every essay plus my paid subscriber-only podcast, please consider upgrading your subscription. thank you so much, xo bunny

To be good was to be loved. Being good got you a warm smile of approval. Positive attention. Avoidance of punishment. The God I was told about was a master of surveillance. A great man in the sky who could see inside your bedroom. Are you being a good girl? A good girl gets an ice cream cone. A good girl doesn’t get yelled at. A good girl gets into heaven.

For all my life, I’ve tried to be good. More than anything, I wanted other people to see me that way. I wanted a reputation morally unblemished. I wanted people to say bunny is so sweet when I wasn’t in the room.

But I don’t want to be good anymore. I want to be free.

The thing is, I know I am a good person. I know I have a good heart. I don’t have to prove that to anyone. And this desire to prove it, in my public and personal life, has kept me in a kind of mental prison. Afraid to disappoint, afraid to be judged. Afraid to make a selfish choice. Afraid to break the rules.

Needing to prove I was good turned me into a chameleon. Shapeshifting according to my environment, my friend groups, my algorithm. I always prided myself on my tact. My innate ability to never say the wrong thing. To consider every angle first. To put myself in their shoes. Until I didn’t know what I wanted to wear. Until I forgot the sound of my own voice.

Maybe it’s getting older. Maybe something is shifting energetically on the planet. But I don’t want to live that way anymore. I don’t want one person’s opinion to upend my self-trust.

I used to think freedom meant there were no consequences. I was so fucking wrong about that. No, freedom is accepting the consequences. And doing me, despite them. Because I’m not a sociopath. I’m not a narcissist. I am deeply compassionate, empathetic and loving. So fuck you. Fuck you, I don’t know you at all. Why are you in my comment section with: This is so disappointing.

Everywhere online, someone is telling you that you are bad. Someone is yelling into a camera about how you thought you were good, but actually, actually you’re not. What the fuck are we doing to each other, honestly? The same people who claim to want a free world are cops.

I don’t want to be good, I want to be free. Because I trust myself. I know I will continue to grow, be accountable, evolve. That is and has always been my nature. But the part of me that desires freedom, she is just as much my nature, and she has been suppressed, neglected, and hidden.

So how do I get more free? I asked myself this question last month when I was walking my dog and the thought “I don’t want to be good, I want to be free” popped into my head out of nowhere, a spontaneous moment of clarity that is actually not spontaneous at all, but one of those healing realizations that has been cooking in the oven for decades.

I’ve decided that, for me, getting free isn’t about upending everything in my life but about paying attention to small shifts that feel intuitively liberating. And leaning into them. Then seeing where that path takes me.

Below is a list of things I am doing that give me a feeling of freedom. Behaviors I might not have chosen in the past, choices that at another stage of life I might have felt guilty about. Maybe some of these will resonate with you or maybe they will inspire you to think about small things you can do to stop trying to prove your “goodness” to others and lean into the frequency of emancipation and self-trust.

1. I stopped liking my friends’ posts that never like mine.

   I always found it odd that many of my friends who I would consider close don’t like any of my posts, but like other posts all the time. I used to rationalize this by assuming it was because I had a big account. I would tell myself that these friends probably didn’t realize that I still wanted and needed their support, even in small ways, like hitting the like button on my writing and videos, which I put my heart into. It always bothered me because I knew they wanted and expected me to like their posts. I’ve stopped doing that. Not as a punishment to them, but as a way of reclaiming my energy. You must

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Can I speak freely? The thing about me is if I hear another perspective, I think it’s true because how can a perspective not be true? It’s like telling someone you’re not angry or not hungry or your bug bite doesn’t itch. I’m easily influenced, very easily. I’ve always wondered what it’s like to be someone who sees the world as a complete sentence. People make videos like they are god. Sermon on the mounted tripod. For me, life is much more squishy and transforming like cuttlefish shapeshifting, not just color, but texture. Someone told me that biting your nails is cannibalistic. I don’t eat myself anymore. It’s been nearly 6 months.

