When You Stop Forcing Growth
Personal growth has been turned into a productivity category, and I think it’s doing real harm. Look at how we talk. Working on yourself. Doing the work. Healing journey with…
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Learning to Rest Without Withering
A dormant tree is not doing nothing. It’s converting starch to sugar so its cells don’t burst when the temperature drops, hardening off its tissue, and building next spring’s buds….
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When What You Lose Makes Room for Life
Let me get the annoying part out of the way first. When a mature tree comes down in a woods, light hits the forest floor for the first time in…
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Leaves Fall to Protect the Tree
I learned something a few years back that rearranged how I talk about boundaries, and it came from a forestry page I was reading for no good reason at eleven…
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When the World Slows Down, So Can You
Here is a contradiction nobody names out loud, and once you see it you cannot unsee it. The natural world spends September downshifting. Days shorten, sap withdraws, animals slow down…
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Fall Is Not the Beginning of the End
The first cool morning always catches me off guard. You step out for the paper or to start the car. You notice that the air has changed overnight, and you…
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When Things Fall Away: The Sacred Power of the Fall Season
There is a week in western Kentucky, usually somewhere in the middle of September, when you can feel the whole county exhale. The air changes before the calendar does. The…
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Boundaries Without Guilt: Why a Screen Door Is Still a Door
I had a client tell me once that she felt like a hallway. Everybody walked through her to get somewhere else. However, nobody stopped to see what was on the…
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Building a Life That Doesn’t Require Survival Mode
Here is a pattern I see all the time, and it breaks my heart a little every time I see it. Somebody does real healing work. Therapy, tools, tears, the…
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Learning to Feel Safe in Your Body Again
Every so often a client shows up ready to charge straight at the worst memory on the first visit. They come at it with machete out and a “let’s go”….
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How Trauma Survivors Can Strengthen Their Minds and Build Lasting Resilience
This is a guest post from a contributing writer. The words and views here are the author’s own. I read every guest submission before it runs. However, publishing is not…
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Learning to Speak Kindly to Yourself Again
Try something for me. For one day, just listen to how you talk to yourself. Write down the actual sentences. “Stupid.” “You always do this.” “No wonder.” Then look at…
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Making Space for Healing at Your Own Pace
Somebody has probably already asked you the question, maybe kindly, maybe not. “Shouldn’t you be over this by now?” And maybe you’ve started asking yourself the same thing, holding your…
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Boundaries That Help You Heal
Healing needs protection. It needs space and honesty, patience and safe people, and enough time to become more than just survival. That’s why boundaries matter so much. Without boundaries, healing…
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Boundaries With Your Calendar
Your calendar can tell the truth about your boundaries. Sometimes we say we value rest, family, healing, prayer, health, and peace, but our calendar tells on us. Too many commitments,…
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Boundaries With Rescuing
Helping is beautiful. Rescuing is different. Helping supports someone while still letting them carry their own responsibility. Rescuing picks up responsibility that was never yours to hold. Helping says, “I…
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Boundaries With Grief
Grief needs boundaries too. That may sound strange, because grief already feels so heavy. But when you are grieving, your heart is tender, your energy runs short, your body moves…
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Boundaries With Your Phone
Sometimes the boundary you need is not with a person. It’s with your phone. The constant buzzing, the unread messages piling up, the pressure to answer fast, the feeling that…
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You Can Be Kind and Still Say No
Saying no does not make you unkind. It may feel that way at first, especially if you’re used to being the one who says yes, adjusts, helps, fixes, rescues, and…
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How to Set Boundaries So You Can Actually Rest
Most people don’t realize how exhausted they are until they’re on vacation. Away from the usual demands, the body finally unclenches, the mind stops scanning, and rest actually feels like…