The Gospel of Women’s Rage

This is the gospel of the woman who carried too much, too long.
The one you ignored until her silence cracked and her hands caught fire.

This is not burnout.
This is not exhaustion.
This is rage.

Not petty rage. Not hormonal rage. Not overreacting rage.
But sacred, righteous, ancestral rage.

The kind that is earned.
The kind that shakes generations loose.
The kind that doesn’t burn the village because that’s not what women do.
She doesn’t destroy. She doesn’t annihilate. She disrupts.

She causes discomfort until you learn.
She steps back and lets the consequences unfold.
She makes you sit in the mess you created and figure out how to clean it yourself.
She doesn’t fix what you broke after you ignored every warning.
She watches, steady and unsparing, while you finally feel what she carried for too long.

But why now? Why this turn in tone? Because for too long, I’ve focused on healing, resilience, softness, and hope. I’ve preached integration,balance, and compassion. All of those are still true but they are only half the story.

The other half is anger and for too long, I’ve bypassed it. We all have. Because women have been taught to fear their rage. That it’s dangerous. That it’s destructive. That it makes us like them. But this is not their rage. This is not rage that abuses or dominates. This is the rage of being heard but not listened to. This is the rage that comes when you do the work, rise higher, love harder and they stay the same.

This is the rage that transforms.

The Cracking Point

It started as it always does: I was polite. I was clear. I was helpful. I was ignored.

Then one day, one small thing too many lands in my inbox or on my shoulders, and I snap. Not outward or immediately, but deep inside something breaks and it will never go back the way it was.

You see the look on my face, and suddenly you’re listening, but it’s too late. You don’t get to ignore the whisper, disregard the request, and only respond to the rage. You don’t get to hear me now and think you’re entitled to stay.

This is the rage I feel standing in the pantry, looking at the Tupperware haphazardly stacked where once I had nested them like Russian dolls. That small moment, seemingly unimportant, becomes the spark. Because I have done too much already to now have to turn around and find what I tried to maintain completely destroyed.

It creeps up slowly, but like a rolling stone it builds momentum, until it escapes in a bloodcurdling scream of absolute rage. Rage that I have been disrespected time and time again. Ignored until I feel invisible. I scream to no one and everyone in the empty house (everyone but the dogs, who have already hidden from my wrath).

It was the rage at the cardboard box I ripped apart with my bare hands because it was better than lashing out physically at someone, speaking over my need for space and distance, despite the headphones I wore specifically to be left alone.

It’s the rage I feel as I write this. Because I’m done hearing how hard everyone else has it while the help I asked for went unnoticed, unanswered, and unvalued.

The Pattern

But this isn’t just about me. This is the pattern we see everywhere. It's in the woman who has been asking her husband for ten years to help carry the emotional labor. Then, when she finally files for divorce, he starts going to therapy and starts showing up. But she’s already gone. It’s too late.

It’s in the woman who shows up to work early, stays late, overperforms without recognition, and then one day... stops. She does exactly what she’s paid to do and no more. Then suddenly people notice, why aren’t things getting done? Why isn’t she available? What changed? They were always capable. They just didn’t care until it they were left carrying the load.

It’s in the mother who saves a snack for herself and doesn’t share. Not out of cruelty. But because she realizes she is a person. Not just a mother and she’s allowed to want something just for her, without feeling shame or guilt.

This is about boundaries. This is about not explaining them anymore. This is about the moment when she stops fixing, stops performing, and stops asking.

This is about the moment when she lets herself get angry.

The Shame of Female Anger

We’ve been taught that our anger is dangerous. That it makes us unlikeable. That it means we’ve lost control.

Because when men get angry, they get results. When women get angry, they get dismissed. “Oh, she must be hormonal.” “Are you on your period?” “God, why are you so emotional?”

We are told to calm down, to lighten up, to be kind, or to fix it. When we finally explode, after putting down countless nets of grace, we are suddenly the villain. They don’t remember the warnings. They don’t remember the pleas. They only remember the moment we stopped being nice.

And worse, they expect us to clean it up. They want us to feel bad for the damage. They want us to make them feel better.

No.

Not anymore.

Rage with a Story

Our rage is not random. It has a lineage. It has evidence. It is the conclusion drawn from every time we were expected to give more than we got. Every time we were expected to be the bigger person while someone else got to stay small. Every time they waited for us to snap so they could call us crazy, but never acknowledged that they were holding the scissors.

We are done being cut.

This rage is holy.

It is intelligent.

It is earned.

The Archetype Awakens

This rage is not reckless. It is archetypal.

Think of Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman. She wasn’t just angry. She was transformed. She walked into that apartment, torn and tattered, said “Honey, I’m home,oh, I forgot, I’m not married,” and heard her own loneliness played back to her on a loop. That was her cracking point. From that breaking came power. She didn’t go out to cause chaos for chaos’ sake. She defended the vulnerable and more importantly, she taught the vulnerable how to defend themselves. She didn’t swoop in to save them like a hero. She showed them they were strong enough to save themselves. That they didn’t need a man, a savior, or permission. That they could do it themselves while wearing heels and skin-tight leather.

She didn’t need saving.
She became the consequence.

That is what feminine rage looks like when it transforms.
Not a tantrum but a transmutation.

I see it, too, in Harley Quinn, especially in Birds of Prey, when she is no longer tethered to the Joker or filtered through the male gaze. Her rage becomes a reclamation of her own narrative, her own pleasure, and her own chaos on her own terms. The sisterhood of that film, each woman awakening to her own power, mirrors the awakening we feel in ourselves.

But not everyone sees themselves in comic books. So let’s stretch further.

There is Medusa. In some tellings, she had already been through enough, assaulted in the temple of a goddess she served faithfully, blamed not just by society, but by the gods themselves. Turned into a monster not because she was evil, but because she was beautiful. Because her beauty had been a threat. Yet, in that monstrous form, she finally found her power. She was given a cave for reprieve, a place to be alone. Men were warned: do not enter. Do not look. Do not take from her again. But they did and her gaze turned them to stone, not out of survival, but as a consequence. Her story is not one of victimhood. It is one of divine boundary setting.

There is Kali, the goddess so often misunderstood. People fear her because they see the blood, the fire, and the destruction. But they forget, she destroys what needs to be burned. She clears the illusions that keep us bound. From her ashes, new life rises. Her rage is nature’s rage. Her dance is liberation. Her presence is a reckoning.

Her love is fierce enough to remake the world.

There is Audre Lorde, who reminds us that our anger is not only valid but vital. "Every woman has a well stocked arsenal of anger potentially useful against those oppressions, personal and institutional, which brought that anger into being. Focused with precision it can become a powerful source of energy serving progress and change.” Her words dismantle the shame of female anger and reconstruct it as fuel for transformation.

We can turn to music, to the voices of feminine rage in song, raw, powerful, and deeply ancestral. The song of generations of angry women to the voices of women who sing what many of us cannot say.

From Björk’s elemental keening in “Pluto,” where she screams: “Excuse me, but I just have to explode / Explode this body off me,” a howl of complete shedding and transformation.

To Nina Simone’s searing protest in “Mississippi Goddam”: “You don't have to live next to me / Just give me my equality,” a line delivered with unwavering clarity, shaking both conscience and complacency.

To Fiona Apple’s simmering self-liberation in “Fetch the Bolt Cutters,” where she declares, “I’ve been in here too long,” breaking free from invisible chains with a whisper turned command.

Alanis Morissette, whose raw delivery in “You Oughta Know” hurls the truth like a thunderclap: “And I’m here, to remind you / Of the mess you left when you went away,” giving voice to every woman who swallowed pain while smiling through gritted teeth.

These aren’t just songs. They’re battle cries. They’re prayers. They’re refusals to be quieted.

These are not stories of ruin. These are stories of rebirth.

You may not wear leather or carry a sword but your rage, too, has an archetype.

Your rage has purpose.

Your rage is not the end.

It is the rite of passage.

So let her in. Let her rise. Let her show you what you’ve been too afraid to name.

And then…become her.

The Reckoning

This is what happens when we stop centering everyone else. This is what happens when we realize we can walk away from one-sided marriages, leave behind draining friendships, say no to the boss who keeps piling it on, and hold onto the snack without guilt.

It’s not cruelty or selfishness but a reclamation.

When they ask what changed, why the silence, why the exit, why the roar, we will not be the ones to explain. Let them sit with the echo.

We will be too busy building the world that should have always existed. A world where women do not have to break in order to be believed.

The Gospel of Feminine Rage is not a warning. It is a beginning.

We have felt it. We have named it. Now we alchemize it.

This week, I invite you to create your own Feminine Rage Practice.

1. Create Your Feminine Rage Playlist. Find the songs that speak to the storm inside you. Choose lyrics that cut through the silence. Include anthems that remind you of your power. Add tracks that bring you to tears, and others that make you want to scream-sing in the car. Then, take time to listen—let the sound move through you. Let the rage be witnessed.

2. Choose Your Feminine Rage Role Models. They could be singers, authors, characters, ancestors, or activists. Who has embodied righteous anger in a way that made you feel seen? Who told the truth when no one else would? Who stood firm when it would have been easier to stay silent? Write their names. Study them. Most importantly, ask yourself why you chose them.

3. Reflect and Reclaim. For each song or role model, ask yourself:

   • What specific qualities do they embody?

   • How do they express their anger?

   • What boundaries do they hold?

   • How can I integrate this into my own life?

This isn’t about glorifying rage for its own sake. This is about learning how to hear it. How to harness it. How to turn the fire into fuel.

Let your playlist be a prayer. Let your role models be your reminder. Let your reflection be the spark.

The Path Unfolds as I Walk It

Lately I’ve been sitting with this feeling: direction without destination. I’m writing, teaching, mothering, building, holding (doing all the things) and yet there are days when the horizon feels fogged in. I can tell I’m moving, but toward what? I can feel the work burning bright, but for whom? Some days that uncertainty is a whisper; some days it fills the whole room.

When I was younger, someone told me a story that still lives in my bones. There was a person standing in a pitch-black room. No light, no map, and no obvious way out. They knew they couldn’t stay where they were, so they lifted one foot and took a step. Their foot met a stair. They still couldn’t see but they took another step and landed on another stair. Step by step, still blind, they climbed. After what felt like forever, their hand found a doorknob. They opened the door and stepped into the light.

That story reminds me that fear of the unknown can do one of two things: it can freeze us in place, or it can build a quiet, necessary strength, the kind you only grow by moving anyway. Sometimes the staircase doesn’t reveal itself until you start walking. Sometimes the door to the light only appears after we’ve been in the dark long enough to know we never want to live there again.

Maybe that’s what growth really is, not a straight line, not a five-year plan, but something truer and more organic, like a seed.

A seed doesn’t know the garden layout or the weather forecast. It’s pressed into darkness and covered. No applause or certainty that it will take root and sprout. Yet it still begins. It sends roots down first, anchoring itself where no one can see. Only after rooting does it reach upward. It doesn’t burst through the soil on day one., it waits. It gathers strength. Then one morning, without permission or certainty, it breaks the surface and turns toward light it never actually saw, only trusted.

That’s where I am right now. Maybe that’s where you are too, in the rooting season. Not stuck or behind, simply rooting quietly, stubbornly, and securely. If that’s you, hear me: you are not lost, you are growing in the dark.