Can I speak freely? Probably not because speaking means thoughts and feelings have gone through a word filter. A symbol of an idea is not the idea. It also has a life of its own. The person listening to you has their own relationship to word symbols. Do you ever feel closest to people when you are together, and no one is talking? Like words break a spell. The person who asks you, what are you thinking? Keep that one around. That is true intimacy. They asked because they could feel you were thinking, but wanted more details. wow. hot. I would like to write a love song called FEEL MY THOUGHTS. I would like to write a breakup song called why can’t you feel my thoughts anymore?

Can I speak freely? I think we went a bit overboard in claiming that half the population is horrible. I actually think there are very few horrible people. Anomalies, really. Like when you go to a restaurant and the food is inedible. It can happen. It’s just not that often. Especially if you’re not so picky you can appreciate a side of fries even if they fucked up the eggs. I have this neighbor I used to hate because I believed he was hateful. So then I was hating him for doing something I was doing. It didn’t really make sense. And it went against my instincts. My instincts are not to hate people. But these days, that makes you a bad person. I think we are all just worried about getting in trouble. I think we are all scared children who don’t want to be punished.

Can I speak freely? They say it’s impossible in the digital realm. They say everyone is hiding and everything is performative. Last night I sat on my porch smoking a Parliament Light and asked myself, "What is it that I really want to say?” Maybe I’m not making sense. Maybe speaking freely means you won’t make sense. Maybe we are not complete sentences. Maybe we are just fragments. Unintelligible globs. Dreams we can’t remember. Minds sunbathing in another person’s lawn next to another person’s poodle.

On a bitterly cold Tuesday evening after my nightly skin care routine, I slipped into the warm pocket under my down comforter when I saw a notification on my phone. An email from my mom. All sense of relaxation left my body.

Two days prior, my mom received an early copy of my book in the mail from my publisher. I knew the email was her reaction to reading it—a moment I had feared for two years.

My book is about healing through the power of your Higher Self and it’s full of personal stories from my life and childhood. I wrote about my trauma. I wrote about witnessing my mother’s unhappiness. I wrote about my dad’s financial stress. I wrote about the homophobic things my parents said when I came out in high school. I didn’t do it for revenge. I did it for love. And healing. I did it for myself and for my readers.

Is she angry? Does she feel humiliated? Betrayed? Would she try to invalidate my experience? My heart started pounding. My stomach turned. My nervous system was time-traveling. I was a child again. Oh no, I am in big trouble.

It’s no secret that the hurt our parental figures put us through as children (intentionally or not) can unconsciously seep its way into our adult lives- from our romantic relationships to the pressure we put on ourselves to “make it” in the world.

The first time I started unpacking my own childhood wounds was nearly a decade ago, when on the heels of a long-term failed relationship, I went to therapy to figure out why I was apparently not good enough for someone to want to marry. It didn’t take long for my therapist to ask about my childhood, eventually drawing parallels between my fears of being incapable of being loved by romantic partners to the trauma in my past when I felt unloved by my parents. After the first several sessions, I’d walk out of my therapist’s office, head straight to the pub on the corner and down two shots of whiskey.

What is this ghostlike power my parents hold over me? I thought. This power to infiltrate my life from thousands of miles away without my consent? To show up unannounced and wreak havoc on my relationships and my confidence like some kind of psychological haunting? I should be over this. My parents had come around to accepting my queerness after I left for college. We get along fine now! So why are these memories still so painful?

Learning about attachment theory provided insight: our earliest experiences of being cared for are like a blueprint for our relationship style as adults. I’d also heard in spiritual circles that our souls choose our parents before we are born, like a karmic lesson plan to put us in the most optimal circumstance for enlightenment.

Ok, sure, but what I didn’t get an answer for in spiritual gatherings or in my weekly (did I mention expensive?) therapy sessions, unpacking the narrative of my childhood like a not-so-fun game of show and tell, was now what do I do? Just being aware that this stuff happened didn’t make me better. In fact, I felt worse. Now I was “this person with wounds and trauma.” Oh, great.

