Ughh…I got triggered.

And I tried to demand that I stay out of regression. I tried to demand that I use all my tools but this one was tough. I judged myself. I slipped. A younger version showed up. She was hurt and deeply sad. But this time she wasn’t rageful.

This time I had some vague objectivity, some small sense of outside observation, that allowed me to resist the magnetic pull where past invades present. Still, staying was taking everything I had.

So I reached for someone I trusted. A witness. A friend. Someone I could speak my truth to.

And this observer, she doesn’t judge me. She doesn’t see me only through the picture I am painting. She holds all of my parts in mind while I dive down deep into the one that is currently running the show.

I let this part come to life.

In full form, full tantrum.

And just as I feel it may burst, I meet her gaze. She still sees me whole, despite being this one very specific part. She even says she understands this piece, its reaction, the size of its feelings. And then just as quickly as it took up my universe, it deflates. Like a balloon with the air let out.

My being starts to come back to its original form. And that trigger is released. Discharged. Into the ether.

As stuck as I felt. As impossibly here as I thought I would stay.

I moved.

It moved.

It rightsized and all my other parts did too.

After decades working alongside the addiction community, these words have become embedded in my life. So much wisdom in a few short sentences. And from them emerge two questions that I have come to believe sit at the heart of spiritual development:

How much is mine to do?
How much is mine to release?

These questions are central to the process my mentors refer to as unfoldment.

My spiritual development mentors, who call themselves tutors, are mostly from the UK. They describe the work of expanding and growing the inner and outer self—the work of the soul—as "unfoldment." Said in their beautiful accents, with a slight emphasis on the “old,” it always sounds like an inviting process.

And yet, what stays with me most isn’t the sound of it. It’s the way they live it. The ones who truly practice what they preach don’t just point you toward this work with their words. Part of their call is the way they carry their own growth. The way they embody spaciousness within themselves—the very spaciousness they offer you to claim. They model, seemingly without effort, the qualities they help you gradually awaken in your own process.

But don’t be deceived by the poetics. This growth is not an absence of hard work. In fact, development requires it. It holds two opposing forces in balance. As the Serenity Prayer so beautifully captures, unfoldment demands steady, focused, committed practice and deep expansion, much of which remains outside our control.

Development requires putting in the work that is ours to do, while leaving the rest to its own timing, aligned with something wiser than will itself. It asks for cooperation with life's current instead of our habitual attempt to dominate it.

But it’s a subtle line. What begins as sincere effort can so easily become an attempt to control the process. Before you know it, you’re trying to hurry what refuses to be rushed.

Like a flower opening its petals, nature has its own timeline. Our role is to create the best possible conditions, and then step back.

This is where I struggle.

Most of us do.

We are constantly fed information about how to manipulate and optimize our inner and outer worlds. We buy in. We believe it. We take the reins, attempt to will our lives into cooperation, only to feel we’ve failed when things don’t go as planned.

We forget the greater truth:

We are not guaranteed our plans.

Think of the flower. It stays fully bloomed for only a short time before its petals fall to the ground. Full bloom is actually a step closer to the end. We rush to bloom, only to rush ourselves closer to our end. We have grown so accustomed to instant gratification, we struggle to tolerate the blooming, the unhurried, natural work of growth — the unfolding.

But this is the bulk of life.

This is life: the steady movement toward fuller expression.

Perhaps unfoldment isn’t something we achieve. It’s instead something we learn not to interrupt.

What are you rushing?

What in your life is asking to unfold in its own time?

Throughout my years teaching spirituality, my favorite lesson has always centered on awe and wonder. For nearly fifteen years, this content has also been a favorite among both staff and clients alike.

What makes it so magnetic? What causes so many to be drawn to and moved by this material?

Upon reflection, it is one of the simplest teachings I offer. The work is not a cognitive practice. In fact, the less intellectual effort participants put in, the better, the more impactful it becomes. This teaching is not about acquiring knowledge. It is about cultivating an embodied awareness that helps participants recognize these feelings in everyday life.

Let us begin, simply, with experience.

We’ll start by defining awe. I’m not talking about the Webster’s Dictionary definition, though that can certainly be a starting point. I’m talking about your understanding of awe.

What does that word mean to you?

Try it. Write it down. Say it aloud. Record what flows freely from you without overthinking it.

What is awe to you?

Now let’s do the same with wonder. What does that word evoke? Again, write it down. Say it aloud. Notice what emerges naturally.

Now that we’ve provided some context, let’s give it some space.

Take a breath and allow your attention to turn inward. Once settled in this internal state, call to mind an experience that stirred awe or wonder in your being. Don’t work too hard. Let your mind roam. Let it stumble upon something from your lived past.

Once you’ve found the moment, pull it closer.

Where were you?

Who were you with?

How old were you?

What emotions arose?

What happened in your body?

Did your breath change? Your body temperature? Your sense of time?

Move slowly through these observations.

And then, perhaps most importantly, notice:

What was your experience of power in relationship to that moment?

As you slowly return to a more cognitive state, consider what parts you’d like to repeat and what parts you’d like to leave behind.

As you come back to the present, notice the impact this remembering has on your body, your thoughts, and your emotions. Take another moment and sit with these feelings.

Experiences like these remind us that awe and wonder are not abstract ideas, but deeply embodied states.

Awe and wonder create powerful visceral responses. They place us in contact with both the vastness of something beyond us and the tenderness of something deeply within us. They are perspective-shifting. They interrupt the rigidity of our usual concerns and reconnect us to presence.

Research on awe is fascinating because, unlike pleasure, awe does not appear to diminish in the same way over time. Psychologist Dacher Keltner, from the University of California, Berkeley, has written extensively about awe as a measurable emotional experience rather than a vague or mystical concept. His research suggests that while pleasurable experiences often lose intensity through repetition and adaptation, awe-filled experiences can continue to retain their emotional impact over time.

In this way, awe and wonder can become pathways into personal spirituality. For people who feel spiritually disconnected or even spiritually averse, they often serve as an accessible beginning point. They also create a kind of roadmap, helping individuals discover what genuine spiritual connection feels like for them.

At a time when loneliness and disconnection sit at the heart of so much emotional and physical suffering, this practice has an important role to play. Awe and wonder create moments of calm, presence, and connection. They offer access to meaning whether someone identifies as spiritual or not.

And perhaps most beautifully, these experiences remain available to us.

We can return to them years later and still feel their resonance in the body. Still feel the opening. Still feel reminded that something larger than our ordinary worries exists alongside us.

References

• Keltner, D. “The Science of Awe.” The New York Times Learning Network, February 9, 2023.

• Keltner, D. Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life. Penguin Press, 2023.

Over the decades as a psychotherapist and teacher, over the years as a spiritual provider and practitioner, I have acquired more tools than I know what to do with. Usually, I have a routine. I make adjustments as needed based on my inner and outer worlds.

But last week, I was stuck.
Sticky, in the middle of the mess, stuck.

So, like the dedicated participant I am, I opened that toolbox.

I was irritable.
Agitated.
Maybe even more so than when I started.

The frustration turned on me,
tight, self-critical, shaming.
Blaming me for not fixing it.

More stickiness.

I can do this, I thought.
So I pulled back, just enough to see it differently.

As much as I wanted relief, these tools were never meant to rid me of discomfort or lift me above my own experience.

They’re here to keep me anchored enough to move through the heart of it and not implode.

As much as I wanted to find fault with the tools, they were not the issue.
My resistance was.

I wanted out without understanding.
Relief without listening.

But the work was right there, in the middle of what I was trying to avoid.