I told a student recently, and I’m reminding myself again here, that time, care, and rest fix everything, especially when you add a dash of patience. We don’t need to see the entire path to take the next right step. We can trust the process, trust nature, and trust the quiet work our roots are doing beneath the surface, even when nothing appears to be changing above ground. That’s the truth of this entire journey: healing isn’t always obvious. Sometimes, it looks like stillness, a conversation that softens something sharp inside, or it’s the moment you let yourself nap instead of push through. That’s what time, care, and rest really mean. Time to sit with the discomfort. Care through connection and speaking with someone who can truly hold space. Rest that nourishes and allows us to come home to ourselves. Throw in a bit of patience that says, “You will get there in your own time” and you have the magical spellwork of taking advantage of the great space called Unknown.

If you’re standing in the dark room, we’ll walk together. If you’re the buried seed, we’ll root together. The light will come. The sprout will break through. When it does, you’ll recognize the direction, not because someone handed you a map, but because:

The path unfolded as you walked it.

Sitting with Discomfort

Before we can move forward, we have to start with what’s here. To be completely honest, often what’s here is discomfort. Not just the vague sense of unease we like to brush aside, but a heavy, complex weight that reveals everything we’ve tried to avoid. Discomfort is not the enemy, it’s a messenger. Just like any messenger, it’s trying to deliver something essential: a message we’ve often refused to receive.

Discomfort doesn’t show up arbitrarily, it has purpose. It signals that something is misaligned. Something is unspoken or being neglected. Sometimes it whispers, sometimes it roars. But it always invites us to listen, not fix. This is the point where we need to override the instinct to find a way to make it better and to do it now. This isn’t about rushing to feel better, it’s about becoming better acquainted with what is. It is an invitation to identify the trauma, the pain, the heartache, and the wounds that have scarred us but also shaped us into who we are now. It helps us to see how we have trained our mind and body to react in those moments to protect us. Then we ask ourselves, "Does this help me or hurt me?" At this point, we are simply acknowledging where we are. We are not working to fix it. We are just sitting with it so we can understand.

This kind of presence takes courage. Because discomfort, when we truly sit with it, reveals the stories we’ve inherited, the pain we’ve swallowed, the boundaries we’ve abandoned. Sometimes the discomfort we feel is sadness, the kind that sinks in when we realize we’re alone, or worse, that we’ve been carrying someone else’s story as our truth. Other times, it’s grief: the deep ache of realizing the life we built, the one we were so sure would satisfy us, doesn’t fit anymore. To grow, we’ll have to walk away from it. That means leaving behind pieces of ourselves, relationships that no longer nourish us, and expectations that have been silently choking us for years.

Then, there’s the fury. The kind of rage that simmers beneath the surface when we realize we worked so hard, followed all the rules, and yet the path we were sold was never ours to begin with or was rigged/broken from the start. That we were taught to shrink, to obey, to doubt ourselves (ladies, I'm looking at you). Especially at this age (as I am writing this at 41 years old). Even more so when we’ve already poured so much into everyone else (moms, dads, and caregivers especially). This type of betrayal sucks and being angry about it is a perfectly normal response, but one we often deny ourselves.

To sit with discomfort is to say, "I am willing to hear the truth of myself". It's also acknowledging the truth of what has been done to you. It is the first act of honesty. It’s not passive; it’s radical and it is necessary. Because if we don’t pause long enough to listen to what hurts, we will carry that hurt with us into the next chapter, relationship, and opportunity. We will repeat the same cycles, call it fate, and wonder why we still feel unfulfilled.

The only way forward is through and the only way through is by honoring what’s real, even if it’s uncomfortable.

Especially if it’s uncomfortable. That’s where the wisdom lives. That is where true change and the end of toxic cycles begins.

Accepting Uncertainty as a Trust Fall Into the Self

From that initial honesty, we step into uncertainty. Not because it's easy, but because it's real. Accepting uncertainty isn’t a passive surrender, it’s an active declaration of trust. Not just in divine timing, or the unfolding of nature (though those things matter), but in ourselves. Our ability to be with what is. To respond with presence and to rise when it’s time.

It’s a trust fall but not the kind where someone else catches us. It’s the kind where we realize we are the net. That there’s a self within us capable of catching what falls.

This kind of trust doesn’t come from theory, it comes from experience. Every time we take a step forward without full clarity and survive it, we build trust. Every time we face discomfort and resist the urge to numb or escape, we strengthen it. Every time we tell ourselves, “I don’t have the full map, but I know the next right step,” we become more rooted in our own wisdom.

Self-trust grows when we choose to focus on what is in our control. That might mean getting up and making the bed. It might mean saying no when we’d usually say yes. These choices, small as they may seem, signal to our nervous system that we are safe with ourselves.

Safety is the foundation of self-esteem.

As Dr. Christine Carter (2020) wisely points out, “To best cope with uncertainty, we need to stop complaining.” Instead of fixating on the problem or waiting to be rescued, we can shift toward the outcomes we desire. Carter explains that “rescuers tend to give us permission to avoid taking responsibility for our lives,” while emotionally supportive friends or therapists “see us as capable of solving our own problems.” This shift from helplessness to ownership changes everything. It allows us to take back our agency and engage with the mess of life in a more empowered way. This is the groundwork for resilience.

Nicole Whitting (2022) expands on this by encouraging us to “have our own back.” She writes, “Developing a resilient relationship with failure and uncertainty is essential for personal growth. This entails supporting oneself through trials and errors, acknowledging that while outcomes may not always be predictable, one’s ability to navigate and adapt to them is within our control.” In other words, we stop waiting to be saved and start becoming the one who saves ourselves, again and again.

When we take action from this place of grounded self-trust, we stop fearing failure so deeply. We see each misstep as part of a larger unfolding. We begin to understand that even when things don’t go to plan, we have the tools to regroup, realign, and try again. This isn’t just about grit. It’s about grace. The grace to believe that we are enough. That our inner wisdom is trustworthy. That no matter how uncertain things feel, we are not powerless.

Connection as Clarifying Mirror

We aren’t meant to walk this journey alone. But here’s the thing, connection isn’t about trauma-dumping or venting into the void. True connection is a space of shared presence, where we can speak and be heard, not just in our pain but in our process and our becoming.

When we speak aloud, we give shape to our inner world. We stop the mental ricochet of thoughts trapped in our minds, the ones that bounce like rubber balls in a sealed room, growing louder with each echo. Talking externalizes those thoughts, allowing us to see them more clearly and respond with wisdom rather than reactivity.

This isn’t just poetic, it’s physiological. In Human Physiology: Expression of Veda and the Vedic Literature, Dr. Tony Nader (2014) describes how the brain processes sound through an eight-step sequence, transforming vibration into meaning. When we speak and hear our own words, we engage this process consciously. We become both speaker and listener, both sender and receiver. That moment of inner resonance, when we truly hear ourselves, can spark insight that silence alone may not reveal. Think on this for a moment. Have you ever had a moment where you heard yourself speak and thought, “woah…that came from me?” or “wow…I said that?” That’s because when the thought is able to leave the echo chamber of the mind, take form as sound, and then go through each of those 8 steps, it becomes fully realized and our brain is able to process it physically, mentally, and emotionally. We are able to see that we already know what we need to do, we already know the process, and we know ourselves better than anyone else. From that point, we can move forward with confidence, our friends don’t even have to put in much effort other than holding space for us.

So, find your people.

The ones who don’t rush to fix, who know how to hold space, who meet your truth with tenderness instead of discomfort. Let your words be spoken in the presence of someone who sees you, not just the polished parts, but the raw, unraveling edges too. Let your truth leave your body and land in a space where it can be witnessed, held, and reflected. Not to fix you but to free you. Because healing doesn’t happen in isolation. It happens in relationship, when the nervous system begins to feel safe, not just because you said it out loud, but because someone stayed and listened.

Turning Presence Into Practice

Once we’ve acknowledged our discomfort and accepted the uncertainty, the next step is gentle action. Not frantic scrambling for solutions. Not impulsive leaps that lead to more chaos. But small, steady steps that move us in the direction of self-trust and alignment.

This is where intention becomes our compass. Rather than trying to control the whole map, we start with what’s right in front of us. What do I need today? What would nourish me—not numb me? What would support my nervous system instead of overwhelm it?

But intention is only half of the equation. To truly move forward, we also need a way of thinking that matches our depth and complexity. This is where we embrace critical, creative, and holistic thinking, not as academic tools, but as soul-level practices that help us see clearly, imagine freely, and integrate fully.

Critical thinking helps us challenge our assumptions. It allows us to ask: Is this thought true? Where did I learn it? Does it still serve me? Especially in moments of uncertainty, critical thinking gives us the courage to pause before reacting. Then we discern what’s real from what’s fear-driven, inherited, or outdated. It’s not about judging ourselves. It’s about examining our patterns with compassion.

Creative thinking gives us space to dream beyond the binary. When life feels stuck, creativity opens windows. It allows us to play with new possibilities, to imagine outcomes we’ve never considered, to tap into resourcefulness that exists beyond logic. It doesn’t always mean art. Sometimes creativity looks like asking a better question, flipping the script, or simply saying, What if there's another way?

Holistic thinking is the glue. It’s the awareness that everything is connected: mind and body, inner and outer, past and present. This kind of thinking honors nuance. It understands that healing isn’t linear, that people are more than their worst moment, and that solutions are often found in the spaces between disciplines. It reminds us that our nervous system, our relationships, our environment, and our beliefs all influence each other. It also reminds us that true change happens when we tend to the whole.

Together, these three ways of thinking form a powerful triad. They help us reclaim agency without bypassing complexity. They let us move forward with both logic and intuition, grounded in presence but open to expansion. When we apply them, whether to a decision, a conflict, or a life transition, we’re not just reacting, we’re responding consciously.

As Dr. Diane Sliwka (2025) reminds us, focusing on short-term actions within our control is a powerful way to reduce anxiety and regain a sense of agency. So, we look for what we can do. Maybe that means drinking water. Maybe it means responding to that one email. Maybe it means resting when the world insists that we hustle.

The key is not the size of the step, it’s the direction.

Even the smallest move made in alignment with our well-being plants a seed for change. And just like a seed, that change needs tending. It needs consistency. It needs care. And it needs the quiet permission to grow at its own pace.

The Courage to Pause

Pausing in the middle of uncertainty is not easy. In fact, it can feel terrifying. When we don’t know what’s around the corner, our nervous system goes on high alert. We stay busy, distracted, and always looking over our shoulder. Not because we’re weak, but because we’re wired to survive. Stillness can feel threatening. When we stop moving, we start to feel. And sometimes what we feel is fear, or sadness, or the spinning unease of rumination.

But rest is not a luxury. It’s a strategy. It’s not avoidance, it’s an act of courage. Dr. Diane Sliwka (2025) writes that when rumination feels excessive, we can shift our focus to planning as an antidote. Journaling, mapping out next steps, or simply imagining a few grounded scenarios can help us feel more prepared, more anchored. And it’s in moments of rest, when the body is calm enough to think clearly, that we can begin to do this kind of reflective planning.

Even the military understands the necessity of the pause. When I was deployed, we weren’t in a constant state of combat. We had R&R (Rest and Recuperation) baked into the rhythm of our deployment. Leadership would check in if we didn’t take it, concerned that we might be spiraling into burnout. It wasn’t indulgence. It was necessity. It was protection of the mission and of ourselves. We would be wise to offer ourselves the same.

