It whispers, “This is all there is.”

Suddenly, every choice feels like a chain, every interaction a rehearsal, every morning a repeat of the one before.

This is the experience of feeling trapped.

It is a psychological state we often overlook because it doesn’t announce itself with fireworks. It comes from living a life where your story has been written by others: expectations, duties, comparisons, and cultural scripts. We absorb messages early and often: be responsible, be liked, be successful, be perfect. The self you might have known begins to shrink under the weight of obligation.

At first, it feels comforting. The familiar is predictable, even if it stings. There’s safety in routine, in performing the role expected of you. But over time, that comfort turns brittle. Life begins to hum with a low vibration of dissonance. You move through the motions, but the motions aren’t yours. Work feels endless. Relationships feel muted. Your own desires, hopes, and curiosities become background noise.

This entrapment doesn’t just affect the mind. It spills into the body. Muscles tense without reason, sleep fractures into restless fragments, the stomach knots itself around unspoken questions.

Anxiety, guilt, and self-reproach thread their way through the day. You may find yourself scrolling endlessly, busying yourself with distraction, trying to outrun the voice that asks the quiet, impossible questions: Who am I? What do I really want? Have I even lived at all?

The origins of this trapped feeling are layered. Sometimes it stems from early life of family expectations, school pressures, social roles. Sometimes it is the accumulation of grief, heartbreak, loss, or trauma that reshapes the landscape of your self. Sometimes it is the inertia of decades of compliance, compromise, and survival, where every small choice nudged you further from your authentic self. Or it’s all of these at once.

When we feel trapped, our connection to ourselves frays. Joy becomes faint. Curiosity dims.

We forget what it feels like to act from desire rather than obligation. Interactions with others feel hollow, as if we are wearing a mask of someone we’ve become by habit and necessity. Even the mind rebels: indecision, rumination, and mental fatigue become constants. Existential needs like authenticity, belonging, purpose, meaning go unmet, and with them, hope itself can begin to feel like a distant echo.

The awareness of the entrapment is the first crack in the walls that confine us. Naming it, seeing it, and giving it voice begins the unfolding process of liberation.

Therapeutically, this is where narrative work, existential reflection, and compassionate witnessing come in. We don’t rush. We don’t force the walls down. We sit with the discomfort, like a patient cartographer, mapping where the self has been stifled, and where it might grow again.

The journey out of this feeling is rarely linear. It asks patience, curiosity, and courage. It begins with noticing small fissures: a fleeting desire, a suppressed thought, a spark of curiosity. It continues with choice, intentional decisions, aligned with values and inner truth.

It deepens through reflection and understanding which chains were never ours, which roles we have outgrown, and which fears are ready to be met. And it ripples outward by reclaiming voice, reclaiming agency, reclaiming the right to live a life that is unmistakably, unapologetically ours.

Feeling trapped is not weakness, it is a signal. It is the mind’s way of saying that there something is alive within you that wants to be known, heard, and lived.

It is a call to self, to presence, to authenticity. And it is the starting point for every meaningful turn, every courageous shift, every moment when we step into ourselves and whisper, this life is mine to inhabit

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Their life, as they described it, was a hollow reflection of expectations they had never chosen for themselves. Day after day, they moved through the motions of work, obligations, relationships, but through it all, they felt like an automaton going through the motions. They were observing life, not living it.

And this life didn’t feel like them. And maybe, they admitted, they didn’t even know who they were anymore.

For decades, their attention had been elsewhere. Anticipating the needs of others, fulfilling obligations, doing what needed to be done to survive. But the price of that devotion had been a gnawing emptiness, an eroding connection from themselves, and a creeping sense of death-in-life. It felt like they were a ghost moving through their own existence, silently screaming for their spirit to be heard, but even they couldn’t decipher the cry.

This is the essence of an existential crisis. The etymology of a crisis is a turning point, where the self demands attention. It is where identity, authenticity, belonging, meaning, purpose, and hope, the deepest existential needs, emerge, insistent and undeniable.

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In that room, we began to trace the contours of their inner landscape. We didn’t rush. There was no quick fix, no tidy solution. Instead, we sat with the discomfort, witnessed the suffering. We named it, listened to it, and allowed it to breathe. Each sigh, each pause, each hesitant confession was a thread leading back to themselves.

We explored the weight of freedom and responsibility, as Sartre teaches, how even within constraint, the choices they had made, and the choices they could make, were theirs alone. We touched on values in action, Kierkegaard’s insistence that meaning is lived, not theorized, and how even the smallest intentional decisions could anchor them in authenticity. We acknowledged the impermanence of life, the grief they carried, and the shadows of mortality, following Yalom’s guidance that facing death illuminates purpose.

Through the silence, the questions, and the trembling moments of insight, a glimmer emerged. For the first time in years, they sensed the possibility that life could be theirs, not the life expected of them, not the life dictated by duty or fear, but the life they might choose. In existential therapy, the turning point is not a single revelation; it is a careful, patient awakening to the self that has always been waiting beneath the weight of routine, obligation, and unexamined grief.

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In existential therapy, we meet clients at this very turning point. It might be grief, divorce, life transitions, empty nest, midlife reflection, menopause, trauma or simply the quiet yearning for more: more authenticity, more purpose, more life.

The work is in holding the space for the client to notice the stirrings of their own soul, to honour the questions that arise, and to take the sometimes trembling, sometimes bold steps toward inhabiting the self they were always meant to become. It is the sacred space where insight, courage, and transformation converge.

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If you’re a counsellor or therapist wanting to explore this work, join the next workshop on Saturday March 28 from 10-11:30 AM MST, “Integrating Existential Philosophy into Therapy,” where we translate these philosophical concepts into practical, experiential strategies you can use with clients navigating life’s most profound turning points. Sign up here for an experiential, practical and theoretical exploration of existential therapy: https://www.thriveintegratedpsychology.com/products/live_events/existential-therapy-workshop

Or, for a deeper dive, pre-order the full existential therapy course, a comprehensive guide to integrating philosophy, therapeutic principles, and hands-on interventions for clinical practice. For lifetime access, self-paced, interactive learning, you deserve to invest in your clinical practice: https://www.thriveintegratedpsychology.com/courses/existential

To choose your life, again and again, with courage and consciousness, is the radical act at the heart of existentialism always available to you.

She sits at the edge of the table, plate barely touched, hands curling around the fork as if it were a lifeline and a leash all at once. She tells herself she is hungry but not hungry enough, that the numbers on a scale are more reliable than the warmth of a hand reaching toward her.

The voice is already there.

It is sharp. Efficient. Certain.

Too much.

Not enough.

You don’t deserve more.

Smaller is safer.

The voice sounds like her, but it was built long before she knew how to question it. It was shaped by what was said in the offhanded comments about bodies, about discipline, about willpower. And by what was unsaid in the withheld praise, the love that felt conditional, the silence when she needed reassurance. The inner critic became the translator of that environment, turning ambiguity into instruction. It decided that shrinking was the solution.

Her struggle is never about food itself. Food is a symbol. A mirror. A test. It reflects her relationship with love, with attention, with care, with permission to exist fully. To eat is to receive. To receive is to risk needing. And needing once felt dangerous.

Her psyche is trying to expand, to fill rooms she has been taught to shrink from. She wants to stretch her arms, speak her mind, take up space in ways the world has discouraged. The world has told her that in expanding herself she will be unlovable. And so she tightens. She counts. She controls. She makes herself smaller in the most literal way she can.

It is a strange contradiction: her spirit presses outward while her body pulls inward.

And misogyny hums beneath it all. A culture that tells women to be palatable, to be digestible, to be small enough not to threaten. A hungry woman does not revolt. A woman preoccupied with her reflection is too distracted to question her confinement. When self-image becomes obsession, self-concept is neglected. She studies the mirror instead of studying her own becoming.

The critic reinforces this daily.

If you were thinner, you’d be loved.

If you were smaller, you’d be safe.

If you disappear just a little more, no one will reject you.

But beneath the critic is something softer, more vulnerable. It is a younger part who learned that love could be measured. That affection came after achievement. That approval followed compliance. The critic believes it is protecting her. It believes hunger keeps her in control. It believes shrinking prevents abandonment.

Every avoided bite is not about food. It is a negotiation with love.

Every pang of hunger asks:

Am I allowed to need?

Am I allowed to take up space?

Am I allowed to be fully here?

Eventually, when she is exhausted from obedience, she begins to question the voice. She begins to see that it is not truth, it is history. This is not who she is but a coping strategy to adapt to an environment that was afraid of a woman embodied. The critic was formed from what was said and unsaid, from what was modelled and withheld. It was built to help her survive.

But survival is not the same as living.

Her expansion cannot be measured on a scale. It is measured in the courage to nourish herself. In the audacity to eat without apology. In the willingness to soften the critic and ask what it is trying to protect. In learning that love is not earned through erasure

The work is tender. The work is slow. But as she feeds herself, her body, voice, ambition, appetite, she begins to reclaim what was never meant to be surrendered.