Then one day in a moment of desperation or perhaps divine intervention, I got my answer.

I was at home picturing my younger teenage self, sitting in my bedroom sad and confused, Tori Amos playing on repeat, shortly after my parents told me that being gay was something they would never accept about me. They claimed their intolerance came from love; that they knew what was best for me. But they were actually withholding their love. It hurt so much. And yet, underneath all that pain, I instinctively knew my parents were in the wrong. How did I know that?

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This was the late ‘90s in suburban Texas, where I was taught that being gay meant there was something wrong with you. Still, there was something inside me that knew it was ok to love who I wanted to love, and to be my authentic self. There was a different kind of wisdom and acceptance within me beyond the acceptance and validation I had depended on from my parents for so long. My understanding of love was more expansive and inclusive than my parents' at the time, even though I was the child and they were the adults. Wow. I had been remembering my younger self as this victim, defined by my trauma, but I was so much more than that.

Now what do I do? I had asked myself about my childhood wounds. I began to realize there is nothing to do but love and accept myself for who I am. Just like I had before. I needed to stop identifying as this “person with wounds and trauma that needs to be fixed” and start identifying with the part of me that loves myself despite the suffering caused by my experiences.

My love is strong and courageous. I have always been whole. I’ve always been enough. And there has always been a part of me that knew that, despite what I was being told by society and by my parents. This inner love has always been with me. And always will be.

In all of us is a love and wisdom that exceeds outside validation; an inner awareness of our inherent value. It is our nature to love ourselves. But we have been taught that we need to prove we are lovable. So we began questioning our worth. Painful experiences where we were treated lovelessly put a narrative in our heads that was what we deserved. We were deceived.

You are not unlovable because someone didn’t know how to love you. That was their shortcoming, not yours.

Our parental figures are human beings, like us, who have struggled with their own self-acceptance and have wounds and trauma of their own; who were brought up in a culture that often told them in order to belong, you needed to fit in. And they unfortunately projected a lot of their own fears of inadequacy onto us.

Yes, it sucks to feel the pain of people’s unloving choices, but that could never change how worthy of love we all are. And when that pain comes up, we can love ourselves through it by reminding ourselves that nothing could ever diminish our value.

I used to think that healing meant letting go of the past. But now I see that the past is an experience. I don’t have to let it go, I just have to let go of the belief that those experiences define me.

Back in my bedroom, I took a deep breath and reminded myself that whatever this email from my mom said about my book was a reflection of where she was in her own journey of healing. I thought of her Higher Self, the love inside her, her wholeness, her worth. I reminded myself that my value was not determined by her perspective, just like her value was not determined by mine. She was a human with valid feelings just like me. My anxiety dissipated. My heart opened.

Her response to my book was a few paragraphs long. But it can be summarized in three short sentences.

“I’m sorry.” “I love you” and “I absolutely love this book.”

No matter what your childhood looked like, whether you still have a relationship with your parental figures or not—healing isn’t about needing to fix yourself, it’s about acknowledging that you have always been whole. Your Higher Self lives in your heart and is always speaking to you, reminding you of how worthy you have always been. The past is not your prison. You are free.

sending you so much love,

Bunny

P.S. If you haven’t gotten a copy of my book, please do! Book sales matter so much to any future publication endeavors (probably more than they should), so if you want to support me as an author, this is the best way to show your love. Get a copy for a friend, too! Or for a family member who might really need some Higher Self perspective.

Hello, Higher Self is currently 45% off on Amazon ! For other booksellers go here

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Would love to hear your thoughts and feedback! Also if you ha…

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I’d fall in love with someone for their poems or their confidence or their socialist worldview. It might sound trite to you, but these were the enchantments that drew me into another person’s aura and inspired me to desire a long-lasting connection.

Falling in love was like encountering magic in another person. And if I were lucky, they were drawn to the magic in me.

Some of these relationships were short stints, some would last years. But they always ended because one day the magic that had drawn us together was nowhere to be found. On occasion, it was a betrayal that killed it. One time, it was abuse. Other times, the magic just seemed to leave the room unexpectedly, and we’d fight with each other as if we were trying to summon its return, like a ritual to resurrect the dead.