In a way, this is the wisdom of the Earth itself. You can toss a seed into any soil, and it may grow. But if you nourish that soil, fertilize it, care for it, make space for it to breathe, that seed has a far greater chance of thriving. The pause is the fertilizer. Rest and self-care are what strengthen the roots before the sprouting begins.

So even if it feels uncomfortable, even if the silence stirs old fear, remind yourself: I am safe in this moment. I can stop,  soften, and replenish.

Then remind yourself:

 “When I do, I don’t lose momentum. I gather strength.”

Turning Insight Into Action: A Self-Guided Practice

You’ve walked with me through some hard truths:

·      Sitting with discomfort

·      Learning to trust yourself

·      Trying to think differently

·      Connecting with others

·      Finding the courage to pause

But what do we do with all of this? How do we carry it into our real lives, especially when the path is uncertain?

This section isn’t about fixing your life in five easy steps. It’s about building a relationship with your inner knowing—one step at a time. Below is a self-guided practice structured around three stages:

1.     Reflect,

2.     Reset,

3.     Respond.

You can walk through this in one sitting or revisit each step over time. You might want to grab a journal, a pen, and a quiet moment to yourself before diving in.

PART 1: REFLECT: Understand What’s Present

This is where we begin, by getting honest about what’s here. Not what should be here. Not what we wish was here. But what’s real.

Instructions: Use the following prompts to name what you’re feeling, what’s unclear, and what’s trying to get your attention.

·      What feels uncertain in my life right now?

·      What emotion keeps surfacing lately: fear, anger, grief, numbness, something else?

·      When I sit with that feeling, what is it trying to tell me?

·      What part of me wants to be heard but I’ve been avoiding listening?

Coaching Tip: Remember, you’re not here to solve anything yet. You’re here to witness. This is the pause. You’re a newly planted seed who needs time to take root. Let yourself rest in awareness.

PART 2: RESET: Come Back to Center

Now that you’ve named what’s present, it’s time to nurture yourself before moving forward. Just like settlers on the frontier or soldiers on deployment, rest is a strategy. It’s not giving up. It’s gathering strength.

Instructions: Choose one of the following actions. Keep it simple. Small acts matter.

·       Body: Drink water, stretch, lie down with your hand on your chest. Remind yourself: I am safe in this moment.

·       Mind: Write down the 3 things on your mind right now, then give yourself permission to only focus on the one that’s most important.

·       Heart: Text someone you trust and say: “Hey, I could use some connection. Can we talk soon?” Let yourself be seen.

·       Planning (Not Ruminating): Following Dr. Diane Sliwka’s guidance (2025), turn rumination into planning:

o   What’s one possible scenario I’m worried about?

o   What’s one small way I could prepare for it?

Metaphor to Anchor This: A seed will grow in any soil, but it thrives in fertilized soil. Self-care is that fertilizer. Rest, nourishment, connection…these aren’t luxuries. They are how we strengthen the self so that action comes from alignment, not exhaustion.

PART 3: RESPOND: Take a Gentle Step Forward

Now that you’ve listened and cared for yourself, it’s time to act. Not from panic. Not from pressure. But from presence.

Instructions: This is where we use critical, creative, and holistic thinking together.

1.     Critical Thinking (Discernment):
Ask: What do I actually know to be true in this situation?
What is a fact vs. a fear? What is the truth vs. a belief? What needs more information before I decide?

2.     Creative Thinking (Possibility):
Ask: What if there’s another way?
Like we explored earlier, there are infinite ways to arrive at the same truth (2 = 1+1, 3–1, 4÷2…). What’s a nontraditional or imaginative solution I haven’t yet considered?

3.     Holistic Thinking (Integration):
Ask: What does my whole self say: body, mind, and spirit?
What step feels aligned, even if it’s small or uncertain? What feels nourishing and forward moving?

Now, write this sentence in your journal:

Today, the step I am choosing to take is: _______.
I choose it not because I’m certain, but because I trust myself to keep walking.

Final Reflection

Uncertainty may shake the ground beneath us, but it can also become sacred ground. A place where we slow down, re-center, and rediscover the steady pulse of our own becoming. This is not a detour, it is the path. Every pause, every act of reflection, every small decision rooted in care rather than fear… it all counts. You are not lost. You are learning to listen. You are not behind. You are aligning. The beauty is, you don’t have to do it all at once. You don’t have to have it all figured out. You simply return (again and again) to the truth that you are worth tending to, even here, especially here.

So take the next step and if the next step is rest, then let it be deep and unapologetic. If the next step is action, let it be gentle and intentional. Because the real work isn’t about chasing certainty. It’s about remembering who you are within it.

You don’t have to know the entire path to take the first step.
You don’t have to be fearless to move forward.
You only have to be honest, gentle, and willing.

The rest unfolds in motion.

References

Carter, C. (2023, October 18). How to live with uncertainty. Greater Good Science Center. https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_to_live_with_uncertainty

Whitting, N. (2024, April 26). 10 ways to calm your mind and body in times of uncertainty. Healthline. https://www.healthline.com/health/how-to-live-with-uncertainty

Sliwka, D. (2025, February 14). When rumination feels excessive, focus on planning as an antidote to anxious feelings—Feeling prepared for different scenarios can help. UCSF Health. https://www.ucsfhealth.org/education/planning-as-antidote-to-anxious-feelings

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. (2016). Science of being and art of living: Transcendental Meditation (Rev. ed.). Penguin.

Nader, T. (2014). Human physiology: Expression of Veda and the Vedic literature. Maharishi University of Management Press.

When the Mirror Finally Catches Up: Recognizing Your Real-Time Impact

I didn’t expect to feel emotional when I turned in my annual faculty self-assessment. I was simply following protocol, checking off accomplishments, listing courses taught, aligning with outcomes, adding service hours. But as I scrolled back through everything I had done this past year, I found myself… surprised. Humbled, even.

I had taught multiple courses across semesters, managed a full undergraduate program, published two books, made steady progress on my PhD qualifying exams, supported my husband’s small business, ran a household, and (miraculously) still managed to practice daily self-care and show up fully present for my child. When I looked at it all together, the reflection looking back at me was different. The mirror finally caught up to the truth of who I’ve become.

Yet, how long did I walk past that mirror without seeing any of it?

How often do you move through life like that?

We keep going. We reach a milestone and barely pause before our minds leap to the next.

No breath.

No reflection.

No celebration.

Just: what’s next? What if we shifted that? What if, instead of racing to the next big thing, we honored the small wins that built the bridge beneath our feet?

The Wobbly Steps That Matter Most

Dr. Lindsey Godwin tells the story of being in an airport when a toddler just learning to walk captured the hearts of everyone around him. Each time he stumbled, strangers broke into applause. “Something beautiful happened,” she writes. “Strangers—young and old, from every background and corner of life—began cheering him on.”

It made her wonder: When did we stop cheering for our own wobbly steps?

That moment, watching a one-year-old stumble and rise again, cheered not for perfection but for effort, holds a profound truth. We begin life being celebrated for trying. Not for mastery. Not for speed. Just for trying.

But somewhere along the way, we begin attaching worth to outcomes. Success becomes defined by big, public milestones: the degree, the job, the house, the launch. When those things feel far away, our day-to-day effort can start to feel invisible, even to ourselves.

The Science of Small Wins

Harvard professor Teresa Amabile and psychologist Steven Kramer, in their research on motivation, coined the term The Progress Principle. What they found was simple but powerful: motivation doesn’t come from giant breakthroughs, it comes from recognizing small, consistent progress.

Every time we acknowledge even the tiniest step forward, we light up the brain’s reward system. A hit of dopamine is released. We feel good. That feeling good makes us want to keep going. This becomes a psychological upward spiral, an engine of self-belief and sustained momentum.

In contrast, when we dismiss those little wins or skip over them entirely, we short-circuit that loop. Then we burn out. We start to believe that our effort isn’t enough. We move the goalposts so fast we never even touch them. Our goals, hopes, and dreams become unattainable.

But Let’s Get Real: Why Don’t We Celebrate?

Psychologist Dr. Melanie McNally writes about her high-achieving client “Jada,” a CEO who accomplished her annual expansion goal six months early, but immediately moved on to planning her next major acquisition. When McNally suggested she pause to celebrate, Jada looked baffled, even uncomfortable. It had never occurred to her to celebrate. She didn’t even know what that would look like.

If that sounds familiar, you’re not alone.

Somewhere along the line, we were taught that rest is weakness, that celebration is self-indulgent, and that humility means downplaying our success. We were taught to keep climbing. And so we ignore our wins, big or small, and risk losing the very motivation that fuels us.

But science, and spirit, say otherwise.

According to McNally, when we celebrate wins, we reinforce positive behavior, reduce stress, and strengthen our capacity to learn from what’s working. Celebration isn’t just joy, it’s neurological integration. It’s memory. It’s growth.

What if we don’t do it? That’s one of the fastest tracks to burnout. Christina Maslach and Michael Leiter, authors of The Burnout Challenge, name “insufficient reward” as one of the six core causes of burnout. Translation: if we never acknowledge our efforts, our nervous system eventually stops caring. It stops trying and goes numb.

You Deserve the Reward, Not Just the Results

Melissa Russell from Harvard Summer School breaks it down further. Celebrating small wins helps us stay motivated, form good habits, and maintain perspective when setbacks inevitably happen. And those wins don’t need to be dramatic.

Some days, it’s enough to:

• Wake up and take a short walk.

• Set a boundary you used to ignore.

• Send the email you’ve been putting off.

• Feed yourself something nourishing.

• Say no to something that drains you.

• Say yes to something that lights you up.

Every one of those moments is a win. Every one is a step forward.

What Happens When You Do Celebrate

When we do pause and recognize our progress, something changes. We start to feel our momentum again. We build self-trust. We deepen our emotional resilience. We begin to see the long road not as a burden but as a series of meaningful, connected steps.

The pauses and acknowledgements… they’re contagious. Sharing your small wins builds connection. It gives permission to others to do the same. Just like that airport crowd cheering for a toddler, your joy creates a ripple of encouragement in your community. It changes the culture.

When McNally’s client Jada finally told her friends about her early expansion win, they surprised her with a dinner and celebrated her success. That night became more than just a reward, it became a memory of love, support, and sisterhood. The kind of moment you carry for years.

So, What About You?

What have you done this week that deserves to be honored?

What step did you take, however shaky, that helped move your life forward?

Even if no one else saw it. Especially if no one else saw it.

Your mirror is waiting to catch up.

The Self-Assessment Exercise

A quiet moment to name what matters, one win at a time.

This isn’t the kind of self-assessment you turn in to a boss or professor. This is one you gift to yourself. No grades. No judgment. Just you, sitting down to recognize the honest, meaningful work of living your life.

You don’t need anything fancy. Just a piece of paper, your journal, a notes app on your phone, or even the back of a receipt in your purse. You can do this.

Step-by-Step Instructions:

1. Find five minutes today (or this week) where you can sit quietly.
   Light a candle if you want. Make some tea. Put on a playlist that makes you feel seen. This is a sacred moment with yourself.

2. Answer the following questions in writing or out loud:

   • What did I do this week that required effort, even if no one else saw it?

   • Where did I show up, even when I didn’t feel like I had much to give?

   • What emotional, mental, or physical challenge did I move through with grace or grit?

   • What small task did I finally cross off my list?

   • What am I proud of—even just a little?