She is not too much.

She was never not enough.

And she does not have to shrink to be loved.

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Journal Prompts

1. What does my inner critic say about my body, worth, or lovability? Whose voice does it resemble and what might it have been trying to protect?

2. In what ways do I shrink myself (physically, emotionally, relationally) and what am I hoping that shrinking will secure?

3. If nourishment (food, rest, love, visibility) were truly safe, how would I allow myself to expand?

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Support & Resources

If you are struggling with disordered eating or body-related distress, reaching out for support is an act of strength.

• National Eating Disorder Information Centre (NEDIC) – 1-866-633-4220 | nedic.ca

• National Alliance for Eating Disorders – nationalallianceforeatingdisorders.org

• Crisis Text Line – Text HOME to 686868 (Canada & U.S.)

• If you’re looking for counselling support with me, you can submit your inquiry here: https://forms.gle/mdQzEgS1Sgv3dnQv5

You are not alone. Support exists. And healing is possible.

In one session, a client described themselves as lazy. They couldn’t keep up. The expectations of life were too much. The demands never stopped until they did. They often found themselves stuck, rooted in place by an invisible anchor that they themselves were powerless to. But as we inquired more into what “lazy” meant, the narrative began to unravel.

Beneath the surface shame and self-criticism was a body that had been on alert for far too long, a nervous system that hadn’t had a chance to rest, and a mind that had been prioritizing safety above all else. What looked like laziness was actually the quiet heroism of endurance, a story of survival waiting to be seen.

Have you ever sat across from a client who looks at themselves with quiet disappointment, muttering words like, “I’m lazy. I can’t keep up. I’m just not enough”? On the surface, it seems like a simple narrative about motivation or willpower but as you listen closely, the truth unfolds.

This isn’t laziness. It’s exhaustion. Deep, persistent exhaustion born from a life lived on high alert, constantly scanning for danger, protecting themselves in a world that didn’t feel safe. Every choice, every breath, every movement carried the weight of vigilance. Their body remembers what their mind tries to forget. Their story of “laziness” is really a story of survival.

When a story is told about us often enough, it begins to settle into the bones. Maybe it was said casually. “You’re too sensitive.” Or sharply. “Why can’t you be more disciplined?” Maybe it was never spoken outright, but implied in sighs, comparisons, or the way love felt conditional. Over time, repetition becomes truth. The words circle back in moments of failure or fatigue, and we begin to narrate ourselves through them. What started as someone else’s interpretation slowly becomes our identity. We stop questioning the storyline and start living inside it.

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And yet, the stories we tell ourselves are not random. They are protective. If I call myself lazy, I don’t have to feel the grief of being chronically overwhelmed. If I decide I’m “bad at relationships,” I can brace for rejection before it arrives. These narratives cushion us from deeper pain; they organize chaos into something predictable. They may be limiting, but they once kept us safe. To loosen their grip is not to shame them but to gently thank them for their service, and then decide whether they still belong in the next chapter.

Narrative therapy invites us to step into a client’s story with curiosity and compassion. Instead of locating the problem inside the person, we gently separate the two, creating space to see how certain narratives took shape and why they made sense at the time. In doing so, we begin to uncover strengths that were overshadowed by shame and resilience that was hidden beneath survival.

At its heart, narrative therapy is a collaborative and respectful approach that recognizes how deeply the stories we carry shape our identity and sense of possibility. Rather than asking, “What’s wrong with you?” it wonders, “What story has taken hold, and how did it begin?” Through thoughtful exploration of values, meaning, and lived experience, clients can loosen the grip of problem-saturated narratives and expand into stories that hold courage, agency, and choice without dismissing the pain that shaped them.

On Saturday, February 28, from 10–11:30 AM MST, I’m hosting a live virtual workshop, Integrating Narrative Therapy into Clinical Practice, designed for counsellors and therapists who want tools they can use immediately.

Over 90 minutes, we’ll explore core principles, walk through case examples, and practice interventions you can bring directly into session. You’ll leave with actionable strategies, intentional time to reflect, and a deeper connection to your own clinical voice.

Whether your client believes they’re lazy, broken, or trapped in an unhelpful story, narrative therapy offers a gentle yet powerful way to guide them toward freedom. If you want to help clients shift limiting beliefs, reclaim agency, and deepen your clinical practice, this space is for you.

Space is limited so register soon! https://www.thriveintegratedpsychology.com/products/live_events/narrativetherapy

The more we ignore our Inner Movement, the louder it becomes. It starts to move and shake, groan and growl. What is your Thing? the Thing that rustles your whole being every once in a while, not often enough I’m consumed by it, but enough that it terrifies me from going into my wild?

As we stir, experience that Inner Movement, it can be tempting to shush it, to try to quell it. This is a form of self-betrayal. When our Bodies communicate through a stirring, we are being called to turn towards our Selves. We are being called to venture into our Wild.

In our Wild, we find our Authenticity and through this authenticity, we make decisions for our life.

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My goal for every person I work with is that they Become able to make the most Authentic decisions for Themselves. I constantly aspire to work myself out a job, so that the clients I work with make decisions that are Good for them and reflect their unique values. In order to make the most Authentic choices, we first need to Know what our Authenticity is.

And authentic choices cannot be made in Fear.

For the most Authentic choices, we need to be present with our Selves. We are unable to make Authentic choices when we are afraid, because we are not present with our Selves. When we are doused in Fear, we are not connected with the Essence of who we are. Our brain body system becomes solely focused on Survival, physical or emotional Survival, that we can lose sight of our Priorities, our Values.

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When our nervous system takes over with the fight-flight-freeze response, we get lost in the tunnel vision of fear. Our behaviour in a trauma response does not define us. When our Bodies perceive threat, whether emotional or physical, real or imagined, our brain body system flips the switch from growth to protection mode. In this state of alarm, our values are clouded by fear. People may say they are called to love everyone but their (in)actions are demonstrative of fear of the unknown, of difference.

Fear, like any emotion, is an important messenger. It is up to us to interpret the purpose of Fear, without allowing fear to make decisions. We need to extend space between a situation and our response to connect back with our Selves. In order to notice when we are afraid, we have to notice the opposite: when we are connected to our Selves. We make the most authentic choices when we are in dialogue with our Selves, others and the world. We make the most authentic choices when we are Responding, rather than Reacting.

What decisions are you being asked to make, as you venture into your Wild?

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There’s an oscillation in scarcity between obsession and deprivation, from being “too much” to “not enough”. Regardless of the measurement, we are found lacking. And that’s how imposter syndrome amplifies scarcity - the fear of being found out makes us work extra hard to maintain a persona of “having it together”.

Scarcity is actually about love when we’ve been peddled cheap reproductions of love and impacts our relationships more than anything. We want to intervene in scarcity in the realm of money because it’s more tangible than love. All expressions of scarcity need to be addressed at the same time, because they’re all important.

• Emotional Scarcity: feeling overwhelmed by your feelings, disconnected and judgemental of having feelings, your feelings are “too much” and shouldn’t make “emotional” decisions

• Relational Scarcity: feeling suspicious of your partners’ love without evidence, questioning whether their love has strings attached, too good to be true

• Time Scarcity: feeling like time is running out, overly busy, overworked, putting off for time off sometime in the distant future

We keep ourselves from the life we want because it is easier and safer to live in fantasy. In fantasy, there is no risk. Living in fantasy, of the life we think we want, holding our dream like a carrot on a string, drain our energy. Then we don’t have the capacity to pursue the life we want and can instead imagine what “could” be. If we were to bring our dreams into reality, we are afraid of having to sustain it because it is meaningful. That shows value - we don’t want to mess it up! It’s just that in fantasy, the dream isn’t real and your dreams deserve to be real. This is how our limiting beliefs of worthiness that we’d inherently “ruin” our dream impacts our reality. Our ideal life isn’t that far away.

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When we talk about scarcity, it is always grounded in reality. The reality that systems of oppression create & maintain scarcity in pursuit of profit.In spiritual circles, money is reduced to an energy without holding the very present reality of inequity in wealth access. Will my landlord take “energy” for my rent? We are fed lies of economic mobility without the context of generational wealth or wealth hoarding from exploitation of marginalized groups. We cannot dissect scarcity from our own psyche without acknowledging, unlearning & dismantling the exploitation of systems of oppression.

Scarcity is often reduced to money and it definitely shows up in our relationship to money but scarcity also shows up in how we relate to food, how we learn to (dis)trust love. In a capitalistic culture, money does hold power - whether we like it or not. When we are afraid of our own power (or of wielding power well instead of wielding power over), we distance our Selves from markers of power out of fear.

When we are addressing our relationship to scarcity, we are actually addressing our relationship to power. And it is a relationship - relationships require intention, effort, dialogue. Closing your eyes while opening your bank app is not relational. We are more beholden to scarcity than we think because we are beholden by fear.