And honestly, thank goodness nothing “worked.”
Floating above it wouldn’t have really done what was needed.
It would have cheated me out of valuable work—
work that would have likely shown up again in another form,
until the lesson was complete.

Ugh.

Life can be so hard.
The wiser part of me knows it’s not meant to be comfortable or even safe all the time.

It’s meant for texture,
for experience that asks for growth,
for pushing our edges and stretching our boundaries.

These practices don’t give me what I want, they make it possible to meet what is actually here.

This time, that meant staying.
Feeling it.
Not escaping it.

The most interesting part?

The moment I stopped trying to move what I had labeled the immovable feeling, it became movable.

As soon as I invited it to speak, and really meant it, that sticky feeling shifted.

What it needed was for me to sit with it,
to keep it company,
instead of pushing it away.

I believe in the power of personal spiritual development.

Not as a trend, not as an identity—but as a real, lived process that changes how we relate to ourselves, to each other, and to the world. I am invested in its growth because I believe, on a collective level, we need it. More self-awareness. More presence. More connection to something deeper than reactivity and survival.

My investment in this work is not theoretical. It is lived.

I came to this space through two distinct, but deeply connected paths: as a spiritually integrated psychotherapist, and as a recipient of spiritual care myself.

In my role as a clinician, I witnessed firsthand the impact that cultivating a personal spiritual life can have on overall health and well-being. Clients who were able to connect to something beyond their immediate pain often experienced a depth of healing that went further than what traditional therapeutic models alone could reach.

At the same time, I have sat on the other side of the room.

I have been the one receiving spiritual care—moved, opened, and supported in ways that traditional frameworks did not fully access. I know the power of these practices not just professionally, but personally. I’ve also sat in spaces within spiritual practice where something didn’t feel right, even as it was being framed as healing.

Standing in both of these roles offered a certain clarity.

My training and experience in the therapy field taught me the necessity of ongoing self-awareness in relationship to clients. The profession requires clinicians to continuously examine what of our own internal world is entering the room—our biases, our wounds, our reactions—so that we can be more intentional, more clear, and ultimately more responsible in how we support others.

In psychotherapy practice, ethics, boundaries, and integrity are not optional. They are foundational. They are required.

As I began to step more fully into the spiritual healing world as a provider, I felt the absence of this same structure.

And yet—that is not the whole story.

Alongside these gaps, I also saw something else: genuine care, deep intention, and a real desire to help people heal. I also saw that a certain softness in boundaries, when held with awareness, allowed for the full humanness of both people involved—and that, too, could be healing.

That is what makes this conversation more complex—and more important.
This is not about discrediting a field. It is about strengthening it.

I began to reflect on what, if anything, could be borrowed from the ethical rigor of psychotherapy and thoughtfully adapted into the spiritual healing space—not to make them the same, but to support a more grounded, intentional, and sustainable model of care.

Most people who step into spiritual work do so with good intentions. That matters. But good intentions, on their own, are not enough. Left unexamined, they can become the very thing that causes harm.

Spiritual ground is intimate territory. It involves vulnerability, trust, and often, pain. Without a clear framework for self-reflection and ethical responsibility, it becomes easy to lose sight of where you end and another person begins.

But it is not easy to see yourself with clarity.

We all have blind spots. We all carry unresolved material. Without ongoing inquiry, those parts don’t disappear—they enter the space with us.

Unlike more formalized fields, there is no universal standard here. No central body ensuring that providers are trained not just in technique, but in how to hold power responsibly, how to maintain boundaries, and how to remain in integrity with the depth of what they are offering.

If this field is going to grow in a way that actually supports well-being—both for the providers and the recipients—then we need to be willing to hold ourselves to a higher standard.

For those offering this work

Let conviction guide you, not certitude.

There is a difference between being grounded in your work and believing you have all the answers. The moment you become certain is often the moment you stop listening—both to yourself and to the person in front of you.

Stay in conversation about your practice.

Not performatively, but honestly. Seek spaces where you can reflect with trusted colleagues in a way that protects confidentiality while helping you see what you cannot see alone. Blind spots are not a failure—they are part of being human. Ignoring them is where harm begins.

Commit to ongoing learning.

Not just in your modality, but in yourself. Life continues to shape you. Your experiences, your wounds, your growth—all of it moves with you into the space you hold for others. If you are not actively engaging with that, you are bringing something unconscious into your practice.

Make time to receive.

This is not optional. It is essential. Receiving is not just about “filling your cup”—it is about staying in relationship with vulnerability, with being held, with not being the one in control. We can only take people as far as we have gone ourselves. If we cannot allow ourselves to be supported, there will be a limit to how deeply we can support others. And that limit is felt.

For those receiving this work

Trust your gut.

Your body often knows before your mind can explain. If something feels off, even subtly, it’s worth paying attention to. Spiritual language can be convincing—but your internal sense of safety and resonance matters more.

Choosing a provider is personal. Leaving one is not.

You are allowed to change your mind. You are allowed to outgrow a space. You are allowed to walk away without needing to justify it beyond your own knowing.

Look for providers who are still learning.

Not just collecting certifications, but actively engaged in their own development. People who are curious about themselves, who stay open, who are willing to question their own perspectives—these are the people more likely to hold you with care.

The expansion of spiritual field is not the problem. In many ways, it is part of the solution.

But expansion without reflection, without accountability, without a commitment to integrity—will not lead where we hope it will.

If we want this field to truly support healing, then both providers and participants have a role to play in shaping it.

Not perfectly.

But consciously.

I’ve been in one.

Over the past months, I stepped away — necessary time — from what had become a rigid writing rhythm. I turned inward toward quiet, toward family, toward my own energy, and the slower pace of winter. I’m not entirely sure that season is over.

But this piece arrived and felt too alive to keep to myself. So I’m sharing it as it came — without promising a new cadence, without declaring the hibernation complete — simply honoring the impulse to step into the open today.

I’m grateful to reconnect.

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Over winter break, I went skiing with my family. My kids are strong skiers, especially my boys, ages eight and ten. They’re constantly nudging me just outside my comfort zone.

When they asked me to go down one of the mountain’s double black trails — the advanced-level runs — a memory surfaced.

I was transported back to my own childhood ski trips. From elementary through high school, I traveled with big groups of friends. I was often the least experienced skier, but at that age, being left out wasn’t an option. So I tagged along, nerves buzzing as I waited to hear which trail they’d choose.

Looking back, I’m struck by how steady I felt. Even with the adrenaline rushing, I was grounded. Aware. Confident enough in my beginner skills. I somehow trusted that whatever the trail handed me, I’d make it down in one piece.

Standing at the top of that steep slope with my boys, the wind whipped against my face. My skis hovered at the edge, tips pointed into what looked less like a trail and more like a drop. The snow beneath me felt both solid and impossibly far away. As I stood there in anticipation, something else came rushing back.

On those challenging runs as a kid, I used to talk to myself the whole way down.

Like a song on repeat.

“You’ve got this. Easy does it. You can do it. You ARE doing it.”

I remember the feeling—trying something that seemed undoable and believing myself through it. Inch by inch. Catching rhythm. Finding flow. Growing more capable with every turn. It felt incredible because it was hard. The size of the challenge made the finish feel electric

Those moments of doubt and fear, followed by forward motion, felt like aliveness in my skin.

Then I was jolted back to the present.

These days, my inner dialogue sounds different. My jaw tightens. My shoulders creep toward my ears. I grip my poles like they’re life preservers instead of tools. It’s a rapid-fire reel of what could go wrong: the bad fall, the knee injury, the fear, the kids watching. I scan for every possible downside, as if anticipating catastrophe is the only way to keep us safe.

