Life is not a dress rehearsal Life still occurs even with our eyes closed Doing something at 40% capacity is still doing something 100% of the way We are not defined by our circumstance It’s possible to change the energy of a space or relationship A lesson will often repeat itself until it is learned [...]
Where’d all the time go
At one point, I was an eight year old girl daydreaming about owning my own credit card (big mistake), having my driver’s license, and living near an art museum. Oddly enough, all of these dreams have come to fruition, but the heaviness I carried in my childhood heart found its way to stay throughout the [...]
Conditional love in the chaos of unfamiliar times
“What good is love if it’s toxic?” I ask my therapist. “Perhaps it’s not love that’s toxic, but the expression of it that is.” I used to think that unconditional love was the greatest love. To love someone regardless of any action they do even if it’s against you and to love them fully and [...]
23 Lifetimes
Today marks my 23rd year of life. In reverence of that, I have been reflecting on my spiritual journey and all the ways it manifested whether through support with my healer or through soul-affirming dreams. A few days ago my healer told me, “Some souls find the same souls that they meet repeatedly throughout every [...]
The Isolation of COVID
We hail on recollection, memory guiding thought, thought guiding choice. When we look back at how we’ve learned to live, my mind struggles to accept that we are entering a new mode of life. The tensions between my expectations of the old while welcoming the new is causing a friction and dissonance in my life. [...]
Fear the change or embrace the opportunity
Will we fear for change or embrace the ambiguity of opportunity? I have been stuck in a self-made dilemma, to stay home or move out… Much of my anxiety around the latter is tied to my perfectionism of wanting everything to feel right and look right to be the “right” choice, but my good friend [...]
To This We Owe Ourselves
Dear Friend, We cannot claim the inheritance of stars and skies. The world was not created to charm us into certainty. This world is not our birthright. Nature’s grace moves swiftly and beautifully past us. We fold and unfold by the things that carry us. We build houses on hills, the fallacy of kings with [...]
There’s more to suicide prevention than just talking about it
How profound is it to be so connected to the pain of someone that you feel compelled to change it? I recently said this to someone I look up to after I noticed how lost and disempowered he seemed to feel regarding the current political climate and violent loss of black lives at the hands [...]
Before you stop taking your meds, read this
Are you also feeling tempted to go cold turkey on your medications? Read this before you make any firm decisions. Maybe we can both learn something together in the process of contemplating our medication.
At the forefront of change
For most of my life, I’ve known depression for almost as long as I’ve known myself. There was a “me” before mental illness and there is still a me even with mental illness, but my mental illness is not the all-encompassing way I know myself. Just as there is a you in spite of all [...]
The Equilibrium of Change
A lot of the people I admire have told me, “The only constant in life is change.” My high school robotics coach told me this along with her wife followed by some of my family members and therapists. It seems as if they are all reading from the same hymn and if a myriad of [...]
Remembering the Human Spirit
When the world is moving incredibly fast, it’s hard to take a deep breath. Today, I was driving back from the grocery store when this wave of anxiety washed over me. My heart started palpitating and I noticed myself holding in my breath. I pulled over to a nearby parking lot of a park and [...]
10 Things ‘Incandescent Alphabets’ taught me about psychosis
GoodReads describes Annie Roger’s book as, “Psychosis, an invasion of mind and body from without, creates an enigma about what is happening and thrusts the individual into radical isolation. What are the subjective details of such experiences? This book explores psychosis as knowledge cut off from history, truth that cannot be articulated in any other [...]
Six Feet Apart
I’ve been hesitating on writing about this for a while, but I’ve been thinking about this collective traumatic experience we are all going through as the COVID-19 pandemic ensues. News articles and live streams of press conference briefings from state officials sit heavy with me as I lay in my bed in the morning. It [...]
It isn’t in your deck
Suicide. What an awful combination of letters that manage to hold such unbearable pain. Three weeks ago, I sat in my therapist’s office and the words, “I can’t get what I did out of my head,” rattle off my tongue. I’ve attempted suicide before, self-harm has been a vicious cycle in my life no matter [...]
The Legacy We Leave
What if we die having done nothing remarkable or novel? Is that truly a failure? A while back I wrote about the Novelty of Depression especially in connection to the American Dream. What if our legacy is one of emotional impact rather than vocational achievements? Have we really robbed ourselves of the potential of a [...]
Keeping your head above water
How I wish I could tell myself, the self from a month or two ago, that today would be a better day. How I wish I could remind myself that there are days like today filled with infinitely more joy than suffering, if only we allow it space to enter. Somewhere in between pain and [...]