   (Tip: If you feel stuck, scroll back through your texts, calendar, or camera roll. You’ve likely done more than you remember.)

3. Write a personal affirmation that reflects your effort this week.
   It doesn’t have to be poetic or profound. It just has to be true.
   Try starting with:

   • “This week, I…”

   • “Even when it was hard, I…”

   • “I’m proud that I…”

4. Optional: Keep a “Done List.”
   Each day, jot down just one thing you accomplished. By the end of the week, you’ll have a powerful record of how you kept going, moment by moment.

This practice can become a powerful reset when you’re tired, doubting yourself, or losing momentum. You don’t need to wait for someone else to hand you a certificate of recognition.

You are already the witness to your life.

Be a kind one.

Be a generous one.

Be a true one.

The Mirror Affirmation Practice

A visual ritual to witness your small wins in real time

Sometimes we need more than a journal prompt. We need a physical space, a visual reminder to anchor ourselves in the truth of what we’ve done. That’s where the mirror affirmation exercise comes in.

This practice invites you to use your own mirror…yes, the same one you brush your teeth in front of…as a daily space of celebration and acknowledgment. Whether it’s the bathroom mirror, a hallway mirror, or even a small one taped to the back of your closet door (I created one you can print off and tape anywhere!), the idea is simple:

What You’ll Need:

• A mirror in a place you’ll see often or print off the one below

• A pad of sticky notes

• A pen or marker

• A willingness to give yourself credit, one win at a time

How to Do It:

1. Each day, write down one small win on a sticky note. Just one. Something real. Something you did.

   • "I folded the laundry right out of the dryer instead of letting it wrinkle."

   • "I sent that email I was dreading."

   • "I drank water before coffee."

   • "I read Natasha’s blog today instead of doomscrolling Instagram."

2. Stick it to your mirror. Add it wherever there’s space. Watch your reflection get surrounded by proof that you are showing up for your life.

3. Say something kind to yourself. Every time you pass that mirror, whether you’re brushing your teeth or just walking by, take one second to acknowledge the effort behind the sticky notes. A simple, “You’re doing great,” or “I see how hard you’re trying,” can go a long way.

4. End-of-week reflection: On Sunday (or whatever day feels like your week’s end), stand in front of that mirror. Take each sticky note off one by one and read them aloud to yourself. Let them land. Then, take a moment to say:
   “I did all of this. I showed up. I am proud of me.”

You can then choose to keep the notes in a jar or notebook or even start fresh the next week. What matters is this:

You saw yourself. You acknowledged your efforts. You were not invisible to your own eyes.

Final Thoughts: Cheer for the Wobbles

You don’t need to wait for the perfect moment, the final milestone, or the public applause. You don’t need to hustle your way into self-worth. You’re already showing up. You’re already trying.

That’s enough to start cheering.

So stand up. Look in the mirror. See yourself clearly.

And this time, don’t look away.

A Note From Me to You

Before you go, I want you to hear this directly from me:

The little things really do count. Not just symbolically. Not just sentimentally. They count because they hold things together. They are the quiet stitches in the fabric of a life that works.

Every time you fold that load of laundry, you are making sure your family wakes up to clothes that are clean, soft, and ready to wear. You’re wrapping them, and yourself, in a kind of unspoken care.

Every time you manage to squeeze in a meal between responsibilities, you are choosing to nourish your body, even when time and energy are running low. That matters. You matter.

Every time you take a few moments to read something like this blog, you are feeding your mind and spirit. You are giving yourself space to reflect. That’s not small. That’s sacred.

I see how easy it is to overlook those things. I’ve done it too. But I want you to pause here, just for a breath, and let yourself feel it:

You are showing up. You are doing the work. You are holding more than most people will ever know.

Still, you are here.

That is extraordinary.

I’m proud of you.

References
Amabile, T., & Kramer, S. (2011). The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work. Harvard Business Review Press.
Godwin, L. (2024, October 29). Why we should cheer for life’s wobbles. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/possibilitizing/202410/why-we-should-cheer-for-lifes-wobbles
Maslach, C., & Leiter, M. P. (2022). The Burnout Challenge. Harvard University Press.
McNally, M. A. (2024, June 12). From small steps to big wins: The importance of celebrating. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/empower-your-mind/202406/from-small-steps-to-big-wins-the-importance-of-celebrating
Russell, M. (2024, May 30). Why celebrating small wins matters. Harvard Summer School Blog. https://summer.harvard.edu/blog/why-celebrating-small-wins-matters
Wang, W., Li, J., Sun, G., et al. (2017). Achievement goals and life satisfaction: The mediating role of perception of successful agency and the moderating role of emotion reappraisal. Psicol. Refl. Crít., 30(25). https://doi.org/10.1186/s41155-017-0078-4

Let the Snow Fall: The Sacred Power of Silence

There’s a silence that’s not empty, but full. Full of breath, full of potential, full of things just beginning to stir.

In the Vedic tradition, this space is known as the gap, the moment between sound and sound, action and reaction, breath and breath. It’s not nothing. It’s everything. The field of all possibilities. The wellspring of creativity, healing, and renewal. The place where something new is born, not in noise or motion, but in pause.

Yet… in our world, silence is so often mistaken for absence. It gets mistaken for laziness, disengagement, or failure. Stillness is seen as stagnation. Rest is seen as weakness.

But what if silence isn’t the end of something? What if it’s the beginning?

Lately, I’ve been sitting with that.

After months of effort, writing, creating, coaching, researching, parenting, posting, I found myself quietly hoping that something would catch. That one post, one offering, one moment would ripple just a little wider. I told myself I didn’t need the applause. I told myself if just one person resonated, it would be enough. Then someone did. A single person reached out to say, “I came to your page for inspiration, and my energy instantly shifted. Thank you for sharing your light.” That meant the world. It really did. But if I’m being honest, I wanted more, not out of ego, but out of hope. Hope that the work I’ve poured my heart into might actually land somewhere. Hope that all the seeds I’ve been planting might finally start to bloom.

Instead, I was met with… quiet.

At first, that quiet felt like defeat. But then I remembered the snow.

When I lived in New England, snowstorms weren’t just weather events, they were landscapes of transformation. During the heaviest storms, when the flakes were thick and falling fast, you might expect chaos, loud sound, and some dramatic shift in atmosphere. Instead, what you got was silence that was a deep, all-encompassing hush. It didn’t matter how much snow was falling or how high it piled at your knees. The world became soft, still, and sacred. There was something magical about it, a reverence that settled over everything.

I later learned the reason: snow absorbs sound. Like natural soundproofing, it dampens the noise of the world. But you don’t need science to explain what the soul already knows: that silence can be holy. Silence can heal. Silence can be a form of protection.

I think that’s what I’ve been needing lately. Not more input. Not more content. Not more pushing. Just a moment in the snow. Because honestly, I often feel like I’m getting buried in layers.

The layer of the job.
The layer of the PhD.
The layer of parenting.
The layer of keeping a business afloat.
The layer of trying to stay visible in a system that rewards only the loudest voices.

It builds up, and suddenly you’re knee-deep in expectations, deadlines, logistics, and worries.Iin that storm, it’s easy to forget the power of a pause. But when I return to the silence, even for just a breath, I remember:

I am not lost.
I am regenerating.

In Vedic thought, the gap, the silent space, is not just a void. It is source. It’s where sound collapses before it reforms. It’s where insight arises before it takes shape. It’s where the soul rests before it reaches again.

We all need tha, especially those of us trying to build something honest. Because the silence isn’t punishment, it’s preparation.

So if you’re in the quiet right now…

If your work feels unseen,
If your voice feels small,
If the world feels loud and you’re tired of shouting into it…

Step back. Let the snow fall. Let the hush wrap around you like a balm.

You’re not behind.
You’re not forgotten.
You’re not failing.

You’re just in the gap and it is not empty. It is alive.

Let yourself be still long enough to hear what’s rising in you.
Let yourself be soft enough to receive what’s next.
When you’re ready… return.

But not because you have to be louder.
Return because you’ve remembered how to listen.

When You Throw the Life Vest and They Swim Away

Every week, I sit down to write.

Not because I have a giant team behind me. Not because I’m chasing likes or brand deals. I write because I’m listening to my clients, my students, and my friends. I write because I care. I write because this field of mental health, wellness, and transformation is full of nuance, trauma, and silent pain, and because so many of us are trying to live better lives without falling apart in the process.

I make it accessible (aka completely free) with no paywall, no funnel, no catch.

But let me be honest for a moment.

Last week, I looked at the analytics for my website. Not even in the double digits. My Substack has 11 subscribers. My Instagram sits at 68 followers. My social content, carefully created to support and extend the blog, often goes unseen. What hurts most isn’t the numbers. It’s that the people who say they want support, who ask for wisdom, who vent about their struggles… often scroll right past it.

They’ll share a meme, repost a bestseller, drop $26 on a hardcover copy of the latest pop psych book by someone with zero credentials in mental health. But they won’t read a free blog post from someone they know, who actually works in the field, teaches in it, and is getting a PhD in it.

Here’s the kicker: I don’t even want to coach my friends. That’s not ethical, and it’s not what I’m offering. What I am offering is guidance, insight, and support in a form that respects their boundaries and mine.

So why does it feel like no one wants it?

Why We Push Away the Help We Say We Want

The truth is, vulnerability hits differently when it’s close to home.

When someone you know shares wisdom, it feels personal. It might hit too close. Maybe there’s fear:

“What if they judge me?”

“What if they talk about me?”

“What if they see too much?”

The risk of being seen is often greater than the risk of being lost.

And that’s the paradox: we cry out for help, but when the life vest comes from someone who knows our story, we reject it. Not because it’s not valuable but because it feels too vulnerable.

The Glamorized Self-Help Machine

Meanwhile, the self-help world keeps growing. But let’s be honest about something else: many of the voices who dominate that space are not experts in healing they’re experts in marketing.

Mel Robbins was a criminal defense attorney turned motivational speaker. Mark Manson has a degree in international relations. Sylvia Browne, who once built an empire off “spiritual readings,” had no formal education. James Clear (whose work I actually love and use) studied biomechanics. Stephen Covey had business and religious education degrees…not clinical psychology.

What do they have in common?

• Publishers.

• Teams.

• Money.

• Visibility.

What many of us have?

• Lived experience,

• deep study,

• accreditation

• … and no reach.

There Is Too Much Talent Trapped in Poverty

A quote I saw recently said: There is too much talent trapped in poverty. This landed hard. Because I am that quote.

I created my website. I design my posts. I write, edit, upload, and promote completely alone. I am bootstrapping wisdom while others are outsourcing it. I’m not bitter. But I am frustrated because I believe in what I do and I know it works.

I just wish more people would see it.

Maybe that’s the final piece of this post:

If you’ve been feeling lost, struggling to find your footing, asking for help… and you’ve got a friend who’s out here creating resources for free check them out. Read their blog. Share their post. Let them know you see them. Because the real magic doesn’t always come with a marketing team or a book tour.

Sometimes, it comes from the person who’s been quietly listening to you this whole time.

Knowing Where I End: A Note on Boundaries

There’s one more piece I need to speak to because today, I hit a boundary.

I want to be clear: a boundary isn’t about controlling someone else’s behavior. It’s not about demanding support or telling people what they should do. A boundary is about self-respect. It’s about saying, “This is how far I go. This is what I’m able to give right now and no more.”