And the metaphor isn’t lost on me.

Back then, if I had fallen or gotten hurt, I would not have blamed myself for believing I could do it. I wouldn’t have confused courage with consequence. I understood that sometimes life just happens.

But now? If I take a risk and it falters, I’m tempted to see it as evidence that I aimed too high. That dreaming big was the mistake.

The contrast is striking.

Somewhere along the way, I stopped seeing challenges as invitations to rise and started seeing them as hazards to manage. I became a professional risk assessor, spotting every potential failure before taking a single step.

Motherhood accelerated that shift. My nervous system grew more comfortable predicting devastation than imagining possibility. I became hyper-aware of what could go wrong and less practiced at picturing what could go right.

And yet, through my sons’ eyes, I saw a different version of myself.

They believed in me completely.

They didn’t see fragility. They saw capability. They didn’t see risk. They saw adventure.

Through them, I realized how cautious I’d become, not just on the mountain, but in life. How easily I’ve let risk eclipse reward. How often I forget my own power.

They reminded me not only to believe in myself, but that I am capable of believing in myself.

But what if we returned to that younger voice?

What if, when facing our own double blacks—the career leap, the creative risk, the vulnerable conversation—we ran the loop:

“You’ve got this. Easy does it. You can do it. You ARE doing it.”

And kept going.

So I did.

I channeled that wise, younger self. The playful one who felt fear and excitement—not dread. The one who believed that trying was evidence of aliveness.

And I crushed that double black.

My edges carved clean arcs into the snow. The rhythm found me. Turn, breathe, turn. By the time I reached the bottom, my legs were burning and my chest was wide open, not from fear but from something that felt like freedom.

Not because it wasn’t steep. Not because I wasn’t scared. But because I skied into the trail instead of riding the brake. Because I chose belief over prediction. Because I chanted my way down:

“You’ve got this. Easy does it. You can do it. You ARE doing it.”

The slope gave me a lesson I suspect it might offer you, too:

Dream big.

The stumbles along the way are not proof that the dream was too lofty. They’re simply part of the terrain. Don’t let them shrink your aspirations.

When you stay expansive in the face of challenge, life rises to meet you like a mirror reflecting back:

I believe in you too.

Over the past month, as the air grows progressively cooler and the daylight shorter, a change sets in. The intuitive part of us feels this deeply. But this time of year—sprinkled with holidays and year-end gatherings—asks for a different pace.

In almost every session this week, clients have noted a bodily desire to slow, to retreat, to hibernate. The instincts are spot on. But the world—and subsequently, our minds—fight them.

Our beings ask us to slow down, while the world asks us to speed up. In the very window when we need to do less, we do more.

And then our bodies rebel.

Depression, irritability, sudden mood shifts, physical depletion—all consequences of overstimulation.

Is seasonal depression really about nature’s season, or is it more about our misattunement to it?

Overthinking. Overfunctioning. At a time that calls for rest.

Notice how quiet it feels at the first snowfall. There’s a silence so loud it’s felt in our beings—nature mirroring what our bodies ache for.

Nature is calling me home to myself. It’s calling us all to that very place.

I’ve decided to accept the invitation.

And that much already feels good.

How much, and by whom?
Do you resist, or do you give in freely?
Do you let yourself receive, replenish?

I’m not interested in how many you carry.
I want to know how often you let yourself be carried.

I care most about your roots.
Are they saturated with water, or do they run dry—brittle, threatening to break at any moment?
And does anyone even know?

The weight of the world sits on your shoulders,
yet you’re at risk of keeling over from dehydration—
unable to let nourishment flow toward you,
only outward, giving away every vital nutrient
until nothing remains.

I want to know if you can be held
because it will show how you’ll hold me.

Will you hold me frail, unsure if you can last?
Or nourished and fortified—
brimming with life from all you’ve allowed yourself to take in—
carrying me with a grounded force that says:

I will not fade. My being is as valued as yours.
I will not neglect myself for anyone.
I will honor my worth,
and in doing so, I will honor yours.

Over the past few months, much of my writing has circled around exploring and understanding our inner worlds — particularly the invisible forces we don’t easily see: beliefs, wounds, loyalties, and longings that move beneath the surface. In an attempt to uncover mine and inspire the uncovering of yours, I explore the emotional patterns we inherit, the spiritual practices that soften us, and the psychological shifts that open the door to new ways of being—both in our relationships and in our lives. Each piece offers another angle on this landscape.

This article adds a new layer—one I haven’t fully named before. It brings the body into the conversation. It asks us to notice how pain, sensation, and physical memory participate in our spiritual and psychological becoming. How discomfort can act as an unexpected messenger—revealing what we’ve learned to live with and what we may now unconsciously protect.

When we become wedded to our struggles, we end up keeping ourselves stuck—held in the very states we long to move beyond.

I experienced this truth vividly during a particularly potent breathwork session. I was in a state of union with something greater and asked, “Please remove my pain.” At the time, I had been in a year-long battle with chronic pain in my shoulder and back. It interfered with basic tasks—standing “too long,” typing “too long,” and worst of all, sleeping. It was gnawing.

The response came—not aloud, but in that inner space of knowing:
“We can remove it, if you can let go of what it is attached to.”

Shock. Defense.
Attached to what?

Why would I, in any way, shape, or form, choose to keep this here? Why would I want this?

As the breathwork deepened, I felt the pain flicker—present, then gone, present, then gone. I could see the threads, the cords it was connected to. I could see and feel the people at the other end of them. I gained an awareness of how my pain helped me take up space. How it demanded care. How it kept me safe.

Pain as communication.
Pain as boundary.
Pain as protection.

These connections were not conscious ones, which made their discovery all the more miraculous—a sudden illumination of an invisible pattern. An understanding of a block. An insight offering freedom from the chains of the subconscious.

For weeks afterward, the same visceral image returned in session after session: a higher connection trying to show me my role in my own suffering. They would remove the pain; I would call it back.

Eventually, I learned to hold the pain-free state, to release and actually let go without beckoning it back into my body. In some cases, I could maintain that state post-breathwork for days or even weeks. But whenever I slipped into old habits—especially the ones where I over-gave, overextended, or abandoned myself—the pain returned. A reminder of my bodily sacrifice on behalf of someone else, and proof that chronic pain can be a messenger, not a malfunction—an expression of the invisible loyalties and patterns that keep us bound.

It also made me think of my psychotherapy clients. When someone feels stuck in symptoms they desperately want to shed—when they’ve exhausted treatment options and nothing seems to work—we explore a similar line of inquiry: “How does this difficulty serve you?”

It’s a challenging question to face, often evoking an initial response similar to my own. Shock. Defense. But it puts us in contact with the part of ourselves that has become attached to the pain or comfortable with the suffering. The part of us that needs it. It puts us in contact with the great service our struggles provide despite their agony. And with the recognition of our attachment comes conscious choice. Once we bring all of this information into awareness, we get to decide. Is the pain worth the cost?

I want to be clear here: I am not suggesting that pain is fabricated, imagined, or any less real. Nor am I suggesting that we cause our own pain.

What I am pointing to is the way chronic physical or emotional pain can become familiar—so familiar that even when conditions change, it can feel safer to stay with what we know than risk the disappointment of hoping for relief. Without exploring our attachment to our struggles, and the roles they play in our lives, it becomes nearly impossible to release them. This was true for me.

We may not be able to change the majority of life—the part that happens to us. But the percentage that is ours, however small, is where transformation is possible. We ask these hard questions, because they help us locate the place where this magic lives. If we can be brave enough to face ourselves here, we can move the unmovable.