In a world driven by profit, even abundance feels limited. Shelves overflow, yet adverts whisper that what you have is never enough. Everyone competes for the same resources, the same attention, the same status, and the system thrives on that tension. Scarcity is manufactured. There are enough resources in the world for everyone, but the distribution is skewed. It’s this contrived pressure that shapes choices, fuels anxiety, and makes generosity costly. People hoard, compare, and rush, believing there’s never quite enough to go around. And in that hurry, the richness of life, the creativity, connection, and care is often what slips through our fingers, lost to the logic of scarcity.

We’re taught to measure success in accumulation, in the constant chase for more. More money, more stuff, more recognition. Capitalism convinces us that there’s a finite amount of resources and rewards, so we guard what we have and covet what we don’t. Even the air we breathe, the food we eat, the time we spend, everything becomes a commodity. Scarcity becomes a lens through which we view life, turning abundance into competition, generosity into risk, and collaboration into compromise. And yet, the irony is clear: the system that tells us there isn’t enough also produces more than we could ever need if only we could step outside its rules.

Consumerism pulls on the strings of attachment, waving our existential needs right under our nose. Phrases like “Our Special Price” or “Exclusive Discount” or “Members Price” create a sense of belonging, of acceptance. And for a moment, it works. We feel included and the rush of dopamine satiates any inner discomfort. While we’re in the store at least. As soon as we get the purchase home, we feel the same emptiness as we do after we get home from a party where we had fun but were performing a persona the entire time. Inner discomfort cannot be satiated with external salve - inner discomfort requires us to turn toward our true Selves.

The things we impulsively buy can be fulfilling unmet attachment needs (buying different decor for the house is often connected to people pleasing a maternal figure) or create a sense of control in an otherwise powerless world. Either way, consumerism creates a sense of safety.

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Scarcity works as a tool of control because most of us were raised with conditional love, where we had to earn love and when we had love, it could be taken away if we weren’t “good”. Consumerism works the same way - you must earn your acceptance by following the rules of trend and if you aren’t contributing to the economy by getting into debt, you are unpatriotic. We experience love as a finite resource, something to be rationed and tucked away - not the immersive, infinite experience of limitless beauty that love truly is.

Scarcity is experienced as a primordial insufficiency, the feeling something is “wrong” with you but with no idea what. FOMO, the fear of missing out, is centre to the experience of scarcity. The fear of missing out is nothing more than an existential fear of non-existence - that without the externalized perception of attendance, without the confirmation of the amorphous Other, we are Not. Scarcity means we are “making it work” and “taking what we can get” that’s “close enough” because these are knowable frameworks.

In contrast, we are ironically afraid of our authenticity because there is no pre-existing framework because the very purpose of authenticity is that it is unrepeatable - because there is no schema, it is unfamiliar therefore unknown and coded in our brain as unsafe (not because it is but because it is unfamiliar). We both fear and desire our authenticity and externalize control and blame instead of recognizing how we hold ourselves hostage to expectations - both our own and projected expectations. These expectations inevitably lead to disappointment because people are just human and messy and our fantasy never happens the way we anticipate in reality.

It is expectations that create a need to be in control in order to fulfill the never-ending demands of the persona imago (to fill the empty space). Life’s constant reminders that we are out of control, we are a continual threat of exposing our true insufficiency so we overcompensate with a suffocating grasp to maintain the illusion of certainty / safety. We feed the possession of persona for the false promise of perfection - an infallible love, an oxymoron that negates the reality of true love. We are attached to our expectations as an operating scheme in our quest for certainty.

We can see examples of scarcity in our collective fear of endings:

• when a friendship has naturally come to a close

• when it’s time to leave a job

Instead of listening to how our body’s communicate completion, we “make it work” long asfter the expiry date because we are terrified we’ll never find something else. But there is a cosmic exchange that must happen. We must say no before we can say yes. There is of course limitations to this but it about trusting the universe, and trusting ourselves (the macro and the micro of the same, respectively). To have space for the expansive life we want, we have to make room. We have to say no to what isn’t for us. And just because something ends, doesn’t mean it wasn’t meaningful. Things can end and they can still be meaningful.

We play into consumerism even if our highest morals beg us not to because there are entire systems that are triggering our attachment wounds, our dopamine reward centres and our worst fears of scarcity are being confirmed everyday in commercials (“limited time offer”).

Consumerism works because we have a cultural intolerance to space, but we need space. We need to let a cake rest before cutting it. We need to let pottery sit before firing it. The compulsivity to fill our lives - to spend beyond our means, to purge & donate car loads twice a year, only to fill the space with the next load of what-you’re-supposed-to-desire - keeps us chasing a dragon. We are seeking inner peace from external acquisition. It won’t happen. Our intolerance has us chained to a hedonic treadmill, constantly chasing happiness from a new boat, or a new car, or new clothes - but we’re on a treadmill. We’re going nowhere.

And also - we cannot attack the system without acknowledging the need the system is meeting, the purpose it is serving. Consumerism has taken the place of our attachment needs as we have become increasingly individualistic post industrial revolution. Leaving behind our collectivist roots has not severed the deeply rooted need of attachment. Consumerism has promised we will both give and receive love through this third party of gifts. We have it all backwards. We experience the earths’ resource as being infinite (even though we learn in the third grade about non-renewable resources, it’s literally in the name) and we experience love as a finite resource.

It is love that is infinite - and not a measly, carrot-on-a-string love - but a heart cracking open kind of love. That kind of love isn’t going anywhere. That kind of love cannot be bought from a store.

They had unconsciously agreed to the rules of engagement that their power would be constrained by the patriarchy. And some of them occupied the roles considered “acceptable” within this system, yet even that offered only limited access.

Paths to influence were measured by usefulness, conformity, and proximity to those already holding power. This formula for navigating the system became the root of scarcity. Others were experienced as competition for finite resources. Distrust and resentment grew because the system encouraged it, and survival often demanded compromise.

Many were caught in the throes of Stockholm syndrome with a system bent on their limitation. Complicity in systemic oppression became inevitable when one cannot see beyond the lens of the structure itself. The patriarchy doesn’t need to enforce its standards externally, because its script is internalized. People police themselves and each other, the ultimate panopticon.

As people challenge the rules of the patriarchy, they are chastised for stepping outside expectations. As individuals unlearn binary frameworks of identity and power, they are demeaned for simply being themselves. Freedom is a threat to a system built on fear-based control.

The patriarchy peddles cheap reproductions of freedom, and society “makes it work” because alternative ways are hidden or unrecognized. Many are indoctrinated to believe it is either sink or swim; dominate or be dominated; possess or be possessed; exploit or be exploited.

The system is inherently objectifying because it sees nothing as fully alive. It fears the power of Aliveness.

But it is not sink or swim. Bodies and minds are naturally buoyant; one can float. There is no need to conquer the currents or be consumed by them, because life itself is Alive. It is possible to move with it, to unite with it, to be carried without losing oneself.

The patriarchy peddles power with an expiry date and pages of terms of service. Rip them to shreds. Tear off the blindfold and see. Once the eyes open, the suffocation of Life cannot be unseen. Grieve. Grieve with your siblings, your friends, your chosen family. Grieve with your trans and non-binary siblings, with those whose humanity has been minimized, erased, or commodified.

Living under these systems is often a non-choice, but being complicit in them is a choice. We are far too expansive for a structure built on limitation. By embodying natural power (a resource that arises from self-trust, curiosity, and presence) we can live life fully Alive. Toxic patterns, conditioning, and the desperate need to be “useful” or acceptable can be purged from the body and mind. These are self-fulfilling loops that serve only a system that sees nothing as fully Alive.

Relating to one’s inner strength outside of patriarchal metrics rebuilds trust in the self, allowing for joy, play, and connection unmediated by control, judgment, or commodification. Until the system is evicted from our psyches, each of us can be complicit in upholding its power.

Living outside the system requires patience, courage, and radical imagination. It’s not about abandoning responsibility or ethics, but about reconfiguring what life can look like when one refuses to adhere to artificial scarcity, domination, or hierarchical definitions of worth. To live outside the system is to recognize that time, energy, creativity, and attention are infinite when freed from the compulsions of compliance. It is to create networks of mutual respect, collaboration, and reciprocity rather than competition. It is to see systems not as immutable, but as structures that can be navigated, reshaped, or left behind.

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This path invites one to honour their natural rhythms, to move with curiosity instead of fear, to develop practices that nourish rather than exploit. It is a commitment to listening to one’s body, one’s intuition, and one’s community. Outside the system, scarcity becomes a construct, not a reality. Freedom is not a gift—it is the inherent state of life that patriarchy obscures. Living here requires vigilance, yes, but also deep delight: delight in presence, delight in creation, delight in relationships unconstrained by oppressive hierarchies. To step outside is to embrace the fullness of Aliveness, to inhabit a world where the self is never a commodity, and where each choice is a reclamation of power that was always yours.