Falling in love was easy. Staying in love was hard.

It’s kind of a cliché to say relationships take “hard work”. Personally, I always hated that phrasing. It makes it sound like love is a capitalist chore or a boring job or that you and your partner are each other’s bosses who must regularly fill out progress reports. “Work” sucks all the magic out of it.

When I fell in love with my current partner, 10 years ago, I wanted more than anything to make our magic last. But I had no idea how. Staying in love felt like a game of chance, and I hoped I had found a winner. Years into our relationship, we hit a particularly rough spot where I wasn’t sure we’d stay together. Out of pure desperation, we ended up in couples therapy. I guess this is where the “hard work” really began.

But what that experience taught me wasn’t that staying in love required hard work, but that it required healing. Because you have to confront the ways your partner triggers your deepest fear of being unlovable. You have to confront old resentments that have built up over the years of being together.

And yes, healing is hard, but rather than thinking of it as hard work, I prefer to think of it as hard magic.

Healing shows you what you couldn’t see before, such as the behaviors and perspectives that keep you trapped in conflict and suffering. Healing unearths the ghosts of your past, revealing how they have been pulling the strings and wreaking havoc on your relationships by projecting onto your partner. Healing expands your consciousness like a psychedelic potion, opening your heart up to new forms of communication, compassion, patience, and flexibility.

Did you know I started a YouTube Channel? Watch my first video essay: Your Breakup Is Your Awakening: here

After going through nearly a year of what felt like the dark night of the soul of our relationship, where we cried and yelled in therapy, had the most honest conversations we ever had outside of therapy, made drastic changes to how we talked to each other and the structure of our relationship, my partner looked at me one day when we were driving to the farmer’s market and said, I feel like we broke a spell and our relationship is new again.

I felt the same way.

If falling in love is easy magic, then healing is hard magic that keeps the flame of love alive.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think all partners who heal together stay together. But I do think healing gets you to the truth of the relationship. And sometimes that truth means going your separate ways. But I don’t think it’s possible to stay in love without both people being willing to heal themselves and heal together.

Staying in love means choosing magic every day- both the easy and hard kind. I think this is what boomers mean when they say things like keeping the spark alive.

So I want to share with you a list of 6 most profound lessons I’ve learned in my quest to stay in love. Maybe you are having conflicts in your relationship; maybe everything is going great, and this could be more lessons in prevention. Maybe you are single and wondering just how much inner work it takes to keep the flame of love burning bright. If this newsletter is anything, it’s a healing skill share. I don’t believe in gatekeeping! And perhaps this list will keep you out of couples therapy (and save you hundreds of dollars lol).

1. Cultivating independence keeps you close. One of the most surprising paradoxes of staying in love is that in order to feel connected, you need separation. You need to spend quality time apart. You need to know who you are outside of the relationship.

   My partner and I lived in a tiny apartment in Brooklyn during the pandemic lockdown. We went from having relatively independent lives to spending every moment together within the same 800 square feet. Then, in 2021, we moved to a new city where neither of us had a solid friend group. At the time, I was writing my book and feeling extremely isolated. I depended on my partner to meet my emotional and social needs. And even though we were spending so much time together, it felt like we were becoming more spiritually distant- bickering often, on our phones all the time, stuck in a co-dependent domestic routine that was not fun or sexy. Eventually, when we both found community, it was like the spark came back. I realized that when we were so entangled, I not only lost a sense of who I was outside the relationship, but also of who my partner was independent of me.

   The thing is, autonomy is attractive. And attraction makes you desire closeness. The attraction you felt toward your partner when you first met them had nothing to do with who they were to you. You saw them as their own person, and you loved it! You desired them, but you didn’t take them for granted. The energy of attraction requires a kind of separation, and ironically, it makes your time together feel so much more present and special. I have never felt so close to Khara, and I know a big part of that is knowing that I don’t need them for everything and vice versa. When we hang out now, we don’t take it for granted. We plan fun things to do together or exciting meals to cook. We feel inspired to be physically intimate because hanging out together feels renewed and novel. We don’t have to be the same old versions of ourselves together. We can still surprise one another. It’s hot to be independent! So now I understand that prioritizing my friendships and hobbies is not only good for me but also good for our relationship. It’s a win/win.