My own lesson is far from complete. Like many of my recent insights, it’s still in process. But the awareness has stayed with me. It’s helped me hear my relationship with pain through a clearer, more honest lens—a perspective that neither shames my participation nor tiptoes around it.

A perspective that reminds me of my power to change the part that is mine.

At some point in my life, I started confusing seriousness and busy-ness with importance—and I never fully shifted back. Like most patterns of stuckness, this one traces all the way to childhood.

My insights tend to arrive in flashes. When I see a part of myself— particularly an obstacle getting in my way —the awareness opens quickly, almost all at once.

And that’s exactly what happened last week. I was watching my husband be his usual goofball self while still corralling the kids where they needed to go. At one point he even abandoned the task altogether just for the sake of fun. Gasp! My aversion to his rhythm stirred up thoughts of my own seriousness, the way I’m always trying to ground the family in focus and what needs doing, almost explicitly without play.

I got curious. What made it so hard for me to soften, to be silly? I know there’s a role differential here, but I could feel something else was underneath it. I suspended judgement and self-criticism and, in that pause, a series of memories came to mind.

I remembered playing make-believe as a child. One of my favorite games was pretending I was busy. I’d be a teacher with too much to do. I’d be a working mom who just walked in the door, calling out orders. I would pretend to be doing everything at once—talking to myself in a rhythmic way, in my own bubble, too many responsibilities to make eye contact or converse with others.

I can still sense how important I felt: Oh, I am so busy, clacking dishes and flipping through books, performing a life of constant motion.

Looking back, it’s a curious image—and a bit sad, if I’m honest. My little self believed that being busy—overloaded busy, wall-the-world-out busy—was the same as being important. My little kid body felt that the busier I pretended to be, the more valuable I was.

Fast-forward to now. It’s only recently that this memory resurfaced, revealing how much of that message I continue to carry. I’m essentially playing this game in my real adult life. I’m speaking consciously about a subconscious pattern, but that pattern insists: To feel important, you must be busy and focused. Nothing that comes easy is worthwhile. My mature self doesn’t believe this anymore, but my body—and that child within—still gets stuck in the trap.

My awareness sharpened while I was working on the spiritual practices of trust and surrender. One exercise invited me to distinguish necessary action from excessive doingness —to discern and let go of the rest. But as I leaned into that work, my mind got itchy. The more I removed from my plate, the more active my mind became, the more nervous my thoughts felt.

If I let go… If I’m not busy…
How will I be relevant?
How will I convey my importance, my significance?
How will I be worthy of what comes my way?
How will I be sure anything is even coming?

Fear reveals us so efficiently. Hearing these questions made me realize how attached I’d become to busy-ness, to being in the weeds, to holding everything together with my own two hands.

A mentor of mine recently encouraged me to follow the joy, the play, the fun—the antithesis of the subconscious belief that being busy makes me worthy. At first this felt impractical, almost naïve. But it’s become a helpful redirection. Because being head-down, wall-the-world-out busy isn’t fun. It’s sad, lonely, isolating—maybe even objectifying.

The invitation to follow the play has been slowly drawing me out of the stupor. It’s helping me choose a different path—one where value, importance, and worth are inherent, not earned. One where I relate to myself, to others, to the world around me—not just to a to-do list inside my head.

And surprisingly, it’s led me toward more trust and surrender than any cognitive practice. It makes me feel like letting go might actually be possible. Nothing dramatic has changed, but something subtle has—a bit more space between me and the old story, a bit more room for trust to breathe.

Armed with enthusiasm and new skills, I set out to change the world. With shiny eyed-optimism and a childlike eagerness, I began presenting this new offering.

And I was met with crickets.
Buzzing, humming crickets.

At first, that was okay. I actually work best as the underdog. When I feel I have something to prove, when I feel I have something to earn, grit and fierceness come alive. I shine brightly. So I pushed ahead. I networked outside of my league. My genuine demeanor and honest excitement for this work opened a few doors. I started connecting with individuals who gave me and this practice a real chance.

One of these contacts was an established and respected provider in the meditation and spiritual development fields. She was opening a new in-person studio and offered me the opportunity to teach my classes there—in her beautiful, peaceful space. What an honor.

So I began my offerings.
First time: one person.
Second time: no sign-ups. (I even drove the 45-minute commute just in case someone decided to drop in last minute.)
Third time: two people—one of whom was a close friend.

This beautiful little seed, which I was sure was full of vibrant life, was failing to thrive. It was struggling to stretch toward the sun.

Now I like a well-earned achievement, but this challenge was starting to mess with my head. Add to this, I had simultaneously begun to experiment with using social media for marketing these offerings—and I am social media averse. I felt doubly exposed—putting myself out there, standing behind what I believed, unsure if anyone was even listening.

I never questioned the practice. I believed in it firmly. But I did start to question myself. This is when the echo chamber arrived. What was I thinking? I already have a career and family, isn’t that enough? Who am I to believe I can do this?

At the same time, I slowly began to see things move—not according to my plan of immediately selling out large-scale events, but gradually. I started getting feedback from individual breathwork sessions. Participants were in awe of the power of the practice. I received spontaneous messages of gratitude and wonder for what the sessions had opened in them.

I could feel the soft undercurrent, the quiet stirrings of momentum. Still, my insecurities were loud. My classes were drawing a small but steady group—people who resonated enough to return monthly—and somehow I hungered for more.

I could feel I was out of balance, spinning, trying to control instead of flow. I reached out to a teacher and mentor in the breathwork community—someone whose energy and passion for the practice matched my own. She led me through a particularly powerful breathwork session, and we spoke the following day. I wanted to learn how she gained traction when I was encountering skepticism and ambivalence.

She offered generous guidance, but two pieces stuck with me:

1. You will receive mirrors of your own fears. The people pulled toward you will reflect your own feelings about yourself. Check in and get aligned so you attract the right people.

2. Gratitude. When you are as grateful for one participant as you would be for a full class, they will come.

   

Her guidance landed. She was right. I needed to look more closely at my own feelings. How much of my drive was about proving myself versus pure, humble service? Was I truly valuing the one?

Over the next two weeks, I worked on these principles. They kept me honest and grounded.

Then I heard from the studio: eight sign-ups.
We were still two weeks out from my next breathwork class.
Interesting, I thought.

A few days later—more sign-ups. Then more.

Excitement bubbled up, but this time, it wasn’t ego-driven. I felt gratitude—deep gratitude—that I would be able to introduce this powerful practice to more people. I was excited for the energy that would move through community, for the privilege of holding space as others met their own healing capacities.

That night, I had a dream about this full class. But it came with a shadow I haven’t mentioned yet. I am good at having to prove myself. But you know what scares me? When people believe in me. That’s when my automatic feelings of fraudulence set in. Did I trick them? Will I be good enough? Will I match their expectations?

This time, though, the voice quieted quickly. Connection to my passion and belief in this craft made the doubts and fears feel like background noise.

It turns out growth is quieter than I thought.

It’s showing up when no one’s watching and allowing the small beginnings to reveal what actually matters.

That experience distilled a handful of principles that have stayed with me, and I offer them to you as you navigate your path:

Keep your eyes on your own process. As uncomfortable as it was, that echo chamber of my insecurities was a gift. It helped me see my misalignment clearly—and straighten it out.

Gratitude, for even one. Find appreciation for even a single participant. Value their time and their connection to you and the work.

Let play lead. When I started having fun and letting go of the outcome (most of which I couldn’t control) my joy became magnetic. It invited others to find their own light alongside me.