Internalized capitalism equates usefulness with worthiness. Remember that:

You are worthy as you are. You don’t have to prove your worth. You are a person. You exist. You deserve to exist. Your existence is a gift. You deserve rest. You are not the problem. You are not a problem. Your life is your own to live. You are sovereign. You are not alone. You don’t need to hold your pain alone. You are with yourself. Your body is sacred. There is nothing you have to do. You can fully inhabit yourself. Your existence is enough. You are the exact amount of you. You deserve to expand. You are important and fallible. You can trust yourself. You deserve to be protected. You are not a commodity. You are beyond your productivity .

To be present with our pleasure we must first believe we are deserving of pleasure. And then we must relinquish judgement. Our pleasures, our desires, are part of us and cannot be banished. We can connect with our pleasure in a way that honours our boundaries & the boundaries of others.

Experiencing pleasure is being fully present in the receiving, focusing on each bodily sensation as it arises with open acceptance & curiosity. In food, this could be eating your favourite dish mindfully in an ambience that lights you up.

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Witnessing pleasure is observing the Self as a “witness”, an intentional step back to have a birds eye view of the experience. In nature, we can zoom in and out of your place in the universe, reflecting on our simultaneous importance and insignificance.

Expressing pleasure is an intentional giving - to your Self, other beings, to the earth, emphasizing the reciprocal nature of pleasure. In your body, this could be a mindful shower, a self-massage with no distractions.

To be clear, a life made for pleasure is not one without suffering. On the contrary, a pleasure-filled life is met often with pain. But with the same posture as pleasure, being one of non-judgemental and acceptance, we can approach our suffering with the same intentional presence as we do our pleasure.

A life oriented for pleasure is one that prioritizes our needs, honours our boundaries, creates space for our voice and choice to be heard and respected. A life of pleasure should be grounded alongside personal values & ethics, not overshadowed by cultural expectations of how our lives should be lived. True freedom is living your life for you, because it is yours.

Deconstructing from an evangelical background, rapture has a specific, apocalyptic connotation but the essence of the word is actually describing a feeling of intense pleasure or joy.

The second coming has already come. It has metastasized within our very skin. Rapture, so aptly described in the holy books of lore, foretold of a Return of the Divine. But that moment came, long before Ascension. We are reminded throughout history that the Divine became Flesh, taught that our Bodies are Temples of the Spirit, that the Divine dwells within us, the Hope of Glory, the Namaste that the Divine in me sees and respects the Divine in You. Our Bodies are the second coming. To be Embodied, to be at Home within your Body, is Heavenly, it is Divine. The body is the site of transcendence.

Life is meant to be enjoyed. When we are raised in cultures that laud depravity, sacrifice and condemn desire, we cannot possibly taste all of Life. The esteem of depravity is often from a fear of being overtaken by Desire, but following Desire with integrity and authenticity forges a pathway into our Selves. Pleasure informs us of our boundaries, our preferences, our Purpose. Pleasure is a teacher that can snatch us out of our mundane reality to commune with the power of sheer bliss. -

What brings you into a state of pleasure ? 🤍🌙✌🏻

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Pleasure exists in the body and is beyond it. Pleasure in the rain tapping the roof. Pleasure in the decadent food before you. Pleasure in the wind on your face. Pleasure is the laughter with friends, the late night rambles. Pleasure is the steam from your morning coffee and the exhale that comes when you set your persona aside.

Pleasure is about doing what feels good for you and making decisions that reflect your values. Ask your body, dialogue with yourself. Figure out what feels good and allow yourself to do that thing. Even more so, allow yourself to change your mind. We are complex, intricately wonderful beings and we are not stagnant. We grow, so allow yourself to grow. We can find our Self in the messy and the mundane, in the sacred and in the profane.

We lapse into binaries because we desire certainty. There are few things in life that are inherently good. Childbirth is “good” for some; traumatic for others.

The illusion of goodness hangs our worth like a carrot on a string. We are always doing things to prove our goodness because we have bought into the social lie that if we are “good” we will be acceptable and lovable.

Goodness is a construct, an unattainable ideal. When we don’t have to be “good,” we can just be our Selves.

Striving for Goodness

• What is original to you as a child (they aren’t good, they are selfish; they learn to strive for goodness)

• The root of shadow work is the pursuit of goodness. (Lois episode wanting to be a good person)

• Value we ascribe to failure or success relating to goodness or badness

• Focus on goodness as an eternal locus of control and false sense of power

• The indoctrination of perfectionism from all systems of oppression is asinine

A standard of perfection is both inhumane and objectifying — my worth becomes entwined with my usefulness. We are treated as machines to output productivity, and our efforts will never be good enough.

Perfectionism is inherently in denial of our humanity.

Embracing Human Fallibility

I am naturally fallible as a human person. I do make mistakes. I am not very efficient (I mean, I have to sleep for 9 hours a day and poop every day—again and again!). I am not a machine.

How bizarre we have been indoctrinated to hold our worth like a carrot on a string until we achieve an unattainable goal that can never be fulfilled.

I will never be perfect.

I am not going to wait to be worthy.

I am not in denial of my humanity.

I don’t have to be perfect.

I can just be me.

How would your life look different without being plagued by perfectionism? 📏❌☁️

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Unlearning the “Good”

• WCS of being in trouble — letting someone down, repercussions, “I’m not GOOD,” mistakes don’t mean I’m bad at my job

• Sexuality (money, power) is a neutral energy, not good or bad; it’s how it’s related to

• Children aren’t good, and we aren’t either. Children are selfish, and we are too. Unlearning the conditioning of goodness

• How to enjoy good things

• What was considered “good” to create worthiness to receive love (we distrust ease)

Desire to be a “good” parent made me lose myself.

I don’t feel I’m good {at my job}. People will get exhausted telling me I’m good, but I don’t believe them. How am I supposed to feel good enough if I don’t get the team lead position?

You are good and worthy as you are, and also, you don’t need to be good.

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When Victor gives life to the Creature, he is not obsessed with power or fame, nor is he seeking dominion from a false sense of supremacy. He is dissociated. He is numb. He is desperately hiding from the grief of losing his mother by losing himself in ambition. His ambition to create the Creature can look like ego, but it is not ego - it is shadow. He is afraid. Deathly afraid and afraid of death.

Death robbed him of his mother. As the eldest, Victor was grieving not only for his own loss but for his younger siblings. They wouldn’t know their mother, as he did. He would be alone in his own memories of her. He felt for the first time fragile.

The person who gave him life was lost, and he flounders. If you know death, you know the dark fog of grief that clings to the edges of your skin, blurs your vision and rings in your ears. Life after death is marked by death. Every step forward in life is stepping through a sticky bog, leaving the person lost further behind. Victor is left existentially alone by continuing to university after the death of his mother. At university, no one knew Victor’s mother. No one knew her voice, her face and soon he questioned if he even did. He is alone in the darkness of his grief. He is nearly swallowed by it completely until he creates for himself a companion who is born of death.

With the Creature, he is not alone in the fog of death and he is horrified. He runs. Just as he fled from his mother’s death, he flees from the Creature.

In grief, “there is nothing I could do” stings inescapably. There is a powerlessness to death. It is the only certainty in life. Victor couldn’t save his mother from the fever that took her life in the place of his betrotheds. Victor is haunted by the powerlessness of grief. Death taunts him with the memory of his mother. He is helpless to the pain of this loss and he is vulnerable in his aloneness. He felt this vulnerability and he knew he needed to protect himself. But protecting yourself is hard when you’re alone. So he turned to control.

Giving the Creature life is Victor finding control in an otherwise powerless experience. If he were to sit in the truth of his loss, he would be utterly consumed by it. So instead, he externalizes it.

The Creature is a manifestation of Victor’s grief. Within its stitched fragments, there exists all the love Victor has for his mother. Grief, after all, is an expression of love. How much we love has a direct correlation to how much we grieve. But grief is not only love, it is also guilt. Powerlessness. Rage. Shame. Masking. Hiding.

I do know that with the sympathy of one living being I would make peace with all. I have love in me the likes of you can scarcely imagine. And rage, the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other.

Back in Geneva, his family shared the burden of grief. They spoke of her often. Her portraits lived on the walls. They breathe the air she once did. They retraced her footsteps on walking trails. The people of the town knew her, loved her, remembered her. Victor’s family was held in their grief. He was alone.

This is not a story of male ego, this is a story of male loneliness. The epidemic has not improved since 1816 when Victor was first brought to life on the pages of Mary Shelley’s pages.

I often hear a deep shame from male clients, a shame of feeling. It is this nagging fear that “negative” feelings have the potential to infect those around them. The emotion is the problem and must be quarantined. The Creature is Victor’s perilous attempt to rid himself of grief for good. But his grief is part of his love, his grief is his humanity. In projecting his grief into the Creature, Victor loses what makes him human. He becomes consumed with shame, fear and isolation - all that he was trying to purge. And the Creature, a being of grief, is full of curiosity, love, desire for closeness.

Victor’s grief made him human and by controlling it, rather than relating to it, he becomes inhuman.