   So whether you are at the beginning of a relationship or 5 years in, prioritize your interests, curiosities, and friendships outside your coupledom. This is soooooo important!

2. You can’t really trust someone without believing you deserve their love. Ugh, this one is so huge. It’s going to be hard to explain clearly, but I will do my best. So you know how many of us have a fear that we are unlovable? Because we have been through hurtful things that put a story in our heads that we weren’t deserving of love and care? Well, even though I knew on an intellectual level I was lovable, and that my wounding created insecurities that weren’t necessarily real, I didn’t realize there was a part of me that still didn’t believe it. And it created distrust in my partnership. But the thing was, I thought I did trust my partner because I didn’t think Khara would betray me in a big way, like cheat on me. I didn’t realize that distrust also manifests

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I have wanted to create video essays on YouTube for a very long time. I kept putting it off by convincing myself it was a fruitless endeavor. (The truth was I was scared).

I think whenever we do something new, there is a frightened inner child that says, "They are going to laugh at you.” Well, I’m happy to report I finally decided to send my inner child a lot of love and begin this new endeavor anyway…

My first video essay is titled "Your Breakup Is Your Awakening” because the most transformative times in my life came on the heels of heartbreak. The loss of romance to the self-actualization pipeline is so real! I honestly feel like it’s the best breakup advice anyone could ever hear. (I’m serious!)

Please watch, comment, and subscribe :) I just uploaded it!!

big hugs and kisses

Bunny

WATCH HERE

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You know the old adage about imagining everyone naked when giving a public speech? The idea being that the audience is full of people with the same vulnerable parts and therefore nothing to fear? I have a similar ritual before I attend any social event, particularly ones where I won’t know everyone. Before I walk in, I remind myself that I am about to enter a room full of human beings, each with their own set of problems, insecurities, hopes, and dreams.

Which is why last weekend, before walking into my friend’s baby shower, I sat in my Subaru Forester Sport (lovingly named Sporty Spice) and did just that. Took a centering breath, reminded myself that the party would be full of humans, grabbed the gift I brought (a pink unicorn stuffie) from the passenger seat, and followed the sound of laughter toward my friend’s charming house on the edge of a hill.

Now it might seem glaringly obvious that the party I was about to walk into was attended by people, not goblins or gorillas or robots. It might seem like my pre-party ritual is a bit unnecessary or even extreme. But you have to understand, my friend, that in the past I spent the majority of parties seeing other partygoers not as humans but rather as mirrors of my own fears of inadequacy. Terrified of walking into a social event feeling judged as not good enough, my only fortitude was to see everyone else as a potential threat.

And so for countless birthday parties, engagement parties, work parties, holiday parties, and parties for no occasion at all, I shielded myself with emotional armor. I’d stay in close physical proximity to people I knew, wary of starting conversations with complete unknowns. I’d drink alcohol not for fun but more for self-defense, every tequila soda and Aperol Spritz a protective elixir against the dark arts of social humiliation. When I did find myself in conversation with people outside my social sphere of familiarity, I’d be in my head judging my performance like a sportscaster analyzing the play-by-play.

Now you might be picturing me at these parties with a look of pure horror on my face, but that would be wrong. No, friend, I knew how to mask my anxiety well: behind a slightly disinterested smile, an aura of too cool, and an extremely well put together look.

It’s not that I wasn’t aware of the armor I was wearing, I just assumed there was no other way to get through a party. And I’d managed to have fun from time to time, mostly between the second and fourth cocktail when the anxiety was soothed by a warm buzz and the music replaced the overthinking chatter.

But being on a healing journey changes you. You realize that how you experience the world is shaped foremost by your internal narrative. You begin to look critically at that internal narrative. And you finally start investigating its merit.