Gentle reminders as you move ahead

The work will ask you to stay honest—with yourself and with others.
You’re not meant for everyone, and that’s okay. The right people will feel your resonance.
Stay curious rather than certain; certitude closes doors that humility keeps open.
Be transparent about your skill, your passion, and your process—it builds real trust.
And remember, what looks like easy fruit often isn’t ripe. Let what’s meant for you unfold in its own time.

This feels worth clarifying. As someone who writes about spiritual growth and exploration, I want to say this plainly: my spiritual depth wasn’t born from that practice alone—it was shaped, steadied, and strengthened by years of therapeutic work.

In spiritual spaces, we often praise awakening, presence, transcendence, the light. But that light only became real for me after years of turning toward what was uncomfortable, honest, and true.

In the therapy world, there’s an understanding: we can only take our clients as far as we’ve traveled in our own process. I was also taught the importance of receiving the same modalities I offer. Together, these principles make clear that to be a responsible clinician is to be in therapy yourself.

To serve well, I had to go there too. And I’ve taken that to heart. Over the past decades, I have been in individual, group, family, and couples therapy. I have explored and then stayed with a variety of theoretical perspectives, both as a way of learning and as a way of embodying the client experience. Therapy helped me meet parts of myself I’d disowned. It helped me move through stuck places. It gave choice over my actions and, subsequently, my life.

Therapy gave me the time and space to face the shameful, frightening corners of myself in the company of another—and discover I could survive what I found there. That I could stay. The world didn’t stop. I wasn’t definitively rejected, despite often fearing I would be.

I remember one moment vividly, a group therapy session. I ran headfirst into a wave of shame and began to cry. It felt endless, like a free fall through my own unworthiness. An immediate self-attack. A group member attempted to help, and as she did, something shifted: I realized I was actually okay. The water I was treading in, that I assumed was bottomless—that I assumed would swallow me whole—had a floor. And my feet could touch. I could stand in this vast, unknown place—scary, deep, but unmistakably mine.

That experience was a lived reminder that I can go to the places I fear most and still find solid ground beneath my feet. What I once took for bottomless is simply unknown. And I can stand inside that unknown, even in the face of self-doubt.

That truth gave me the courage to keep going — to understand myself, others, and my relationships more fully. It allowed me to take risks not just in the therapy room, but in life itself.

And it’s that courage — that willingness to keep descending — that eventually led me back to spirituality. Therapy made me sturdy enough to surrender. It gave me the ego strength to loosen my grip. It allowed me to trust life again.

Therapy acted as a home organizer for my inner world. It created structure for self-knowing and self-exploration. This allowed spiritual work to be the final piece—peeling back the top layer to reveal all that my therapy years had earned me. Therapy also created the stability to tolerate what I found. Because the first thing you see in spiritual development isn’t someone else’s aura or the reasons this event didn’t go your way. The first thing you see is you, your role, however small. These insights come quickly and can be abrupt. They don’t wait for emotional readiness. Therapy offered the fortitude to tolerate and flex into the hard-to-see parts of myself that were suddenly made very clear. It helped me meet them with compassion, instead of judgment.

So when you see me moving through emotional states, flowing into the depths and out, know this: it’s not just spiritual work. It’s both. The psychological and the spiritual inform each other, shaping the way I meet myself and the world.

Spirituality without the grounding of therapy can lead to bypassing, a flight from the human experience. And therapy without the levity of the spiritual can become too dense, too clinical, too bound by reason.

I need both, in balance. Therapy keeps me anchored, and spirituality keeps me expansive.

This combination may not translate the same for everyone, but I do know psychological courage and emotional honesty are the foundation for authentic spiritual growth.

We need legs to our spiritual exploration and discovery. So find your roots and make sure there is balance. The spiritual can be infinitely beautiful. It can entice you to stay. But we are here to be human, to live in relation to others. We need practices that tether us to the ground as we reach for the sky. We need to live as spiritually human and humanly spiritual.

“For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries” — Robert Jastrow (1978), God and the Astronomers

I entered the spiritual world as a skeptic. I used reason as armor, claiming it was the only route to safety, unaware of the cage I was creating. Then I encountered moments I couldn’t explain. I tried to hold on to what had always protected me. Knowledge. Academia. Science.

I read. I read and I read and I read — everything I could find — desperately trying to name the mystery I’d stumbled into. I studied what occurs in the brain as a result of spirituality, awakening, and mystical states. I studied the evidence-based benefits of contemplative practices.

I wanted to see all sides, to know belief wouldn’t make me foolish. I kept turning to science for reassurance, as though data could sanction what I already knew to be healing. I kept searching for evidence that it was safe to trust what I felt — safe to trust myself. It was an exhausting loop, trying to prove my own reality true.

Did it really matter? I was clearly getting in my own way, undermining and diminishing the sacred ground I had been privileged to walk. Maybe it’s no surprise — that impulse to question runs deep. I grew up in a world of materialism, raised a materialist. If something couldn’t be measured, it simply didn’t exist.

That kind of thinking is protective. It offers control and certainty. It keeps life simple. But where does it leave what’s yet to be discovered? What about the things that can’t be uniformly defined or quantified? Where does it leave our bodily knowing?

When I began exploring spiritual practice, I entered a world with far fewer measurements. Some terrain that couldn’t be charted at all.

The funny thing is, during the actual encounter, metrics simply don’t matter. In the moment itself, there is no questioning. Measurement feels unnecessary, even irrelevant. There is no need for validation. The knowing is intuitive, embodied, and immediate.

It’s only afterward — after those states, those moments — that the questions start.
Fear. Embarrassment. For believing.

Have I been fooled? Is my longing shaping what I perceive as truth? Is my wish creating the reality I want to see?

These fears amplify when spoken too soon, before language is found or if shared with an audience of skeptics themselves.

In spiritually integrated psychotherapy, we understand that spiritual experience must be held as valid. It can be damaging when dismissed or translated into psychological symbols before a person has had a chance to make meaning of it. These moments need to be honored in their original form, allowed space for self-directed integration.

And although I know all this, I wonder — the materialist in me — will she win? Will she take all my time trying to prove what’s true? Will she demand evidence to protect me from the vulnerability of trusting the unseen?

Her instinct is protection. She’s afraid that faith will go too far, so she tries to keep me still, locked in place by doubt.

But what a shame it would be to let her lead. To deny me love, presence, and connection. To deny me trust and surrender. To deny me joy and an opportunity to meet the infinite right here in the finite world.

I hope she learns to loosen her grasp. To leave room for discernment and also for the possibility of wonder and magic in this ordinary life. I don’t want her gone. In fact, I need her — just a little less scared, a little less loud, and a little less in the driver’s seat.

I’d rather join those theologians now than at my end. I’d rather let go of the need for all the proof. I’d rather believe in miracle and magic, even at the risk of naïveté.

Maybe faith and reason were never meant to compete, but to keep each other honest — and human.

My skepticism still guards the door, but I’m learning to walk through it anyway.

Reference

Jastrow, R. (1978). God and the Astronomers. W. W. Norton & Company.

This tree caught my attention one day in the midst of work. Its leaves were red. Fire red. A red that cannot be described by the color itself, because its passion outshines the text.

I looked at this tree, with its hot leaves taking turns falling to the ground, and realized those leaves are dying.

Those leaves once a typical, normative green turned a magnificent red just to show up to their deathbed. To stun us into finality. Like a grand finale. A call to the radiance within, left only to shine in their final moments.

I bet if you asked the leaves, they wouldn’t say they were dying. They’d say they were living. Living their most beautiful life until the very last minute.