And that is the cost of male loneliness - isolation strips humanity. Our emotions are what make us human. We share the fragility of life, we share the feeling of love and loss and within the threads of emotion, we are Alive. Men have their emotion driven from them with shame, terror and humiliation. Men are alone in the world, fleeing from their grief and petrified of powerlessness. Men spend their whole lives running from their feeling, trying to control what needs to be related to.

It is Victor’s rejection of the depth of his grief, his fear of sharing his feeling, his expectation he must be alone, that drives him to create the Creature. In Victor’s shadow is his vulnerability. He compensates the fragility of death with control and becomes the Creature - inhuman.

The story of Frankenstein is a warning, but not of the male ego. It is a warning of male loneliness and the consequences of compensating vulnerability with control. It is an invitation for men to feel the feelings they’ve been told make them weak and allow themselves to be human.

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The purpose of the ego is to intercede on behalf of our desires (the Id), using our moralistic values (the Superego). We need the ego to filter opportunities and decisions through our values, morals, boundaries, wants, needs, and desires. Oftentimes, when we remark that someone is “egotistical”, we actually mean they are ruled by an unintegrated shadow.

Without any ego at all, we would have no container for the “Middle Path” or for pursuing meaningful education to fulfill our destiny & purpose in life. We need the ego to hold the space between our Both-And: our divinity and our humanity, our inner animal and inner god. Ego Death is not about the annihilation of the ego, but bridging the space between the Id and the Superego, so the distance is not so sparse.

Ego Death is an opportunity to let go of old ways of being, the ways we were conditioned to be and welcome authenticity. The Ego naturally resists the shrinking of the distance between Id and SuperEgo for the same reason we resist dismissal from our company that may be downsizing. The role of the Ego diminishes as we become more authentic, our Id & SuperEgo become allies instead of enemies. While this is a positive move, just like the role of a good therapist is to work themselves out of a job, there is natural resistance to the end. The Ego desperately wants to prove they are useful; instead of taking it as a compliment, they’ve done their job so well, they’ve made themselves unnecessary. The way the Ego resists being “let go” by the psyche is through Ego Defences.

• Repression is the Ego’s way of keeping threatening, alarming or disturbing thoughts from becoming conscious. These thoughts can be found in dreams, fantasies, and fears. The Ego’s attempt to protect the psyche from difficult material is protective, but by staving off short-term hurt, the Ego is setting itself up for long-term harm.

• Projection is what we despise in others is what we despise in ourselves. It involves the assumption that others hold unacceptable thoughts, feelings and motives that the person themselves is immune to, such as believing others despise you when you truly despise them but feel shame for your hatred.

• Sublimation involves satisfying an Id impulse in a socially acceptable way, like playing sports to release aggression.

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Our aversion to death and desperate desire for empty platitudes is because of our aversion to the unknown. Death is fully unknown. We are constantly trying to stave the knowledge of our demise. Searches for the fountain of youth, plastic surgery and lack of death planning demonstrate this aversion. Death is part of the cycle of life, it is not separate from it. Or from us.

Our death aversion is because we are existentially afraid of being forgotten. We believe that because something ends, it means we were insignificant. And that’s not true. Our lives are meaningful even though our lives end - perhaps even because our lives end, they are meaningful. With finite time, the moments we share on this plane in this time are especially meaningful. The fear of being forgotten is an inability to hold the Both-And because we are cosmically important (the likelihood of your consciousness existing in this time and space in this way and form is nothing short of a miracle) but also cosmically insignificant (we are but specks of dust in the overall lifespan of the universe herself). We are Both.

To die consciously is to reconcile with our death anxiety, it is to trust in the Unknown. The solace major religions offer is certainty for the Great Unknown - the afterlife. But the truth is, no matter how many myths are told or tales are spun, Death remains a mystery - always out of grasp. For people who have been raised in Cartesian dualism and the rise of rationalism, embracing mystery is a threat to their very existence. For trauma survivors, this uncertainty is triggering because trauma is also change where the status quo is ripped out from under you - change for trauma survivors feels like annihilation.

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We have this incredible, rare opportunity to incarnate within the same physical form in the same lifetime. In other epochs in other civilizations, our consciousness would get wiped clean and we would start again in a new form. Ego Death is an invitation to release the ways of conditioning that were internalized before we could consent to these narratives. The Life on the other side of Ego Death is more authentic, more present way of Being but it is Unknown.

We can never imagine what it is like to become an adult when we are a child. We can never imagine becoming a parent before we become a parent. We can never imagine our career until we are in it. We are limited in our imagination by what we’ve experienced. We cannot conceptualize Life after Ego Death but the abyss we perceive is only the unknown of what we haven’t yet experienced - the abyss isn’t inherently bad.

Trusting in the Universe’s gift of life after Ego Death only requires trust in your Self because we are a microcosm of the macrocosm.

Ego Death is not about the outcome, it is about the process. Death asks us to reflect upon our priorities, stripping down to our core values and beliefs. Ego Death is an opportunity to redefine our Selves, to step into a fuller expression of our identity. Notice what aspects of your Self feel threatened with this change, offer yourself compassion. Notice what aspects of your Self you feel drawn to reinvent. Offer yourself a chance to do so.

Addressing change, even good change, is difficult. Ego Death means our status quo is shifting. We have to create a new normal. An exciting and terrifying process. Be gentle with yourself in this process of becoming Alive again, there is no right way to start a new chapter of your life. Be present with yourself every step of the way, listen to your inner Knowing and follow what is right for you. May this new beginning be the start of a new you, of a more authentic reflection of your Self. Trust yourself one next right thing at a time.

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If this spoke to the shadows within you, leave a comment below and I’ll send you my Ego Death Journal Prompts so you can meet your own ghosts with curiosity and courage.

To receive is vulnerable. ⁣

Full surrender requires fundamental trust. Trust in my own being to hold and contain my experiences. Trust in the world to hold and contain my process. Trust in others to witness the un and re becoming in full acceptance. ⁣

To surrender, to fully relax into receptivity, is a Herculean task. ⁣

It requires letting go, trusting we don’t need to be in control. The release that beckons us from surrender is completely contrarian to the ways we have learned to exist in the world. Trauma teaches us we cannot trust in others, the world or ourselves. ⁣

Control often gives us the illusion of safety—a sense that if we plan enough, hold tightly enough, or predict every outcome, we can prevent pain or chaos. It feels empowering to be the one steering the ship, making the decisions, anticipating every wave. In that effort, control becomes a coping strategy, a protective mechanism rooted in the desire to avoid uncertainty and stay safe. It can feel grounding—like we’re doing something, like we’re in charge.

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To surrender allows us to write our own narrative, instead of having ghost writers submit chapters to our life. ⁣

The process of letting go is not a simple one for trauma survivors. Surrender goes against all of the protective strategies our psyche builds up to protect us from the reckoning of trauma.

Control is often a fragile container. Life is inherently uncertain, and no amount of gripping can change that. There’s always more outside our control than within it: other people’s choices, the timing of things, the unfolding of life. Clinging too tightly to control can leave us anxious, disconnected, and exhausted. When we begin to loosen our grip, we make space for trust—trust in ourselves, in others, and in the greater unfolding of life. Real safety comes not from control, but from inner stability, flexibility, and self-trust.

⁣Surrender has to be coupled with oodles of self compassion, grief, anger, baby steps and embodied self dialogue. ⁣Surrender is an unconditional acceptance that This Is, I Am. As It Is, As I Am. It is not ambivalent detachment, but a resting flow.

Take time to reflect on your relationship with surrender.

1. Where in my life am I gripping too tightly, and what am I afraid will happen if I let go?

   (Explore the fear underneath the need for control.)

2. When have I listened to my intuition and things worked out—even if it wasn’t perfect?

   (Revisit moments that built trust with yourself.)

3. What would trusting myself more look like in daily decisions, big and small?

   (Visualize how self-trust could show up practically in your life.)

4. What beliefs about control have I inherited or absorbed, and are they still serving me?

   (Reflect on family, culture, or past experiences that shaped your relationship with control.)

5. How might my body feel if I fully surrendered to the present moment?

   (Tune into a somatic sense of release and grounded trust.)

I would love to hear your responses to these questions in the comments!

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I am fascinated by my own reflection

Captivated Each time like peering at a strangers pain

never fully seen or been seen

Quizzical curious glances stolen at window panes

Stop stopping with a staccato stare

Because the mirrors that should have detailed my intricate lines were cracked by generations of trampling trauma

Seven years bad luck they say, well I have a few more centuries

Lost In a cathedral full of ancestors I bear the unbearable weight of

Corpses piled like puzzle pieces teetering to fall

Stacks of rotting expectations burrowing maggots of unrequited love

This is where grief lives

I hoard emotion like newspaper clippings

Walls stacked high with ignored feeling simply to survive

Tightening red strings across cork to try to make sense of the patterns of the earth swallowing me whole year after year

why me.