The truth is, I pour hours into this work. I write blog posts that are researched, cited, edited, and carefully crafted. I publish a weekly Substack to deepen the conversation for those who want to walk a little further with me. I create 19 social media posts every week, each one a small offering meant to connect, support, or uplift. This week, I’ve felt the weight of doing all of that without receiving much back.

So here is my boundary: this week, I’m giving less.

Not out of resentment. Not out of spite. But out of clarity. I’ve reached my edge, and instead of pushing past it in the name of productivity or perceived obligation, I’m honoring it. That’s what a boundary is, a line drawn in self-trust and I hope if you need to draw one too, you know you’re allowed.

Because generosity without boundaries becomes burnout. And connection without reciprocity becomes depletion.

I’m not giving up on this work. But I’m giving myself space to breathe and I invite you to do the same.

The Trap of Disconnection: How Loneliness is Quietly Harming Our Health and Our Humanity

We don’t talk enough about how much things changed after COVID.

Not just the obvious changes like mask mandates, Zoom fatigue, supply chain issues. I mean the deeper stuff. The way we relate to each other. The way we show up (or don’t) for our communities. The growing silence between what we feel and what we express. The way disconnection has gone from an emergency measure to a normalized habit. The truth is, it’s hurting us more than we realize.

We are social creatures. Human connection is not a luxury, it’s a biological necessity. Touch, laughter, eye contact, shared experiences....these are the things that literally regulate our nervous systems. Studies show that positive social connection triggers the release of oxytocin, reduces cortisol (stress), strengthens immunity, and supports cardiovascular health. When we don’t have enough of it, we start to fray at the edges (Holt-Lunstad, 2024).

Since the pandemic, those edges have only gotten sharper.

A 2022 report from the World Health Organization noted a 25% increase in the prevalence of anxiety and depression globally (WHO, 2022). Women and young people were hit hardest. People with preexisting conditions like asthma, cancer, and heart disease were also significantly more likely to experience mental health challenges. A comprehensive review of global data showed increased risks of suicide and self-harm among youth, and greater severity of symptoms in women.

But even beyond the statistics, many of us feel it. The conversations that don’t go as deep. The invitations that don’t get returned. The events that feel too exhausting to attend. The instinct to withdraw. The fear of being too much, or not enough. The hesitation to reach out, because you don’t want to be a burden or worse, be ignored.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot. I was born in the 80s, raised in the 90s, and became an adult in the early 2000s. I graduated high school in 2003 and went into the military. Back then, connection felt more organic. Even though we lived out in the country, I was willing to walk through the cow pasture to play Go Fish with my grandma or hang out with my grandpa. I would walk up the hill, about a half mile or so from home, to meet up with the nearest neighbor kids. I was almost always surrounded by people (being the oldest of 6 it was hard not to be lol). When I needed time alone, I would climb to the top of a tree with a book but I always came back down and into the fold.

In the military, connection was still central. I was the president of our booster club. We built morale through barbecues, family days, dunk tanks, shared laughter. I don’t just remember the events, I remember the people.

But after COVID, that changed.

We moved from New England to South Carolina months after the restrictions were lifted. In the beginning, we opened our doors. We hosted neighbors and tried to recreate that sense of connection. For a while, it seemed possible. But slowly, people stopped showing up. They moved away and new neighbors arrived, but didn’t introduce themselves. I now live in a neighborhood with close to 100 houses and only know five names.

I don’t hear backyard laughter. I don’t smell grills. I don’t hear music or kids running around. We’re all living here but somehow not living with one another. Even when I try to connect, through hosting events or joining classes, most people stay on their phones, don’t talk, and don’t engage. Even the community group I started with over 300 members only has a handful of consistent participants. This group was made after hearing the call of many who stated their loneliness and disconnection plainly. Yet, despite offering the opportunity for connection with likeminded people, the opportunities go largely ignored.

I don’t know how we got here, and I don’t know how to fix it. But I want to. That’s what this post is about. Trying to name what’s happening so that maybe, just maybe, we can begin to shift it. Because, if we really want to live healthy lives supported with good habits, we need a community...we need each other.

Julianne Holt-Lunstad’s  2024 study, Social Connection as a Critical Factor for Mental and Physical Health, sheds light on how severe the impact really is (Holt-Lunstad, 2024). Her findings? 

Social disconnection is just as dangerous to health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. 

It's an independent predictor of mental and physical decline, and yet, we rarely treat it with the same urgency. Holt-Lunstad urges that the long-term consequences of the pandemic and the growing influence of digital technologies are accelerating this crisis. We are more isolated than ever, and less equipped to deal with the emotional, physical, and societal fallout.

Here’s the insidious part: disconnection feeds disconnection.

It’s like a trap door. You pull away to protect yourself because vulnerability feels risky. You stop reaching out because the silence hurts. You convince yourself that isolation is safer, more convenient, even preferable. At first, maybe it is. But over time, it hardens. It becomes a pattern, a norm, or a wound that never quite heals.

Unfortunately, it’s also being reinforced by culture.

We live in a world where productivity is praised above all else. Where taking time to be with your community is often framed as inefficient. Where rest is seen as laziness. Where asking for help is equated with weakness and where hyper-individualism (“handle it yourself, tough it out, pull yourself up”) is sold as empowerment.

But connection isn’t weakness.
Connection is a survival skill.

In fact, Summa Health published an article in December 2023 outlining five surprising health benefits to socializing (Hubbard, 2023):

1. Boosts mood and reduces stress: Socializing reduces symptoms of depression and anxiety through the release of endorphins.

2. Improves quality of life: Connection increases self-esteem and a sense of belonging.

3. Reduces risk for chronic disease: Loneliness triggers stress responses that worsen physical health.

4. Slows cognitive decline: Social interaction keeps neural pathways active and strong.

5. Encourages healthier habits: You're more likely to eat well, move more, and care for yourself when you're surrounded by supportive people.

Now we’re learning something else:

Social media doesn’t count.

Kaiser Permanente published an article in 2025 highlighting that passive social media use often increases feelings of loneliness and comparison, rather than reducing them (Kaiser Permanente, 2025). The act of scrolling without genuine engagement can reduce self-esteem and increase self-judgment. The curated highlight reels we consume only intensify feelings of inadequacy and isolation. In fact, Dr. Michael Torres explains that the more time spent passively on social media, the worse people tend to feel. It doesn’t replace the power of real, embodied interaction: eye contact, shared laughter, and unfiltered conversation.

Another article on social media and mental health (Bounds, 2024) further highlighted the impact:

• Filters and appearance-focused content contribute to poor self-image.

• Social comparison heightens FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) and depression.

• Cyberbullying and harassment are major risks for youth and adults alike.

• Dopamine-based addiction patterns lead to unhealthy validation cycles.

• Screen time is displacing real-world connection and social skills, especially among teens.

We’ve been sold the illusion of connection through screens, but the body knows better.

In Ayurveda, we speak of Ojas (pronounced Oh-jus), the vital essence that sustains life. It’s built not only through food, but also through what we take in energetically: our thoughts, our conversations, our relationships. Ojas is nourished when we are in loving community, when we laugh, when we touch, and when we feel safe enough to be seen.

Connection Builds Ojas

Here’s the metaphor that really helped me make sense of it:

Social media connection is like junk food. It’s engineered to satisfy the craving without providing true nourishment. It gives the illusion of fullness but leaves the body—and heart—starving for what really matters. It’s like living off a box of microwaved Velveeta shells and cheese: fast, easy, maybe comforting for a moment, but ultimately depleting.

In-person connection is organic food. It nourishes Ojas. It supports immunity, strengthens our minds, balances our emotions, and grounds us in presence. Unlike the $5 bag of baby carrots at the store, this nourishment doesn’t have to be expensive or rare. It can be found in a conversation, a shared meal, or a spontaneous laugh.

We’ve been sold the illusion of connection through screens, but the body knows better.

In Ayurveda, we speak of Ojas (pronounced Oh-jus), the vital essence that sustains life. It’s built not only through food, but also through what we take in energetically: our thoughts, our conversations, our relationships. Ojas is nourished when we are in loving community, when we laugh, when we touch, and when we feel safe enough to be seen.

Connection builds Ojas.

That hug? That laugh? That long conversation over tea? That’s medicine.

Just like the Bhagavad Gita reminds us, lasting peace doesn’t come from chasing external desires, it comes from resting in the stillness within and recognizing our shared humanity. As Krishna teaches,

“He who sees the self in all beings and all beings in the self, such a man of wisdom does not feel any hatred.”

So this week, I want to gently challenge you to take one step toward reconnection. Nothing big. Just… something.

Connection practice:

• Compliment a passing stranger.

• Call your friend instead of just texting them.

• Invite someone for coffee (and actually make a plan).

• Tell someone you appreciate them and why.

• Ask someone how they really are and listen.

The world doesn’t need more perfection. It needs more people reaching out.

If you're looking for a place to start, I'm holding that space here.
You are not alone.
We are not meant to be alone.

References

• Holt-Lunstad, J. (2024). Social connection as a critical factor for mental and physical health: Evidence, trends, challenges, and future implications. DOI: 10.1002/wps.21224

• World Health Organization. (2022). COVID-19 pandemic triggers 25% increase in prevalence of anxiety and depression worldwide. Retrieved from: https://www.who.int/news/item/02-03-2022

• Hubbard, D. (2023). Five Surprising Health Benefits to Socializing with Others. Summa Health. Retrieved from: https://www.summahealth.org/flourish/entries/2023/12/five-surprising-health-benefits-to-socializing-with-others

• Kaiser Permanente. (2025). Does social media make you feel lonely? Here’s why and how to avoid it. Retrieved from: https://about.kaiserpermanente.org

• Bounds, D. (2024). Social media’s impact on our mental health and tips to use it safely. Betty Irene Moore Fellowship. Retrieved from: https://www.bettermindshealth.org

The Power of Rest

I used to get horrible migraines.

In my early 20s, I was riding high on youth, fueled by adrenaline, ambition, and way too much caffeine. I didn’t understand the subtle ways my body whispered warnings. So, it started screaming. My migraines were blinding. They hurt so badly I would vomit. Light, sound, and even movement became unbearable. Still, I refused to stop. I would recover, get another morphine injection, sleep for a day or two, and then return right back to the same grind that landed me there in the first place.

Until one day, I realized something.

The migraines weren’t random. They were warnings from my body’s alarm system blaring, “STOP.” When I started to actually listen, I began to heal.

Over time, I noticed a pattern: the more I built rest into my routine, the less the migraines came. The more I paused, the more space I gave myself to recover, and the more resilient I became. Now, if I start to feel that old ache creep in, I stop, breathe, and return to stillness. Usually, that’s enough.

Because I’ve come to understand: rest isn’t a luxury. It’s a strategy.

Rest Is Not the Absence of Action, It’s the Foundation of It

Too often we confuse rest with weakness, laziness, or stagnation. But from both ancient wisdom and modern science, we learn something different: rest is a sacred part of growth.

“It’s not emptiness, it’s potential.”

From the Vedic tradition, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi spoke of something called the Gap. This place is a moment of stillness, but it isn’t empty. Instead, it is filled with possibility. He explained that when activity comes to a stop, what follows isn’t just rest, it’s a space where anything can emerge. The Gap is that sacred pause between an inhale and an exhale, between action and result, between asking a question and receiving the answer. It’s not a void. It’s where creativity, healing, and insight are born.