My first thought: I want to die like that. Not bogged down by aging, sickness, or life’s progressive gray. I want to die like that — hailing a victory with each continued tick of the clock. Each second closer to my end outshining the next. My most vibrant. My most fully expressed to the very last of it.

Then I caught myself. No. The goal is not to die like that. The goal is to live. To live with that thirst for fullness. I want to live bright, vibrant red. The unnameable kind. The kind that says, to capture me in words is to strip something from my magic.

To be all of this, you have to be brave. You have to be courageous in the face of doubt — others’ and your own.

You have to be able to hold your truth. Unwavering. So that the power of your expression is undiluted. Pure in form. That’s what creates the vibrance. The tree holds onto her whole self in the face of others, not one speck given away to outside judgement.

The goal and the task are clear. Like mapping out the terrain you plan to travel.

To be this tree, to be the leaves on this tree, would be the achievement of a lifetime.

We each have the potential of the tree, but do we dare? Do we dare to reveal ourselves? Is our red too much for others? Will they celebrate our vibrance or be threatened by its glow, feeling lack in the face of such freedom?

Despite the uncertainty, I aspire to be the tree. I aspire to be the leaves.
To be brave. To be courageous. To be all of me. Fully expressed.

At times, I’ve trained myself to become a miracle catcher, embodying the gaze of the one who sees the extraordinary in the ordinary. The one who invites these flecks of light to come out and show themselves. The marvelous always seems tickled to share its sparkle, a wink from the universal field.

When witnessed, something shifts, the radiance spreads. This sparkle is contagious. Like pixie dusk, it leaves a twinkle in the eye, warmth in the heart, wisdom in the soul. Life’s secret revealed: all that we are seeking is in the small, everyday moments — if we just look softly enough.

One of the most interesting things I’ve found on my spiritual travels is how miracles suddenly present themselves. When I am in a state of connection with something greater, they show up just about anywhere. This repeated stumbling mirrors the magnitude of my flow, of my union with the current.

Although I may slip into this state after a particularly connected weekend with family or time outdoors appreciating what nature has to offer, I’ve also learned to revive it when I’m feeling low or in a rut.

Here is the recipe I’ve become aware of — the one that helps me return to communion with something bigger than myself.

Gratitude: A Heart Opener

Gratitude is not just an emotion; it is a visceral body sensation. When it’s cultivated, its power is felt. We can nurture this capacity by inviting the experience of gratitude into our bodies and familiarizing ourselves with its presence. Being in a state of gratitude opens the heart and allows love to move freely within us.

How to strengthen this atrophied muscle?

We practice seeing the world through this lens. The more we recognize the felt, bodily sensation of gratitude, the easier it is to call upon when in need. The easier it becomes for the heart to open — and stay open — even when we’re struggling.

A simple practice: Close your eyes. Take three cleansing breaths. Imagine your awareness moving from your head down toward your heart — like a little elevator gently changing floors. Allow yourself to see from this heart space. If your mind floats upward, guide it gently back down.

As you breathe through your heart center, pull gratitude up from your root. Feel it rising from your seat to meet your heart energy. Let gratitude move through your chest as you breathe in and out, holding this energy for a few moments. If it escapes, simply return to the image — drawing gratitude up again, like water from a well.

Awe and Wonder

Awe and wonder are how we remember our place in the great mosaic.

Awe is the feeling that arises when we encounter something vast enough to shift our sense of self — a horizon, a night sky, a newborn’s breath.
Wonder is the curiosity that follows — the impulse to stay, to look again, to take in the impossibility that just became possible.

When we recall moments of awe and wonder and invite their sensations into the moment, we grow our ability to find them again. Like building muscle memory, the body learns how to return.

A simple practice: Close your eyes and recall a moment that took your breath away — the sound of ocean waves, a child’s laughter, sunlight through leaves. Let your body remember what that felt like. Paint the full picture. That is the frequency of the miraculous.

Presence

Miracles live in the present. If we’re lost in our thoughts, we miss the shimmer. To be available to wonder, we have to quiet our minds, release our thoughts, and simply be.

Presence isn’t a performance of stillness. It’s a softening into what already exists, the rise of your chest, the way light drifts across the floor, the sound of birds through the open window.

A simple practice: Sometimes the simplest way back is to feel your feet on the floor, notice your breath, and whisper: I’m here.

Connection

We are our healthiest and most whole when we are connected — to ourselves, to each other, and to the mystery that holds us all.

Miracles flourish in relationship. They are shared phenomena, reflected through eyes that meet and hearts that listen. You can feel it in the warmth of shared laughter, in the silence between two people who understand each other without words.

When we tend connection, the miraculous doesn’t need to be caught, it comes willingly, evidence of the the infinite web that binds us all together.

A simple practice: The next time you speak with someone — a friend, a barista, a stranger — listen fully. Soften your gaze, let your shoulders relax, and receive them with your whole presence. Notice the moment when you feel the exchange. That subtle pulse of being seen and seeing back. That’s connection

And as the cherry on top, when I need a boost into the magic and mysticism of life, I listen to this piece with the words of Alan Watts — the British-American philosopher known for bringing Eastern wisdom to Western ears.

His voice reminds me how boundless life can be. How little we truly know, and how exciting that is.

To catch a miracle is to record the unspoken world —
the shimmer between breaths,
the pulse beneath the ordinary,
the song that hums behind everything,
waiting for us to hear.

Now you should know: I’m a numbers girl. I get wrapped up in metrics easily. It’s like my former A+ self still chasing the best grade.

Add to this a painful truth — I’m not charging enough (if at all) for what I do beyond the therapy room. My psychotherapy work is grounded: clear rates, a waitlist, healthy structure. But my spiritual mentorship and energy healing offerings live in a looser, more intuitive space — one that hasn’t quite found its footing with money. That gap is asking for attention.

So here we are, the perfect storm. An external “should” bumping into just enough truth to get in. The result? I start buying into my own shortcomings instead of challenging the message. I decide something must be wrong with me. I’m working too hard, not charging what I “should,” and these marketing absolutes hold the answer.

When the noise gets this loud, I know it’s time to turn inward — to sift through the clutter of “shoulds” and “coulds” until something true emerges.

It all started last week, when I received another marketing email about how to monetize Substack by posting more Notes. It came with advice about using four words to describe a future offering.

I understand the intention, and this could be helpful for some, but not for me. For me, it stirred feelings of inadequacy and fear of “doing it wrong”, a sure sign I needed grounding.

The truth is, this isn’t the first time I’ve lost my footing. Each season has brought its own version of this moment — when I’ve forgotten myself. Again and again, one question becomes the compass that brings me back to center.

What am I here for?

I’ve asked this question at crucial turning points — inflection moments that invite a choice: stay the course or change direction. It’s saved time, energy, sanity, and that internal feeling of yuck (otherwise known as cognitive dissonance). It sharpens focus, clears confusion, exposes what’s off, and anchors me in what matters.

This question has followed me through the years, each time pointing toward a truer way of being.

My first job out of college was in finance. Hired directly into a competitive analyst program at one of the big banks, I was good: top tier, top quartile (remember that language?). I survived the recession layoffs. But I was also miserable. Despite a natural skill with numbers, I was disinterested in them.

What am I here for?

Purpose and meaning had no roots in this work. The monetary gain was not worth the emotional and spiritual cost. I was misaligned. I left and returned to school to get my Master’s in Social Work. This question restored direction and integrity when I’d nearly lost both.

Once a licensed clinician, I took a role building and leading a substance use program. It was energizing and impactful, but also high stress. Mortality was a real part of the job. Although I began as someone who could help others navigate these serious waters, the intensity took its toll.

What am I here for?