Mediate on the mutilated misgivings to measure the muted misunderstandings of love because I am not you and I cannot meet you there

I will not be possessed by the ghost of your facade Farewell my sweet concubine may your entitlement be crucified for I do not owe an ounce of myself

Because of you my story has never felt my own penned by the reactions of others stuffing secrets of myself into corners behind couches when that was not my shame to keep

Get off get off get off

Get rid of this Chaos to my Kore

My self has become a cycle

A Persephone-esque dying of sequence

Underground underworld depths of hell devour me in pieces again

Again and again, an encore earthquake to miscarry the belief I belong to myself

More and more your demeanour looks like quicksand

Demeter, for my child I need to make a path for fire

For I am the flame that brings forests to their knees

For I conduct lightning through my bones with electricity that was there long before me

Now I am here

Holding power in my breath

I see plants in your eyes

How deeply you are rooted

Now dear one know that Heaven rests between your thighs centuries of delight awaiting release

Now do not be afraid of dying my love you will only return more alive

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The Healing, Feeling, Thriving community is ready for you.

That’s for the seekers. The sensitive ones. The deep-feeling, heart-led folks who long for meaningful connection and inner transformation.

When we reach 50 members, we’ll open the doors to an integrative experience with wisdom shares, tarot readings, peer support, and existential check-ins for only $30 a month. Join the waitlist.

✨ Come be part of the unfolding. You belong here.

We’ve just come to forget that we are built to take up space — not just physically, but audibly, relationally, emotionally.

The voice is one of the most vital ways we claim space in the world. It’s the internal equivalent of unfurling — of saying, here I am. When our voices are silenced, dismissed, or underused, it’s as if our inner world starts to collapse inward. Shrinking. Tightening. We learn, sometimes subtly, that it’s safer to be small. To be agreeable. To go unheard.

But our voice is more than just sound. It is the auditory boundary of individuation. It communicates this is who I am, this is how I feel, this is where I stand. To use your voice is to exist with intention. To breathe and shape that breath into meaning. And just like any muscle, your voice needs practice — not just to sound good or polished, but to feel familiar in your own mouth. Your croaky, sleepy morning voice is not broken — it’s simply unpracticed. Stretch it.

• Speak to yourself in the mirror

• Sing in the shower

• Whisper your own name with reverence - or simply write it out again and again

• Say your vowels [I’m serious]

• Recitations - I recite either this or this every morning

• Record voice memos on your phone talking to yourself - there’s something that hits different having it recorded. Even if you never listen to it, even if you delete it right away, it is an intentional self witnessing.

  • If you’ve wanted to start journalling but have felt stuck, this is my favourite place to start and return to.

• Record a meditation in your own voice. You can listen to guided meditations but your body responds to your voice in a unique way, like hearing your name called from across the room. Your body perks up.

  • This is a mad lib outline to build your own manifestation meditation. Find some zen nature sounds for the background and hit record on your phone! Don’t overthink it [is easier said than done]

There is something sacred in recognizing your own voice — in hearing your name spoken by a voice that sounds like home. Your voice is a living signature. A sonic fingerprint. The more you use it, the more it becomes a bridge — between your inner world and the outer one.

So start where you are. Speak even when your voice trembles. Even if it’s quiet, even if it’s unsure — practice making sound. Practice taking up space. There are 23 meters of you waiting to be heard.

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The Healing, Feeling, Thriving community is ready for you.

That’s for the seekers. The sensitive ones. The deep-feeling, heart-led folks who long for meaningful connection and inner transformation.

When we reach 50 members, we’ll open the doors to an integrative experience with wisdom shares, tarot readings, peer support, and existential check-ins for only $30 a month. Join the waitlist.

✨ Come be part of the unfolding. You belong here.

Her own voice startled her.

It sounded hoarse and alien. She couldn’t recognize her own expression, as the words tremulously clung to the air - unnoticed and unheeded.

What good was it to waste her words if none cared to hear?

She learned her say made no difference either way - she had no say. She was forced in the mundane and the unspeakable to push far past her own limits.

Before she could listen to inner voice, her vocal chords were already agreeing, already saying “yes”, long before she knew she wanted to say “no”. Her voice was swift in sweeping the pain under the rug, in smoothing things over, in making herself agreeable.

Her voice had become a patchwork quilt of acquiescence, a hoard of believing she was the problem all along. The most she heard her voice was in her own head - the familiar litany of judgment hurled from herself to herself. It didn’t even feel insulting. It felt true.

The. most honest she felt was when her inner voice guided her back to the familiar hollow - “I am the problem after all. I have been the problem all along.” It never occurred to her that the voice she heard could be wrong. That it might not be her voice.

Cruel as it was, it had been with her for so long. As long as she could remember, her inner voice was brutal in its assessment of her, but in that brutality, it felt honest. And honesty felt safer than deception.

While her inner voice was making sure she could never forget her lack, her outer voice never failed to falter. When she opened her mouth to speak, her inner voice shouted in reproach.

No one cares what you have to say.

No one cares what you have to say.

No one cares what you have to say.

It had been so long since she had used her voice for her own. Has it ever been her own?

Our voice is more than the sound waves our vocal chords create - our voice is the symbolic space of our identity.

But so often, our own authentic whispers can be eclipsed with the perceptions we’ve swallowed and roles we’ve inherited. Our inner voice mingles with the grainy, recorded loop of derision.

If you learn to shrink yourself, then no one has to do it for you. If you hurt yourself first, then being hurt by others won’t hurt as much, right? But hurt still hurts, no matter if there’s a scar before.

Reclaiming our voice from the automatic judgment requires a dialogue. Talking back to the Inner Critic begins to strengthen the voice of your Authentic Self.

*I prefer to use the language of the Authentic Self to describe the deepest core self, rather than True Self [because there is more than one truth of who we are] or Highest Self [because the self is not a hierarchy]

“Can you say that with just a little bit more self-compassion?” is what I ask clients to practice.

“Is it true that you’re lazy or could it be, potentially, that you’re exhausted and this is the best you can do?”

Befriending our voice requires strengthening it - and that only comes with practice. Practice hearing your voice, without cringing or pulling away. The cringe of hearing our own voice is often just from the unfamiliarity - you haven’t heard yourself speak.

Talk to yourself in the car, in the shower. Record yourself talking to yourself, listen to what you have to say. Notice, without judgment, the voice that holds you. The voice that has always been waiting to be spoken.

There’s a voice within you.

Quiet, steady, sometimes buried beneath noise and to-do lists and other people’s expectations.

But it’s there.

Maybe you hear it in flashes — in dreams, in tears, in moments of stillness.

Maybe you’ve learned to silence it to survive.

But what if it didn’t have to stay hidden?

What if that voice was your compass? Your creativity? Your clarity?

What if healing wasn’t just about fixing what’s broken — but about remembering what’s sacred?

Your becoming can happen here.

Counselling is for anyone ready to reconnect with their truth. Whether you’re navigating burnout, identity shifts, relationship struggles, or just craving deeper self-trust — therapy offers a grounded, soulful space to explore who you are and who you’re becoming. It’s time to get connected. Tell me where you want to start here.

Clinical supervision supports fellow therapists and students. It’s a space to sharpen your skills, unpack what comes up in the work, and stay anchored in your integrity as a practitioner. Supervision with me blends the practical and the poetic — clinical insight with soul. You’re not alone in this. Get started by filling in the intake form.

And our Healing, Feeling, Thriving community?

That’s for the seekers. The sensitive ones. The deep-feeling, heart-led folks who long for meaningful connection and inner transformation.

When we reach 50 members, we’ll open the doors to an integrative experience with wisdom shares, tarot readings, peer support, and existential check-ins for only $30 a month. Join the waitlist.

✨ Come be part of the unfolding. You belong here.

In the years following, it always felt like something was missing. She looked at other peoples lives and they seemed to be happy, while she felt nothing but a strange emptiness. She tried to recreate the happy lives she saw around her - she worked hard, she went to school, got a well paying job that became her career, and was in a relationship she thought made her the closest to happy she had ever felt. She dutifully gave up carbs in suit, tracked her steps, gave up skinny jeans but not how skinny feels. The more she followed the trend cycle, the dizzier she felt.

And none of it worked.

The strange emptiness grew within her. It seemed the more she did, the busier she was, the more productive she became, the more hollow she felt. It was as if a serrated silver spoon was scraping the edges of her inner being, deepening the echo of her soul. She kept busy because she knew if she slowed down, she would be miserable.

But she had no reason to be. The outer world she had built for herself was full. So full that on certain conspicuous days, she was sure her life would surely suffocate her. Tiptoeing through her hoarded house stacked to the rafters with emotion she couldn’t bring herself to process, each illusion of having it all together was really a precarious stack of outdated expectations. She couldn’t bear to let go - she knew she would surely fall blackly across vision to drown in the white reverse.

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It is the task of our body and our psyche to experience wholeness and we will do anything for that end. When we have been separated from ourselves, through repression, trauma, social conditioning, we’ll naturally compensate. If your left ankle is injured, your right ankle will compensate. When we’ve dropped a piece of our Self, we’ll pretend and perform, hoping no one notices we’re hobbling along life. Soon, the pressure put on your right ankle from taking on the load of the left can cause a new injury in itself. Compensation is problematic when unconscious, when being resourceful becomes depleting.