When we allow ourselves to rest, we’re not doing nothing. Instead, we’re entering the richest space of all: the space where transformation begins. Rest is not stepping out of life, it is stepping deeper into it. It is what allows new ideas to rise, solutions to present themselves, and inner clarity to settle.

Maharishi taught that when activity ends, it doesn’t lead to nothingness, it leads to a place where anything can happen. The pause is not empty; it’s open. It’s the fertile soil in which clarity and creativity grow. What follows rest isn’t nothing, it’s next. The power of that next step lies in the quality of your pause.

Science Agrees: Rest Is Multidimensional

In her insightful research, Margareta Asp (2015) found that rest is not just stillness. It is being in harmony between motivation, feelings, and action. Asp describes the rhythm between rest and non-rest as essential for health. Rest includes:

• Letting go in confidence

• Being accepted without judgment

• Dwelling in calm and peace

• Perceiving pleasurable sensations

Non-rest, on the other hand, is not just busyness. It’s disharmony, a dissonance between your drive and your capacity. Staying in that space too long leads to depletion, despair, and disease.

That’s why rest must be deliberate, conscious, and it must be diverse.

The Seven Types of Rest

According to the American Psychological Association (Abramson, 2025), rest isn’t just about sleep. Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith defines seven types of rest we all need:

1. Physical Rest: Not just naps, but massages, stretches, or simply lying down.

2. Mental Rest: Breaks from problem-solving, journaling, or allowing mindless moments.

3. Emotional Rest: Permission to stop performing, to cry, and to speak your truth.

4. Social Rest: Retreating from draining interactions and choosing soul-nourishing ones.

5. Sensory Rest: Less screen time, less noise, more time in stillness.

6. Creative Rest: Replenishing your sense of awe with beauty, nature, or joyful hobbies.

7. Spiritual Rest: Returning to meaning, connection, and quiet reflection.

Each type speaks to a different kind of fatigue and each one leaves its own clues. If your body aches and your eyelids feel heavy, it might be physical rest you’re lacking. If your thoughts are racing and you can’t concentrate, your mind may be crying out for mental rest. If you feel emotionally threadbare or like you're always performing, you probably need emotional rest. Start by observing where you feel most depleted. That’s your cue.

Why We Resist It and Why We Must Stop

Jimmy Evans (2024) writes in Psychology Today that most people set aside almost no time to actually rest. We associate rest with being unproductive or indulgent, fearing that if we slow down, we’ll lose our edge, fall behind, or let people down. But what really happens when we don’t rest?

We fray, we forget, and then we burn out. Worst of all? We become disconnected from ourselves.

Evans outlines three key insights that offer a springboard for redefining our relationship with rest:

1. Rest is a generator of energy, mental clarity, and wholehearted caring. This isn't just poetic. Think of rest like a deep breath in the middle of a chaotic day, not a stop sign, but a reset button. It's that quiet in-between moment where the pressure eases and space opens up. Instead of pushing through burnout, rest lets you pull from a deeper place inside. It’s not about quitting, it’s about reconnecting. That pause? That’s the place where possibility lives. When you rest, you’re not falling behind, you’re gathering the energy to leap forward.

2. Most people barely allow themselves any true rest. Hustle culture tells us that to stop is to fail. But this is a social and cultural conditioning that must be questioned. If we’re always in motion, when do we reflect? When do we realign? When do we remember what we’re working for in the first place? This is why so many of us, especially women, find ourselves burning out. We're following rules that deny us permission to stop.

3. Gentle tweaks to our routines, brief pauses, quiet space between tasks, a moment of breath, can help us reclaim it. Rest doesn’t have to be a dramatic overhaul. It can be small: a walk without your phone, a deep breath before a meeting, a moment in the sun before opening your laptop. These are our entries into the Gap. These are our deposits into the energy bank. Remember, as we explored in a previous blog, small changes are powerful. They ripple outward and rest is the softest, strongest ripple of them all.

Rest isn’t the opposite of productivity. It’s what allows productivity to flourish.

It is the hidden generator of momentum, resilience, and inner peace. When we fail to rest, we stop evolving. We become machines running on fumes, disconnected from the very life we’re working so hard to build.

Reclaiming Rest: Cultural and Personal Reframing

We live in a culture that worships hustle and demonizes rest. The constant pressure to be “on” has left us unable to distinguish between activity and progress. Productivity has become the measure of worth. And in that model, rest is failure.

But here’s the truth: rest isn’t laziness, it’s leadership and it’s ownership of your energy. It’s a form of spiritual rebellion against systems that benefit from your burnout. We weren’t made to be machines. We are cyclical, rhythmic, and dynamic beings.

To rest is to reclaim your rhythm.

Start by refusing the internalized shame around rest. Rest doesn’t require permission. It requires intention. Let’s stop viewing rest as something you have to earn. View it as something you must build with care and respect. Because your body, your mind, and your spirit are all sacred.

Gentle Integration: Rest as a Practice

Here’s a simple way to begin building rest into your rhythm:

1. Reflect: What kind of rest are you most depleted in right now? (Emotional? Mental? Creative?)

2. Reclaim: Choose one small way to invite that type of rest into your day. Ten minutes, that’s all it takes.

3. Ritualize: Pick a time (before work, after lunch, before bed) to pause, even for 60 seconds. Let that pause be a ritual, a return to yourself.

4. Reframe: Remind yourself: “This isn’t wasted time. It’s my way back to harmony.”

5. Restore: Let this moment be enough. Let it be your drop in the ocean. You don’t need a vacation. You need a rhythm.

How I Practice Rest in My Daily Life

Part of my daily rest comes at the very end of my day before I get into bed. I’ve created a detailed self-care routine that signals to my body: it’s time to stop.

I take a hot shower where I exfoliate and use scents that are pleasing to me and make me feel good. I go through my facial routine, gently massaging the tension out of my jaw and temples. I follow this with a self-massage known in Ayurveda as abhyanga (pronounced aw-bee-ah-n-guh). First lotion, then oil, something moisturizing and soothing, always with calming scents that help my nervous system settle.

Then I brush my teeth, braid my hair, and slip into comfortable, silky pajamas. These actions aren’t about vanity, they’re about reclaiming the end of my day as mine. They’re my way of closing the day with intention and ease.

I also try to keep Sunday as a sacred pause. No work, just home. Sometimes that means laundry but I’ll throw a load in and then play a video game while it runs. I sprinkle rest in with things that need to get done. I do what feels good in my body, what helps me feel grounded, and what makes me smile. That’s rest too.

Rest, for me, is a patchwork, a practice, and a promise.

It’s not always perfect. But it’s mine.

Final Thought: You Are Not Empty

When you pause, when you rest, when you do “nothing”… you’re not empty. You are full of potential.

Rest doesn’t delay your growth. It nourishes it.

It doesn’t block your creativity. It awakens it.

And it doesn’t take away your power. It restores it.

Let this blog be your weighted blanket. Let it be the Gap, that sacred space between breath and action. Then let your return from it be stronger, clearer, and more full of life than before.

You don’t have to earn it. You only have to allow it.

References

• Asp, M. (2015). Rest: A Health-Related Phenomenon and Concept in Caring Science. Global Qualitative Nursing Research, 2. https://doi.org/10.1177/2333393615583663

• Abramson, A. (2025). Seven types of rest to help restore your body’s energy. American Psychological Association. https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2025/05/seven-types-of-rest

• Evans, J. (2024). Why We Should Encourage Our Minds to Rest. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/prescriptions-life/202401/why-we-should-encourage-our-minds-to-rest

• Nader, T. (2014). Human Physiology: Expression of Veda and the Vedic Literature. International Maharishi AyurVeda Foundation.

Waking Up in the Life You Haven’t Escaped

There’s a kind of despair that doesn’t scream. It doesn’t throw plates or slam doors. It settles in slowly, tightening around you until you can’t remember what hope felt like. It’s the kind of sadness that comes when you wake up and realize you’re still in a place you don’t want to be, still in a body that hurts, a life that feels like it was dropped on you instead of chosen by you.

I felt that despair in a burn rehab unit. I don’t know how long I had been there at that point. It was long enough that the initial shock had worn off, and the pain had faded into something quieter but heavier. I had started physical therapy. I could move. I could sit up. I could walk a little. But everything about me was tired.

My room had a wallpaper border near the ceiling, soft ocean tones, gray-blue seashells wrapping around the top edge like a beach I couldn’t escape. I’m sure it was meant to be calming. But to me, it was a cruel reminder. That wallpaper was the first thing I saw every morning, and with every glance, it reminded me: You are still here. You are still in this room. You are still in this body. You are still in this life that you didn’t choose.

One morning, I had a dream that I was home. It wasn’t just comforting, it was convincing. I believed, with every fiber of my being, that what I had gone through was just a dream. In that moment, I thought I was waking up in my own bed, in the comfort of my real life. I could hear my boyfriend and his friends laughing in the living room. Everything felt normal, familiar, safe. Everything was exactly the way it had been before the accident. When I opened my eyes, I was still smiling.

Then I saw the wallpaper.

I broke.

I started crying because I thought things had changed. I thought maybe the pain had passed. I thought maybe the storm had lifted. But no. I was still in that damn room. Still wearing someone else’s hospital gown. Still trying to piece together how I had gone from a normal life, a boyfriend, a career, a social life, to being trapped in a bed, unable to care for myself, covered in third-degree burns because of someone else’s mistake.

This wasn’t grief. This was desperation. It was the feeling of hitting the bottom and realizing that there is no clear ladder out. There’s only you, and the choice to keep climbing, even if your legs are shaking.

People ask me all the time: How did you do it? How did you survive that? Where did the strength come from?

I tell them: I had a picture in my mind. I knew what I wanted life to feel like. I couldn’t always see how to get there, but I could feel the shape of it: the safety, the warmth, the freedom. I wasn’t willing to let go of that picture. Even when it hurt. Even when it felt like it would never come.

It took years. Just over seventeen, to be exact: May 2008 to now, June 2025. From that seashell wallpaper to now. No, my life isn’t perfect however it is mine. It is built, not inherited. It is chosen, not assigned. I wake up now in a space that I love, doing work that lights me up, surrounded by people who don’t ask me to conform.

I still carry the scars. I always will. Some you can see and some you can’t. But I didn’t let that wallpaper define the rest of my life.

If you’re in a space right now that feels like a cage, if you’re waking up in a reality you didn’t choose, a pain you didn’t cause, I want you to know this:

You’re allowed to be angry. You’re allowed to feel trapped. You’re allowed to feel it all.

But please don’t let this room become your forever. Don’t confuse the middle for the end.

You’re still becoming, even in this. Especially in this.

One day, the life you dreamed of, the one that kept you going, will be the one you wake up in. You will know exactly what it took to get there.

But before we talk about healing, we have to talk about what we do with the pain. Because despair can make us disappear. It can bury us in silence, in smallness, in self-blame. Or it can provoke something powerful. It can wake the rage that refuses to let this be the end.

That’s the invitation I want to make with the rest of this piece, not to break under the weight of despair, but to burn through it. To feel the frustration, the anger, the sorrow, and to ask: what now? What do I do with this? How do I use it?

Because if the despair didn’t kill your spirit, it lit something in you. That fire is yours to work with.

