After a childhood and adolescence rife with painful experiences and dysfunctional relationships, I became a struggling twenty-something feeling extremely lonely and isolated. I was in incapacitating pain and struggled with frequent suicidal ideation. I had this feeling that there was a good life out there somewhere for me, but that I couldn’t live it because I was too incapacitated. I thought that there must be something about me that I needed to “fix” or change to get there.

I would self-soothe (as we all do at times) with things like overeating, overworking, overspending, excessive pleasure, unfulfilling and stress-inducing relationships, alcohol, cigarettes, and even an obsessive approach to “inner work.” I read tons of self-help books, and pursued quick fix promises of “healing.” I played this pattern out over and over again in different formats.

This cycle is all too familiar for most of us. If I could go back in time and speak to my younger self, I’d tell her:

There is nothing wrong with you. There is nothing that needs to be fixed.  

I’d tell her, in the words of Mary Oliver, “You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.”

I’d reassure her that she made it through, and that she eventually found the right relationships and therapy modalities to free her from that cycle. 

That’s why I’m so passionate about sharing this work with others – because it’s been so deeply freeing for me and so many of my loved ones, and restored us to our full vitality and aliveness.