She isn’t alone in the insatiable quest of busyness. Her obsession with creating an acceptable outer world is an unconscious compensation for the part of herself she dropped so long ago. Her body, her psyche, is searching for herself - scanning every face, every flash of the screen for a semblance of herself that she lost. She looks for herself in the latest cycles that speed by, in the 7-step routines parasocial strangers seem to flawlessly execute, but instead of becoming more herself, she feels more estranged. Looking outside of herself for herself is a treadmill trap - she’ll exhaust herself and cover no ground. The self she has been searching for is within, but to discover that, she’ll have to slow down long enough to listen.

She didn’t have a solid self to return to - just glimmers of past remembrances of who she was before she was told who to be. So she followed that feeling - an indescribable feeling that guided her like a star. One decision, one step at a time, she noticed. She noticed what she liked, what felt natural to her, what she wanted more of. She allowed herself to want. One by one, the bricks in the towers of hoarded artifacts of who she thought she was supposed to be were dismantled, dissolved, and left her with space. She always wanted to be able to take up space in her own life but never had the space to expand. It felt strange to be able to stretch herself without stretching herself thin.

A life of balance is less about how much time you spend doing what and more about who you are while you’re doing what.

She found herself when she had the space to return to the time she dropped herself. When she stopped seeking answers and started sitting with the questions, she found the piece of herself was buried deep within her all along. It had become lost among the hoard of expectations, pressure and obligation. She was not lost but she had become found.

For years, I only had two answers to this question.

Busy.

And tired.

I was tired because I was busy. But I couldn’t slow down if I tried. When I did slow down, I crashed. And I was still tired.

Tired wasn’t even the most accurate response - no matter how much sleep I got, I was never rested. No matter how much caffeine I consumed, I never felt awake.

It’s not that I was tired, I was exhausted. It’s not that I was busy, I was held hostage to pressures I was putting on myself. I was asleep to the ways I had lost myself.

This Existential Exhaustion is a fatigue borne from life itself. Similar to burnout, there are two key ingredients:

1. Misalignment with values - when key domains of our life are not aligned with our values and desires, it feels alienating to not be somewhere you belong (whether that somewhere is a job, a house, a city, a relationship, a friendship). When we are not aligned with our values, there is chaos. The chaos is a clue something needs to change.

   1. Discover your authentic values with this free worksheet

2. Performance - the feeling you must keep up with the standard you’ve set for yourself. This creates an imposter syndrome, always afraid your actual, “unworthy” self will be uncovered. This performance becomes a trap because we can never put the mask down. If you forget someone’s name, you can ask them early on in the relationship what their name is but if you’ve known them for years and don’t remember their name, it becomes awkward. Introducing yourself as a new person to people who think they have known you is similarly horrific.

These two ingredients overlap with burnout, often misattributing Existential Exhaustion as work-related when it’s so much more.

R had been burned out before and could feel herself slipping. She was irritable at the smallest inconveniences - the lid of the kittle wasn’t fully closed so it never stopped boiling, the grocery shop only had whole bean coffee, her friend kept complaining about the same roommate drama. Every task felt insurmountable - from responding to texts to tackling the Sisyphean mound of dishes. With each nagging obligation, she couldn’t shake this gnawing this, “is this all there is?”

Of course that question could be applied to R’s job, as well - the meetings that could be emails, the reports that are always due and are also completely meaningless. But it’s more than just the demands of R’s job. She isn’t happy at home either. It is the sheer force of will and fear of eviction that gets R reluctantly out of bed each morning. It is the stillness when she isn’t busy that nearly suffocates her.

Every symptom R was experiencing was a message from her body. But it had been so long since she had turned on her voicemail, there were so many messages to listen to. The blinking red light in her mind haunted her - the overwhelm of listening back to messages from years past was too much.

When we experience something significant, if there is a lot of emotions, too much to process at once, those emotions leave a voicemail. You weren't there to pick up the phone but the emotions still need to be felt at some point, the message still needs to be listened to. Things that happened a long time ago still feel very present because the voicemail hasn't been listened to yet - the light is still blinking on the machine - so until those emotions are felt, these old things still feel very new and present. These emotions and situations keep coming up is the blinking light - your body wants to clear the voicemail machine. When your voicemail machine is empty and clear, you have the space for new experiences.

But the less we listen to these messages, the louder they become. I had been seeing R for therapy because the whispers of her body had become screams. At first, her body whispered through unplaceable anxiety, a hollow yearning. Then it was sleepless nights, an inescapable “crawl out of your skin” feeling. Then it became a gnawing suicidal ideation and desperation to change anything in her life. She rearranged her house, dyed her hair, went out more and more and more but there it remained - a haunting, deep dissatisfaction - but at what?

The parts of ourself hidden away is precisely what becomes the shadow. The shadow represents all that is unacceptable because, as Gabor Mate puts it, “we are always choosing between attachment and authenticity and we will always choose attachment until we can no longer not choose authenticity. Basically we will always choose others until our psyche’s drive towards wholeness chooses ourselves.

The personal and collective shadow is the fodder from shame, but depends on the person, their family, their age, the gender they were socialized by, the generation they belong to. For some families, softness and vulnerability were not acceptable and become the shadow. For men, it’s common for fear to take up space in the shadow, while anger is one of the only acceptable emotions on the surface. In my early experiences in the church, ambition was a trait reserved for men or for God - personal ambition became tucked away. The collective shadow can mirror the personal shadow but is what we as a culture reject - anger, sex, suffering, vulnerability, are all part of the collective shadow. The shadow is us, it is part of the self and must expressed, it is compelled to be heard. The shadow will make itself known with intention and if not, it will become feral.

For Jung, the shadow was a repressed part of the unconscious, with most often negative aspects of a person, the “dark side”. But the negative attributions to the shadow are because of the darkness, not an indicator of the darkness itself. If we turn on the light to what is first perceived as darkness, we can see it is merely a bathrobe hanging on the back of the door. It is not an intruder if only we can find the light.

In most peoples’ shadow lies their strength. I can see this in sessions when clients will speak harshly of themselves because the strength that comes from self-compassion lies in their shadow. What that tells me is they were rewarded for shrinking themselves, for not taking up space. And their healing requires them to not abandon or betray themselves in the face of acceptance from others.

Repressing the Shadow takes energy, just as it takes energy and effort to clench all your muscles at once. Repressing the shadow not only means we are hiding parts of ourselves, it also means we are performing a part. In the repression of the shadow, the persona is born. While the shadow represents what we are punished for, the persona exudes the positive attributes we are rewarded for - working hard, being happy, saying yes.

Persona is not only useful for acceptance, it also is protective. In some ways, persona is a relief - if you wear the mask, you won’t be perceived, not your true self at least, and then you wouldn’t be judged. But in not being perceived, by covering your true self, you are also never known. And how excruciating to move through the world always being perceived and never being seen.

The repression of the true self takes energy, it is exhausting to always perform the persona, to forever keep the shadow at bay. We spend so much time, energy and resources being someone or something else, carefully orchestrating how we are perceived. Much of the burnout we have from our daily toil is exacerbated by this existential exhaustion - the fatigue of repression bringing weight with every step.

You don’t need to be exhausted in life. You can be more than tired. Or busy. You can be yourself.

Being yourself requires bringing together all of you - shadow, persona and everything in between. What you’ll find when you befriend and integrate the shadow is a gift - you will experience a return of energy, no longer squandered in repression. You will discover creativity, spirituality, connection, desire, strength that you couldn’t have fathomed you had. The shadow has so many aspects of yourself that are longing to be expressed. Give yourself space to be yourself. You deserve to be yourself.

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It’s the same thing I tell clients who are getting sober - life is not easier when you’re sober. It is actually way harder. You have to feel all the things you always numbed yourself to and you have to be present for them. But you will be present for life. You will be living. Life is harder when you’re authentic - people in your life may not like your choices but they will be your choices. Your relationships may change, but then, they were only in relationship to your persona anyway. An authentic life is difficult but it is your life.

The above text is an excerpt from a FREE webinar I gave today in collaboration with Ubiquity University’s Humanity Rising initiative - to watch the full recording, click the image below.

As attachment-based beings, acceptance is a basic need. As we develop our sense of self, we naturally rely on external validation to shape our identity. Of course we do! We are informed by our earliest and closest relationships who we are - that’s the purpose of upbringing. As we grow, the external validation is meant to be tempered with Inner Knowing - they should inspire us to turn towards ourselves. Parents who ask “what do you think?” or “how does that feel?” or “are you full?” are teaching the balance of inner knowing.

Ideally, our early relationships should offer the first glimpse of our true self through mirroring - as we gaze into the eyes of our primary attachments, we *should see our Selves. It is through our relationships where we first come to know ourselves, for I have never seen my own face - I have only ever seen my reflection. As our relationships reflect ourselves back to us, depending on the mirroring we receive, a distorted self-perception can emerge. The mirrors we look into to see ourselves aren’t perfect - they can be flawed and cracked so how we see ourselves is too

If the mirror is warped, we can externalize our identity - relying on others to define us, rather than inform who we are. This is the difference between asking for support or guidance in making a decision and wanting someone else to tell you what to do - the latter is an externalization. The impact of externalization is insecurity, in a literal sense.