Your Anger Is Valid, Now Use It

But until then, let’s talk about what no one tells us: it is okay to be angry. It is okay to feel trapped. Especially for women, especially in a society that tells us to be grateful, to be graceful, to endure. We are taught to apologize for our sadness, to justify our rage, and to explain our exhaustion.

But anger is a signal. Sadness is a truth-teller.

Feeling stuck doesn’t make you broken. It means your spirit knows you were meant for more.

Those feelings are not weaknesses. They are wisdom. They are the soul’s way of saying, “Not this. Not anymore.”

What if we stopped hiding our frustration under a smile? What if we honored our sadness instead of rushing past it? What if we understood our anger not as a failure of character, but as a function of clarity?

The truth is: we don’t heal by pretending we’re okay. We heal by giving ourselves permission to be exactly where we are, messy, mad, aching, and choosing to love ourselves there anyway.

Your emotions are not the enemy. They are the map. And anger? Anger is not a detour. It’s a compass. According to research by Thomas, Smucker, and Droppleman (1998) in their phenomenological study It Hurts Most Around the Heart, women often describe their anger as a complex and confusing mixture of emotions, hurt, frustration, disillusionment, building over time and triggered by violations of their core values. These triggers often stem from unfair or disrespectful treatment, or a lack of reciprocity in relationships. The study found that when anger was kept inside, women felt helpless and powerless. When it exploded outward, it often brought shame or a sense of lost control. But when women used their anger consciously, to restore justice, to reclaim respect, to demand relationship reciprocity. They reported feeling a sense of true power. This is the kind of anger that clarifies instead of confuses, strengthens instead of silences, and leads us back to ourselves.

You do not have to explode to be powerful. You do not have to suppress to be good. Anger doesn’t have to be a loss of control. It can be a return to it.

So if you’re feeling rage at what was taken from you, what you’re still fighting through, or how long it’s taking to rebuild, honor it. Use it. Let it move you toward justice, toward wholeness, toward the life that reflects the truth of who you are.

Because every time you feel deeply, especially when it’s inconvenient, especially when it’s fierce, you are not regressing. You are reclaiming.

Reclaiming your anger doesn’t mean lashing out. It means choosing to channel it thoughtfully, intentionally, powerfully. The truth is, most of us were never taught what to do with anger. We were taught to hide it, shame it, and fear it. But as author Rebecca Traister reminds us, women’s rage has always been a force for change. It’s what fueled movements for suffrage, civil rights, reproductive rights, and equity in every form.

We don’t need to suppress that fire. We need to learn how to work with it.

As Jill Suttie writes in her Greater Good article, How Women Can Use Their Anger for Good, anger is what psychologists call an activating emotion. It is one that propels us to engage rather than withdraw. This is exactly what is needed to drive not just personal healing, but collective change. Drawing on the work of Soraya Chemaly, Suttie explains how women have long been socialized to suppress their anger to maintain likability and perceived femininity. But suppressed anger doesn't vanish. It festers, often leading to depression, anxiety, and disempowerment.

Instead, Chemaly argues that when women consciously engage their anger, they can begin to undo centuries of social conditioning. She suggests practices like developing emotional self-awareness, reframing anger as assertiveness rather than aggression, and channeling rage into deliberate, courageous action. "Anger, not sadness, leads to perceptions of higher status and respect," Chemaly writes. It’s not just about venting. It’s about redirecting that fire to burn down what no longer serves, and to illuminate what must be rebuilt.

Your anger is not a liability. It’s a signal. It’s a source that, when honored rather than hidden, it becomes a tool for change personally and societally.

This is where the concept of sublimation becomes crucial. As Allison Abrams, LCSW-R, explains in her Psychology Today article The Power and Shame of Women’s Anger, sublimation is an adaptive defense mechanism. One in which the energy of a biological impulse, such as anger, is transformed into socially or morally constructive action. Rather than turning our rage inward or unleashing it in a way that harms others, sublimation invites us to use our anger for advocacy, creation, and change.

Anger doesn’t have to be ugly. It can be strategic. It can be beautiful. It can be the thing that finally breaks the silence. When we channel it through conscious action, we begin to heal not only ourselves, but the systems that taught us to stay quiet in the first place.

A Gentle Practice: Turning Anger into Action

If you’re holding anger right now, try this:

1. Name It Without Judgement. Sit quietly and ask yourself: What am I angry about, really? Is it the event? The disrespect? The loss of control? The feeling of being unheard?

2. Trace It to Your Values. According to research, women’s anger is often linked to violations of deeply held values. Ask: What value of mine was violated? Fairness? Respect? Safety?

3. Move It Through Your Body. Anger is energy. Move it. Shake. Dance. Walk. Scream into a pillow. Do what your body needs to release the static without hurting yourself or anyone else.

4. Choose a Conscious Response. Ask: What needs to change? What boundary needs to be set? What truth needs to be spoken? What action can I take to honor my anger without burning everything down?

5. Close With Compassion. Place your hand on your heart and say: "My anger is not wrong. My anger is a guide. I trust it to show me what matters."

This isn’t about becoming reactive. It’s about becoming responsive with clarity, with courage, and with care.

References

Abrams, A. (2020, February 23). The Power and Shame of Women’s Anger. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/nurturing-self-compassion/202002/the-power-and-shame-womens-anger

Suttie, J. (2018, October 4). How Women Can Use Their Anger for Good. Greater Good Magazine. https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_women_can_use_their_anger_for_good

Thomas, S., Smucker, C., & Droppleman, P. (1998). It hurts most around the heart: A phenomenological exploration of women's anger. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 28(2), 311–320. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-2648.1998.00785.x

When Growth Feels Like Grief: The Hidden Losses of Healing

The idea for this week’s post came from a quiet conversation during a coaching session. A client sat across from me, hands folded in her lap, and said something I’ve heard too many times to count:

“I know I need to change. But what if that means losing everyone I love?”

Her words echoed something ancient in me. Because I’ve heard it before from friends, from students, and from the small voice inside myself in moments of transformation. This fear isn’t irrational, it’s relational. It’s rooted in how we’ve learned to bond and belong. Our earliest attachment patterns, shaped by caregivers and environments, influence not just how we navigate relationships, but how we face change. If you developed an anxious attachment style, your nervous system may interpret change as abandonment. If you lean avoidant, change might stir fears of vulnerability and dependence. Even a secure attachment doesn’t make grief vanish, it simply helps you move through it with more trust. So, it’s not just about making a change. It’s about untangling the invisible threads that tie your identity, safety, and connection to what you’ve always known.

We talk so much about growth as a good thing but we rarely talk about the grief that tags along. How we process this grief often traces back to our earliest attachment patterns. If you have an anxious attachment style, grief might surface as overwhelming panic or fear of being left behind. If you're more avoidant, you might push the grief aside, convincing yourself it doesn't matter. Those with fearful-avoidant styles may swing between desperately clinging to what's familiar and pushing it away out of fear. Even those with secure attachments will feel the sting of loss, just perhaps with more tools to move through it. Understanding your attachment style can help you meet your grief with greater compassion and self-awareness, rather than shame or judgment. This grief isn't proof that you're failing. It's proof that you're feeling and that’s part of the path forward.

Real growth will cost you. And often, the price isn’t just effort or time. It’s identity. It’s community. It’s roles you once played and people you once trusted. These roles and relationships were often shaped through the lens of attachment, ways you learned to stay connected and safe in your early environment. If your identity was built around meeting the needs of others to avoid conflict or abandonment, changing that identity might feel like betrayal. If your sense of belonging was tied to self-sufficiency and emotional distance, opening up might feel threatening. This is why letting go can feel like standing at the edge of a cliff. You're not just releasing patterns; you're confronting the nervous system’s deeply embedded belief that change equals danger. But it doesn't. It equals possibility.

This is the grief we don’t talk about but we should.

What You May Be Grieving

We tend to associate grief with death or separation. But grief is much more subtle and ever-present during a healing journey. Here are some of the hidden losses that surface:

1. Old Identities:

These are the masks we wore to survive. Often shaped by our attachment styles (The Attachment Project, 2025) and early family dynamics, these identities offered protection, praise, or a sense of stability in an otherwise chaotic world.

• The fixer: Always managing the chaos. Maybe you learned that if you solved everyone's problems, you wouldn’t be the source of them. Real-life example: The child who soothed arguments between parents becomes the adult who over functions in every relationship.

• The strong one: Never allowed to fall apart. This might have started with praise for being “mature for your age,” which became a cage where vulnerability felt like failure.

• The helper: Defined by what you do for others. Often rooted in a fear that love must be earned through sacrifice. This identity may stem from an anxious attachment style, where keeping others happy felt essential to avoid abandonment.

• The invisible one: Kept small to stay safe. Perhaps the best way to survive was to disappear into the background. Avoidant attachment can often fuel this role. Better to rely on no one than risk being disappointed.

These identities were never flaws. They were strategies. But healing asks: Can you thank them for what they offered, and then let them rest.

2. Familiar Dynamics:

These are the relationship patterns and emotional blueprints we inherited from our earliest environments. They include the roles we played, the unspoken rules we followed, and the ways we kept ourselves safe. This is often at the cost of our authenticity. For example, maybe you learned to calm everyone down during conflict to avoid being a target. That same instinct might now show up in your adult relationships as people-pleasing or emotional suppression. Maybe you grew up in chaos and felt most alive in intensity so now, calmness feels unsettling. These familiar dynamics can reappear in friendships, romantic partnerships, and even in how we relate to institutions like work or school. When we begin to heal, we start to notice how these dynamics no longer serve us. But releasing them can feel like losing a map we've always used, even if it led us in circles.

Healing invites us to replace these survival strategies with more conscious choices. But first, we must name them. Not to shame ourselves, but to understand them. Because when you can see the pattern, you can choose something new. The chaos you were used to

• The trauma bonds you mistook for love

• The emotional caretaking that made you feel needed

3. Family Roles (Wegscheider, 1981):

We often adopt specific roles in a dysfunctional family system. These roles are survival strategies, ways to navigate emotional minefields, reduce harm, or secure love and attention. While they helped us cope, they can become barriers to growth in adulthood. Let’s define a few of the most common roles:

• The Golden Child: Always praised and held up as the ideal. In adulthood, this role often leads to perfectionism, people-pleasing, and a fragile sense of worth tied to achievement.

• The Hero: The overachiever whose success hides family dysfunction. Heroes tend to carry immense pressure, burnout easily, and have difficulty asking for help.

• The Mascot: The comedian or entertainer who deflects pain through humor. In adulthood, this can lead to emotional avoidance and a struggle to be taken seriously.

• The Identified Patient / Black Sheep: Blamed for the family’s problems and often the truth-teller. This role can lead to shame, isolation, but also deep self-awareness.

• The Lost Child: Quiet, withdrawn, and overlooked. Often struggles with self-worth, decision-making, and feeling unseen in adulthood.

• The Enabler / Caretaker: Maintains appearances and smooths over dysfunction. Becomes overly responsible and self-sacrificing, often putting others' needs far above their own.

• The Parentified Child: Took on adult responsibilities too soon. May struggle with boundaries and feel compelled to rescue or manage others.

These roles can shift over time and overlap, but they all share a common goal: emotional survival. Healing asks us to name these roles, understand their origins, and gently begin to step out of them, without shame. Because these roles were never your whole identity. They were your training wheels. Now it’s time to learn how to ride without them. often adopt specific roles in a dysfunctional family system. These include:

• The golden child: Seen as the family’s pride. In adulthood, may struggle with perfectionism and external validation.