I was giving everything I had to this cause. I needed to make room for myself in my own life. I wanted to start a family and a private practice. This question helped me honor the richness of that experience and recognize it was time to move on.

I did build the family I hoped for and the career I was seeking. With three kids and a private practice, life was full. But building the business while building a family was exhausting. In an effort to legitimize the work I loved, I carried a large caseload, stretching myself too thin. I could never give either side as much as I wanted. Fitting it all in left everything feeling incomplete. Nothing got my best. I was burning out.

What am I here for?

Overdoing it drained the vitality and joy I once found in both work and family. This question guided me back to breathing room and balance.

As my children entered school full-time, space opened up in my life again. I reduced my caseload and began exploring new areas that felt both nourishing and intriguing. I still loved providing psychotherapy, but I was increasingly drawn to spiritual and healing modalities.

What am I here for?

Growth. Expansion. Healing that deepens my capacity as a partner, a mother, a person. Allowing space to explore without an outcome in mind — to follow what feels meaningful. Some things exist simply for the wonder of them. This question helped me slow down and let that be enough.

After years of immersion in spiritual and healing studies — and witnessing how profoundly they transformed my life — I felt an abundance building. Wisdom, tools, language, and ways of seeing that had gently reshaped how I moved through the world.

What am I here for?

This growth wasn’t mine to hoard. It was meant to circulate, to be offered back as guidance, perspective, or encouragement for those walking a similar path.

Writing has become a way to answer this question in the present day. A way to consolidate what I’ve learned, listen for the direction that calls, and understand the needs of those drawn toward my work. I’m here to metabolize and offer a mirror for those who resonate — to provide courage, company, and belief.

And while this question will continue to turn up and shape the many versions of what comes next, I think…

What about you?

What are you here for, in this very specific moment?

AND

What are you here for, arms stretched open towards the sky, in this world?

The pull relentless.
Purpose still shimmering out of reach.
What is all this for?
Where does it go?
What will become of everything I’ve gathered?

Like the little bird, “Are you my mother?”
I keep asking each resting place: is this it?
Each time, the answer comes: not yet.
So I’ve stayed.
Studied. Grown.
Becoming more and more full,
sometimes painfully so,
always sensing a greater purpose
without knowing its shape.

But now, something has shifted.
I’ve been moved to the edge.
I feel the threshold.
The first stirrings of arrival,
ready to break through.
Uncertain in form,
undeniable in presence.

Synchronicities multiply.
People and opportunities are drawn near.
Dreams stretch their bones.

And yet, here at the threshold,
uncertainty burns.
Will I bear it long enough to see this through
or will discomfort tempt me to retreat?

Doubt whispers: you’re not ready.
Fear clings, even after all this wanting, waiting.
Can I stay?
Can I love myself enough to believe—
in me?

This is the work of the threshold:
to stay long enough
for what is coming to take its first breath.
To let the ground shift
without rushing to find footing.

The future calls in fragments,
its language trembling but laced with wonder.
Unrestricted by the limits of my imagination

The threshold demands surrender—
the embodiment of free fall.
It whispers: let the current move you.

And I remember:
this current, I built myself.
Bravery and conviction carried me here.
The same momentum that terrifies me now
urges me to move ahead: let’s go. Let go.

Without another thought,
I close my eyes.
Brace.
Leap.

See you on the other side,
in all the magic that awaits.

There was a time when I was convinced this brush would change my life.

After six years of dedicating my body to growing, birthing, and feeding three babies back-to-back, I was scrambling to find me again. I had bombarded myself with the baby phase, one pregnancy tumbling right into the next, never leaving enough breathing room to process the transition to motherhood before another child was already on the way.

I wanted to go back. Not out of regret, but because I knew myself before. I knew who I was and what I stood for. I knew my talents, my gifts, my center. In this new mommy phase, I didn’t know anything.

Enter the cellulite brush.

I had been eyeing it for months. The story in my head was, this brush will restore my body to its pre-kid form and I’ll be my pre-kid self, find inner peace, and self-love.

You can see where this is headed.

I religiously used it for two weeks. Two weeks. That’s it! And then I realized, it wasn’t the cellulite brush. Which, by the way, I’m sure is a great product if your goal is smoother thighs, but it is not a great product if you are seeking a time machine, an identity formation tool, or a self-love and worthiness creator. I should have read the label more clearly.

Now it just collects mildew in my shower for lack of use, a reminder that it was never the brush that brought me back to myself.

Not the brush.
Not the cashmere sweater.
Not the expensive face cream.
Not the house or the car.
Not even the job.

It was never the things.

It was never about possessions or the superficial — not even the ones that promised to change my life or make me feel whole again.

In this case, I’d been swindled. Mostly by myself. I wanted so badly for something external to repair what felt broken within. But as the saying goes, “Wherever you go, there you are.” After my purchase, I was just me with a cellulite brush. Still human. Still struggling. Still needing to do the actual work.

Now, with hindsight, I can see what that ‘work’ really looked like. The things that soothed, grounded, and reoriented me weren’t flashy or new. They were the steady elements that always form part of the healing recipe. My post-transition recovery regimen, so to speak.

Time — letting things settle, giving myself breathing room, finding what my supervisor calls “space between the notes”
Connection — with other humans living through the mess of change, who understand, who remind me I’m not alone
Movement — the embodiment of living in my skin as it is today, discovering its strength and vitality all over again
Space for me — fun, rest, curiosity, and things that feed me beyond the roles I am playing

It is never the brush.

It is me — slowly, awkwardly, sometimes painfully — meeting myself right where I am.

If you’re in that place now, reaching for something out there to fix what feels unsettled in here, let this be your reminder: you don’t need a different body, a perfect routine, or the right product to come back to yourself.

You just need time, connection, breath, and enough space to hear the voice inside saying,

“I’m still here.”

How did I even find breathwork?

If I look back long enough, I realize breath has always played an important role in restoring balance to my system. Through college and into my early working years, I was a runner. Eventually, I built up enough stamina to run a full marathon (and quite a few half-marathons). What gave me the most relief wasn’t the running itself. It was the breathing.

When I made the breath steady and rhythmic, I could survive and even thrive at any distance. It would quiet my mind, offering freedom from mental chatter. More than that, it opened clarity, perspective, creativity. Some of my most helpful insights and ideas have arrived mid-run.

Over those years, I turned to running, and my breath, to find grounding. To relieve stress. To move stuck feelings. To access inspiration.

Later in life, after covid and three kids, I found breath once more. This time through Wim Hof’s method of daily guided breathwork and cold showers. In the midst of life’s chaos, this breath gave me a way to focus and tend to myself. I felt more energetic and awake, even with the demands of family and work.

By mid-2023, at the height of my own spiritual exploration, I discovered yet another breathwork practice: Two-stage pranayama.

I came across a flyer for “Transformational Breathwork” at a local metaphysical space — a place I had gone for reiki, relaxation, healing, and community. Being that I was in the middle of my own transformation of sorts, I felt this workshop was speaking directly to me.

So, I went.

After a short but clear introduction, I lay down with my blanket and eye cover as music filled the room. The instructions were simple: two breaths in, one exhale out — all through the mouth. I was told to use the breath as an active meditation, to return to it whenever my mind wandered.

I followed along. Aware. Breathing. Aware. Breathing.

And then….

Gone.

I flew. I’m not even sure where. Time slipped away, and what came rushing in was everything at once — insight after insight, as though I’d been handed the whole map of my life in an instant. The larger patterns of the world, of my own story, unfolded with a clarity that bypassed thought and landed somewhere deeper.