When we are mirrored accurately, we have what’s known as “secure” attachment - we can trust our needs will be met by people who love and support us. Insecure attachment is the opposite - I cannot ask for my needs. I cannot expect to have my needs met. With insecure attachment, when the mirror is warped, I see myself inaccurately, through the projections and perceptions of someone else’s wounding. This usually means I apologize. A lot. Overapologizing is usually an overcompensation of an internalized feeling that your existence is a burden.

If the mirror is fractured, so too is our sense of self. Our Inner Knowing is supplanted by External Seeking. We reach outside of ourselves trying to fix cracks in the mirror - but the cracks are not our own. They do not belong to us. These are the scars of the mirror, not of yourself. External Seeking is any way we try to meet our identity needs that are external - this can be through an obsession with appearance, escapism, mindlessness, relationships. The key is the obsession because it is trying to take the place of something internal. But your inner world cannot be replaced with external effigies - they are a mockery of the true complexity and marvel of your inner landscape.

We choose attachment again and again, pushing aside our authenticity because our need for acceptance is so strong. And, yes, our need for acceptance IS a need - it isn't pathological or something we can / should get rid of. Our need for acceptance is part of what makes us human. Our intention is to find balance between attachment and authenticity so we aren't abandoning ourselves in order to have acceptance - acceptance at the expense of our self-betrayal isn't acceptance, anyway.

So we choose attachment again and again until we can't not choose authenticity - until it becomes too painful, too incongruent, too exhausting to not choose our Selves. It's when we discover the never-fulfilled promise of conditional love, conditional acceptance, that we can choose authenticity. It isn't until we start to heal our attachment wounds that we can truly choose authenticity.

“There is no growth without real feeling. Children not loved for who they are do not learn how to love themselves. Their growth is an exercise in pleasing others, not in expanding through experience. As adults, they must learn to nurture their own lost child. It takes great courage to break with one's past history and stand alone”

-Marion Woodman

Choosing authenticity means releasing persona, people-pleasing, performance, perfectionism and the other coping strategies that keep our authenticity at bay. These coping strategies have also kept us safe so in their release, we have so much gratitude for how they have protected you. These coping strategies have kept you safe for a long time and it doesn’t (or shouldn’t) happen overnight.

This process of letting go doesn’t mean you’re letting go of relationships - it is letting go of externalizing your identity. It becomes an invitation to internalize your identity, to define and become yourself. We need relationships to survive and we are first formed by our relationships. But we can let go of the ways we’ve learned to survive. We can do this in the Marie Kondo way - with gratitude. We let go of the ways we’ve lived before with gratitude knowing they served us for a purpose for their time.

Finally, this brings us to RuPaul’s famous question: if you can’t love yourself, how can you love someone else? This is partially true - love for others, if not matched at least in part with self-love, can easily become External Seeking. But we learn to love through relationships - we learn to love ourselves through relationships, we learn who we are through relationships. The question I would like to get an amen to is “how can I learn to love myself?”

The answer to that question is slightly rhetorical. To continue the analogy of mirroring, we were never meant to see our own face. We were always meant to see our reflection. And not a crisp mirrored reflection, but a watery, rippled reflection in the misty eyes of our mother, in the stillness of the pond and the rushing of the river. Our reflection was meant to be marked by the element of emotion - water.

But we see ourselves clearer now than we ever have before. Perhaps more than we were ever meant to. We see ourselves in countless mirrors, in the dreaded front-facing camera, in endless selfies never to see the light of day. And somewhat ironically, in the clear-seeing of our reflection, we have an equally distorted sense of our Selves. We, perhaps, see ourselves too clearly, like the absurdity that comes from writing the same word again and again. Perhaps there was meant to be at least a little bit of mystery in our mirroring to inspire us to turn our vital energy within, and journey to discover our center. Perhaps it was the unknown of the watery reflection that began the curiosity of the Inner Knowing.

So consider how you have been mirrored - how you have come to know yourself. Consider if the mirrors in which you have perceived yourself have been accurate - or if you have built your identity upon carnival fun-house warped reflections, or shards of belittled projections, cracked at the edges. Consider how you can turn towards yourself, to focus on beginning to trust your Inner Knowing, and how you can see your reflection in imperfect ripples of an endless lake of love.

The root of burnout is more than overwork, it is the conflation of worthiness and usefulness. A culture that glorifies the grind masks deeper feelings of inadequacy and fear and what we do informs who we are [instead of the other way around]. Ambition divorced from the wisdom of boundaries is not productivity, it is an addiction to toxic productivity. Ambition, productivity and motivation must be founded in self-knowledge and self-compassion to be generative. And when they are, ambition can be the drive towards actualizing the life you envision for yourself. Productivity isn't something to be banished entirely, but it needs to be wielded well or becomes a cruel taskmaster.

What if you could be motivated by inspiration, instead of stress?

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Burnout ultimately is a misalignment with our values - and healing means we must know what our values are. Obligations to fulfill external expectations of life milestones, family commitments and career pressures can isolate us from our authenticity, tying us to what we "have" to do. Even if there are things we want to do for family, in career and life, the pressure suffocates choice. The freedom to choose what to do comes as we create more space in life - with room to breathe and be. Instead, it becomes easy to lose yourself in the pursuit of perfectionism and productivity amid endless to-do lists and endless expectation.

Instead.

Imagine waking up each day excited to live a life that celebrates your creativity and uniqueness, free from the ghosts of who you used to be. You start your morning slowly, savoring a cup of coffee as the first light of dawn filters through your window. You feel the comforting warmth of the cup in your hands, taking a moment to appreciate the quiet of the early hours. As you look ahead to your day, you’re filled with the freedom to choose activities that truly bring you joy.

An authentic life prioritizes your well-being and allows you to romanticize the mundane. You find beauty in the simple things—like the crisp, refreshing air during a walk through the park or the soothing melody of your favorite song playing while you cook dinner. Each moment, no matter how ordinary, is filled with a sense of purpose and fulfillment.

You deserve a life you love simply because you exist, not because you’ve earned it through endless hard work. This life embraces the essence of who you are, letting you live authentically and joyfully, free to explore and enjoy every part of your day.

But in order to get the life you want, you have to know what you want. I’ve found the best way to know what you want is to focus on your values. Your values are the compass that guides you - they are your ethics, morals, priorities, your driving force. If we’re disconnected from our values, there is chaos. When we’re informed by our values, there is alignment.

We don’t discover our values accidentally. It takes intention and reflection to know how we want to orient our lives. And of course, I have a worksheet for that. It also happens to be FREE! It will guide you through the process of identifying your values (and differentiating obligation at the same time) and I personally think it makes for a fun evening to do with partners, friends and family (but that’s what therapists think is fun): https://www.thriveintegratedpsychology.com/products/digital_downloads/authentic-values-inventory

I thought it was trite, contrived and honestly shallow. It felt akin to sin confessions, an empty list of bullet points repeated without much thought.

Gratitude felt like spiritual bypassing so I rejected it entirely. I thought I would be skipping past the pain with empty platitudes and disembodied recitations.

But gratitude has made significant difference in my life - a pause in presence to focus on what I do already have and what I have already manifested. This inspires more hope that I can continue to take steps towards the life I want.

What I’ve learned about gratitude is…

Gratitude invites us to see the ordinary as extraordinary. Imagine looking at your life as if you were your own ancestor—someone from a time when even the simplest conveniences we take for granted would have been unimaginable. If they could step into your shoes, they would be awe-struck by the miracles woven into your daily routine. If we approached each day with the wonder of our ancestors, we’d see our lives differently.

Imagine yourself as your own ancestor, walking into your kitchen and seeing running water at the turn of a faucet. Endless clean water, right at your fingertips, would seem like magic. Picture the amazement when you, as your own ancestor, can pick up a phone and instantly connect with someone you love. No waiting weeks for a letter, no wondering if it got lost along the way—just the immediacy of hearing a familiar voice.

Gratitude shifts our focus from what we lack to what we have. It allows us to appreciate the deep connections we share with others, helping us recognize that we are living in a time of unprecedented possibility.

So in honour of holding the Both-And, here are 3 things that I am grateful for:

• For all the work, support and alignment that has allowed me to travel for the past two years with my partner and our two dogs. The ways we’ve grown together through these experiences are so unique and inimitable.

• For my education - to be an educated woman with a graduate degree when the women in my ancestry couldn’t even have a bank account never ceases to inspire awe in me. I am so thankful for my education.

• For my friendships - they are deep, abiding and authentic. I have 4 friends and they are magnificent. They have been with me through so much. I am challenged, inspired and encouraged with them - they are continual reminders of what love is.

Now it’s your turn. I’d love to hear from you - what you grateful for?

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