One of my most profound social humiliations was when I was 13 (the age where social humiliation is likely most rampant). On the first day of 7th grade, I walked into the linoleum hallway at Parkhill Junior High, only to discover I had officially been labeled the school slut. You see, over the summer, I had kissed a popular girl’s ex-boyfriend, resulting in a series of rumors, misinformation, and innuendo, no doubt fueled by the fact that I was one of the only non-white kids at my school, which made me an easy target. I had become a social pariah. Worst of all, even my best friend turned against me. I went from feeling relatively socially comfortable to being an outcast with no one to sit with at lunch. I was picked on and humiliated. Older girls threatened to beat me up after school. And while I eventually found a new circle of friends who were outcasts in their own right, this experience was a turning point for my social confidence. An entire group of people could just decide you don’t belong, and there is nothing you can do about it.

We all carry stories like these, experiences of social rejection that our nervous systems want to avoid repeating at all costs. And while I have compassion for my inner 13-year-old and the pain she went through, there came a point where I had to recognize this isn’t junior high anymore. My social anxiety manifested as a fear of being judged by others, but the truth was I was judging other people by assuming they weren’t kind and by projecting the immaturity of my junior high bullies on them. How unfair!

This judgment that I mistook for protection was a barrier not only to making new connections and fully enjoying new social experiences, but also to being genuinely kind to others (what I claimed I wanted from other people).

How to have fun at a party? Make a conscious decision to see the humanity in people and recognize that we all have insecurities. We all want to feel like we belong. And a party is first and foremost an opportunity to just be together in all our complexity and imperfections. To celebrate the truly bizarre reality of being human. We are so much more alike than our anxiety wants us to believe.

And if you do encounter a random jerk at a party, which can happen, just remind yourself that person’s experience is shaped by their internal narrative, and being in their head must not feel very good.

Nowadays, I use my pre-party ritual of reminding myself to see the humanity in others, not just for recreational social events but also for work meetings, large family get-togethers, public speaking, and basically any time I might get triggered into assuming people are judging me.

Does this mean I never get social anxiety? Of course not! Those old fears still pop up, but when they do, I have a plan. I remind myself again that the people around me aren’t bullies. I go back into my heartspace where I can sense their humanity.

The cool thing about a baby shower is that there are typically really delicious hors d'oeuvres, and my friend’s was no exception. There was a massive charcuterie spread, all kinds of dips (including pimento cheese dip, which I haven’t had in years), and 3 different kinds of cakes. I found myself returning to the food table whenever I felt a bit socially awkward. But I made a conscious effort to introduce myself to everyone I didn’t know and had some really nice conversations. And the times I found myself with no one to talk to didn’t feel nearly as uncomfortable as those moments have in the past. All in all, I had a really fun time.

All my love,

Bunny ❤︎

This post is free, but I’d like to invite you to join my intimate healing community as a paid subscriber. For $5/month or $50/a year, you’ll get access to my 4-day video course: How To Be Your Higher Self, be able to join our monthly Healing Club meet-ups on Zoom, watch and/or listen to my paid-subscriber-only podcast, and take part in our community chat. Hope to see you there! xo

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❤︎ Watch the latest episode of my podcast, Dear Higher Self

Below is the recording from yesterday’s Healing Club meeting :)

I gave a detailed talk and presented a cute slideshow on my most important insights and strategies for feeling empowered and creating boundaries online that actually help both as a content consumer and a creator. I talked about the struggles of comparing yourself to others, balancing staying informed with being overwhelmed with news, and the strategies I use to have a more joyful experience.

Social media can be difficult to navigate for everyone (including me) which is why it’s so important we help each other!

Thank you to everyone who attending the meeting and shared your energy!

Sending lots of love

Bunny

Zoom below:

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In this episode I talk about my relationship to God aka Divine Love, how cool it is that science cannot explain consciousness, some personal mystical experiences and the many ways we are all sacred and magical. I got deep here lol…

Would absolutely love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

thank you so much for being here ❤︎

Bunny

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