And then — just like it began — snap, it was over. The music had stopped. The facilitator was gently calling us back. My whole being felt pulled to stay, as if gravity wanted to keep me there. I had touched an expanse, the infinite, Oneness. It was hard to leave that kind of warmth, that kind of bliss, that kind of holding.

Slowly, I did. I returned to my body buzzing, vibrating. My cells were lit from within, every part of me alive.

I went home silly, with a goofy grin that refused to fade. I was overflowing with gratitude. Life felt so beautiful. I marveled at the foolishness of missing this in my day-to-day “stuff”.

How do you explain this experience to someone who hasn’t lived it? Words fail. So instead of trying, I said to my husband, who I saw with fresh eyes:
“I love you so much. I am really lucky for you and this life.”

A part of me wanted to apologize for all the human moments when this perspective evaded me. I didn’t. He looked at me like I’d lost my marbles, not knowing I had just found them.

That night, I went to bed feeling spiritually validated. I understood. What? I’m not sure how to describe it. Something like context. This life, is so small, so temporary. Every texture, is a lesson, a learning, and a gift. A precious, precious gift.

I kept attending breathwork groups monthly, having new, unpredictable experiences of connectedness and emotional release. For a series of months, I even removed the chronic pain in my shoulder while breathing, sometimes staying pain-free for days or weeks afterward.

Each time, I left awakened by the possibilities within human experience — to just how much capacity we hold. But mostly, I was struck by how deeply connected we are to ourselves, each other, and to something so vast that words can’t capture it.

Breathwork became a daily practice, every morning. Eventually, I trained to become a breathwork facilitator, eager to help others experience this kind of connection too.

And here we are.

The Benefits of Breathwork

Breath, at its core, is a bridge — helping you move from mental noise to felt experience. It sharpens body awareness, clears emotional and energetic stagnation, and creates space for intuition to arise from a grounded place.

Breathwork and pranayama aren’t just wellness trends. They’re time-tested practices grounded in both ancient wisdom and modern physiology.

Breathwork refers to intentional breathing techniques designed to regulate the nervous system, increase energy flow, and cultivate presence.

Pranayama, a cornerstone of yogic science, literally translates to “life force control,” and involves precise methods of inhaling, retaining, and exhaling breath to influence physical, mental, and energetic states.

When practiced with guidance and consistency, these methods have measurable effects on heart rate variability, cortisol levels, and emotional resilience

Demystifying Breathwork

Here’s what you should know:

1. No experience is needed. However, there are some contraindications to review first (such as pregnancy or certain medical conditions). Beyond that, anyone can practice.

2. Two-stage pranayama (the method I describe here) is done lying down with a blanket and eye cover, breathing through the mouth. No breath holds.

3. You control the intensity. You set the pace and depth of the breath. In facilitated sessions, you can always ask the instructor for support.

4. It’s more than physical. For some, breathwork is simply a way to quiet the mind and find inner stillness. For others, it brings profound experiences of emotional release or higher-level connection.

Breathwork is best understood when practiced. It’s something you have to feel to truly know. If you’re curious, I’d love to share it with you, so you can see what’s possible through something as simple, powerful, and transformative as your own breath.

When did we stop doing that?

Somewhere along the way, many of us traded play for productivity. We got serious. Responsible. Efficient. But at what cost?

Play is freely chosen, joyful engagement in activity for its own sake, marked by curiosity, creativity, and exploration (Brown & Vaughan, 2009).

I’ll be honest: Engaging in play is not my strong suit. I’m still learning how to do it.

Seriousness has always been easier for me. Even as a kid, I wanted to hang out with the adults, to be their equals. So, I played less.

Now, as an adult, I’m relearning. The irony? I have academically studied play, used it in treatment with clients, and taught it to others. I know, intellectually, the necessity of play despite forgetting how to do it myself.

Play came back into my life while leading a rehab for young adults. I was tasked with developing a curriculum specific to the needs of this newly defined cohort. Traditional lectures wouldn’t work. Instead, we mixed connection-driven exercises with standard content on substance use and recovery. We encouraged spontaneity, laughing and being silly within the structure. Engagement rose, attendance improved, and the effectiveness of treatment increased.

We had intuitively included play and its impact was clear. But I wanted to understand more about what was actually happening.

That’s when I came upon the research of Dr. Stuart Brown, pioneer in the study of play and founder of the National Institute for Play. His work explores what play is, how it impacts our health, and the consequences of suppressing it.

Most notably, Dr. Brown’s research shows that play is far more than entertainment. It shapes our cognitive, social, and emotional well-being from childhood through adulthood. Read that again: play is essential to well-being throughout our lifespan. In other words, adults need play.

Now that I’ve shared this inconvenient truth, it’s worth taking a moment to digest.

You can explore Dr. Brown’s work yourself in his TED Talk (Warning: the talk is from 2008, but it provides a clear sense of his research):
https://www.ted.com/talks/stuart_brown_play_is_more_than_just_fun

Knowing all this, I’ve been reflecting on my own relationship with play — noticing the moments when I push it away, locked in my seriousness, and the moments when I allow myself to lean into silliness.

It got me thinking about an article I wrote on rituals and their healing power. In retrospect, I missed an important component: the rituals that have impacted me most are the ones infused with play.

Here’s one of my favorites:

Every summer, I spend time with my family on the north fork of Long Island, where farms meet the sea. It’s my happy place. Deeply nourishing, with its salty air and open fields.

A few years ago, I walked with my mom to one of my favorite local beaches, about a mile from our house. We sat looking at the clear water, and I said, “Sometimes I come down here and it feels like the water is calling me to jump in.” Rarely do I indulge an impulse, and I’m certainly not one to act ‘just because’.

But when my mom looked at me and said, “Why don’t you?”, something shifted.

I started to list excuses — my wet shirt, my sandy feet, the mile walk home. Then I stopped. And I did it.

An act of play. Spontaneous, with no purpose other than the act itself.

I took off my shoes and waded in. Shirt, shorts, and all. And I just laughed. I laughed so hard I could barely breathe. I marveled at this tiny act of rebellion — this decision that honored the pull of my body over the logic of my mind. I smiled at myself, at the waves, at the whole ridiculousness of it.

That single moment became the beginning of a ritual, one that still grounds me years later.

On mornings when I can sneak away, I run or walk to the beach. No towel, no swimsuit. Just the possibility the water says, “Come on in”. Without deciding ahead of time, preserving the spontaneity of the moment, I look at the water and see if I am called to play.

My success rate is about 99.9%. But I still make no assumptions, no mandates, no plans about what will and will not take place. If I am not called, I do not feel guilty. I allow the moment to choose. But if it is a “yes”, I jump in the water fully clothed. It does not lose its magic. To this day it is one of the most thrilling and liberating ways to celebrate life.

So, ritual is important. Presence is important. But the most healing element here, for me, is the play. Spontaneous. Unplanned. Free. And so silly.

Over the years, I’ve coaxed a few friends to join in. The laughs are always contagious.

So friend, here’s my invitation to you:
Get in. Clothes and all.
Don’t overthink it.
Let your body lead.
Laugh. Play.
And remember how alive you are.

References:

American Academy of Pediatrics. (2018). The power of play: A pediatric role in enhancing development in young children. Pediatrics, 142(3), e20182058. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2018-2058

Brown, S. (2008, March). Play is more than just fun [Video]. TED Conferences. https://www.ted.com/talks/stuart_brown_play_is_more_than_just_fun

Brown, S., & Vaughan, C. (2009). Play: How it shapes the brain, opens the imagination, and invigorates the soul. Avery.

National Institute for Play. (n.d.). What is play? Retrieved September 11, 2025, from https://www.nifplay.org/what-is-play