• The hero: Overachiever who masks dysfunction. Often burned out.

• The mascot: Uses humor to deflect pain. Can feel unseen or trivialized.

• The identified patient/black sheep: The scapegoat for family issues. Often the truth-teller.

• The lost child: Quiet, overlooked. Tends to struggle with identity and direction.

• The enabler/caretaker: Holds the family together, often at their own expense.

• The parentified child: Took on adult responsibilities too early. Often drawn to dysfunctional relationships later in life.

4. Coping Mechanisms: We all develop coping mechanisms to manage discomfort, navigate trauma, and survive painful or unstable environments. At the time, these patterns likely served an important purpose. They helped you stay connected, avoid punishment, reduce anxiety, or make sense of chaos. But what protects us as children can restrict us as adults.

Common examples include:

• Perfectionism: If being flawless was your way to earn love or avoid criticism, you may now hold yourself to impossible standards.

• Overworking: A constant hustle might have helped you feel useful or kept you from sitting with emotional pain, but it can lead to burnout and emotional disconnection.

• Emotional withdrawal: If showing emotions led to rejection or ridicule, you may have learned to shut down or numb out rather than risk vulnerability.

• Self-deprecation as humor: Laughing at yourself before others can was a way to gain control over pain but it can mask deeper wounds and reinforce low self-worth.

These mechanisms don’t disappear just because we want to heal. They feel familiar. They work until they don’t. Healing requires us to gently recognize when these habits no longer serve us. You may feel exposed without them, or unsure how to navigate life without your usual strategies. That’s normal. Letting go of these patterns might feel like losing a part of yourself, but in truth, it's making room for a version of you who doesn't need armor to feel safe. Perfectionism

• Overworking

• Emotional withdrawal

• Self-deprecation passed off as humor

These patterns were adaptive once. They protected you. But now they are in the way. And letting go of them feels like stepping off a cliff without a safety net.

Healing isn't just about what you gain. It's about who you're no longer willing to be.

Loyalty vs. Liberation

Here’s the tricky part: what if the things you need to let go of are tied to the people you love?

There’s a reason we stay stuck. Sometimes it’s not the change we’re afraid of. It’s the disloyalty it might imply.

• If I speak up, will I betray my family?

• If I stop shrinking, will I outgrow my friends?

• If I heal, will I still belong?

These aren’t abstract questions. These are the quiet battles that play out in real life. Every time you feel guilty for choosing rest or doubt your worth because you’re not following the path someone else laid out for you.

This is where metaphor meets reality.

We’ve all heard about the crabs in a barrel, popularized by Booker T. Washington in his 1901 book, “Up From Slavery”. When one crab tries to climb out, the others pull it back, not out of malice, but because that’s what’s familiar. Familiarity often masquerades as love, even when it’s stifling. Now compare that to the capuchin monkeys from a well known study (Barnes et al., 2008). One monkey could reach a food bowl, while the other couldn’t. The first monkey pulled the bowl closer, not for its own benefit, but to help the other. That’s the power of unconditional support. Not “I’ll love you if you stay the same,” but “I’ll love you even as you grow.”

So ask yourself:

Are you surrounded by crabs or capuchins?

Are the people around you pulling you down or pulling for you?

I’ve lived this. My own liberation came when I stopped being loyal to the version of me my family wanted. My father had a clear vision of how I should live, one based on his values, not mine. My mother, my siblings, and everyone seemed to follow a familiar script. I was the one who stepped out of that mold. For a long time, that felt like betrayal. I worried I was selfish, ungrateful, and wrong.

But here’s what I’ve learned:

Living according to someone else’s vision isn’t loyalty. It’s self-abandonment.

Since choosing my own path, I’ve earned degrees, launched a business, found purpose, and am now pursuing a PhD. Things I never could’ve done if I stayed small to keep the peace.

So now it’s your turn.

Look at your life.

• What version of you are you being loyal to?

• Who are you still trying to please?

• What would happen if you released that loyalty and chose liberation?

This isn’t about cutting ties recklessly. It’s about cutting cords consciously with love, truth, and courage. Because loyalty that costs you your authenticity isn't loyalty. It’s bondage dressed as belonging and you deserve more than that.

You’re Not Failing, You’re Feeling

If healing feels hard, that’s not a sign that you’re failing. It’s a sign that you’re feeling. And feeling…is a lot. Especially if you’ve spent years building up emotional scar tissue through numbing, distraction, over-functioning, or hiding parts of yourself to survive. These protective strategies become deeply woven into the nervous system. When we begin to peel them back, even gently, the rawness underneath can be disorienting.

From an Ayurvedic perspective, this disorientation is not weakness. It’s evidence of movement, of internal shifts in the flow of prana (life force) and manas (the mind). Change challenges the mind-body system, especially when it's been locked in compensatory patterns for years.

Different doshic imbalances show up in different ways during times of transition:

• Vata (air + space) resists routine but desperately needs grounding. When change accelerates, Vata individuals may feel anxious, scattered, or overwhelmed. Their minds may race with "what-ifs," and their bodies may respond with digestive upset, fatigue, or insomnia.

• Pitta (fire + water) craves structure and control. The loss of a role, identity, or plan can spark irritability, anger, or physical inflammation. The Pitta mind resists surrender, it wants to solve the discomfort. But healing is not a problem to be solved. It's a process to be supported.

• Kapha (earth + water) clings to familiarity and routine. Letting go of people, coping mechanisms, or patterns, even dysfunctional ones, can trigger depression, stagnation, or numbness. Kapha may say, “I’m fine,” but underneath is a heaviness that feels immovable.

What we call "resistance to change" is often just the nervous system trying to protect you from perceived danger. Not because growth is unsafe but because difference requires energy. Energy your body isn’t used to allocating toward uncertainty. This is where Ayurveda and neuroscience speak the same language: The unfamiliar requires more processing power. And if you’re already tired, overwhelmed, or emotionally threadbare, even beneficial change can feel like a threat. So let’s flip the script.

When you feel the urge to run, shut down, or control every detail…pause.

Ask yourself: What am I suppressing to avoid growing?

Because according to Maharishi AyurVeda, the single greatest cause of imbalance is the suppression of natural urges. This doesn’t just mean holding back a sneeze or skipping a meal. It means:

• repressing emotions.

• Stifling your voice.

• Pretending you're okay when you're not

• Forcing yourself to fit where you no longer belong

Each time we deny our natural drive to grow, we distort the flow of prana and increase ama, the toxins that accumulate from unprocessed experiences.

But there’s good news: Your nature is to grow.

As Maharishi taught, “The nature of life is to grow.” Growth is not something you must force. It’s something you must allow.

Healing doesn’t ask you to push harder. It asks you to feel what you’ve been avoiding and trust that what emerges from that space is not a breakdown but a beginning.

So let the grief rise.
Let the feelings come.
Let the system shake a little as it reorganizes around a new truth.

You're not regressing, you're realigning and that is sacred work.

IV. Making Peace with Letting Go

We think healing means being free of pain. But often it means honoring what pain protected us from. It means grieving the parts of our lives that kept us safe, even when they held us back. You are allowed to grieve the old version of you. You are allowed to miss the familiar. You are still allowed to move forward.

You can love what was and still choose what’s next.

This is like the scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. He’s standing at the edge of a massive chasm, desperate to get to the other side. There is no visible bridge. Just empty air. But the path forward requires a leap of faith. He steps and only then does the hidden bridge appear beneath his feet.

That’s what letting go feels like. You may not see the path but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

Reflection Activity: Honoring the Grief of Growth

1. Name what you’re grieving. Is it a role? A relationship? A coping mechanism?

2. Ask yourself: What purpose did it serve? How did it help you survive?

3. Acknowledge your feelings. Sadness? Guilt? Anger? All are welcome.

4. If your best friend were grieving this, what would you say to her? Write it down.

5. Now say that to yourself. Out loud.

Finally, place your hand over your heart and say:

Thank you for what you were. I honor your role in my survival. I choose now to grow.

Healing doesn’t mean you don’t look back. It means you learn to keep walking anyway. Whatever you’re leaving behind, you’re allowed to grieve it. You’re allowed to miss it. And you’re still allowed to outgrow it. Even the most beautiful cage is still a cage. You don’t owe your loyalty to anything that asks you to abandon yourself. Healing will always feel like stepping into the unknown. But here’s the secret: you’re not stepping into nothing. You’re stepping into yourself. The path is there even if you can’t see it yet. And with every step, the ground rises up to meet you.

References

Barnes, J. L., Hill, T., Langer, M., Martinez, M., & Santos, L. R. (2008). Helping behaviour and regard for others in capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella). Biology Letters, 4(6), 638–640. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2008.0410

The Attachment Project. (2025, May 26). The Four Attachment Styles: How They Form and How to Recognize Them. https://www.attachmentproject.com/blog/four-attachment-styles/

Washington, B. T. (1901). Up from slavery: An autobiography. Doubleday, Page & Co.

Wegscheider, S. (1981). Another Chance: Hope and Health for the Alcoholic Family. Palo Alto, CA: Science and Behavior Books. pp. 85-88.

The Delicate Dance: Discipline, Flexibility, and the Truth About Change

Yesterday, my family and I went out furniture shopping. After months of dealing with a couch destroyed by our husky’s zoomies, we were finally ready to upgrade. While we were browsing, the woman helping us struck up a conversation. She asked what I do for a living, and I told her about my work: the books, the coaching, the research, the writing. She smiled and said, “That’s so needed. I’m one of those people who knows what to do, I just don’t have the discipline.”

That sentence really resonated. Not because I haven’t heard it before, but because I’ve said it before and maybe you have, too.

We often mistake discipline for deprivation, for gritting our teeth and muscling our way through a transformation. We think we have to become someone else to change. Someone stricter, sharper, and less feeling. But that’s not how the body works or how nature works, either. When we approach change like a military bootcamp, our bodies revolt, sometimes quietly, sometimes loudly.

What Rigidity Really Does to the Body

When we force ourselves into rigid discipline, we trigger the stress response. Whether it’s a crash diet, a cold plunge into an intense new routine, or demanding motivation without emotional support, the body interprets it as a threat.

Under stress, the prefrontal cortex, home to our logic, planning, and long-term thinking, starts to go offline (Arnsten, 2009). That’s because the body thinks it’s in danger. The baton is passed to the amygdala (fear), hippocampus (memory), and hypothalamus (homeostasis), which are all lower-brain regions that respond emotionally and instinctively (Ulrich-Lai & Herman, 2009). So we start making decisions not from clarity, but from panic, self-doubt, or shutdown.

Meanwhile, the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis is sounding the alarm, releasing cortisol and adrenaline. Digestion slows, inflammation increases, and we feel tired, foggy, or achy (McEwen, 2004). Sleep becomes disrupted, mental focus is diminished, and the body begins to experience low-grade chronic inflammation, which can lead to discomfort and emotional dysregulation (Besedovsky et al., 2012).

This is where burnout begins and why so many people who start with good intentions find themselves exhausted, binging, or giving up. In fact, severe food restriction has been shown to elevate cortisol and increase the likelihood of binging (Tomiyama et al., 2010).

We are not just fighting bad habits, we’re fighting our physiology.

Other consequences of rigid discipline include:

• Rebound behaviors, such as binge eating or abandoning routines altogether

• Increased guilt and shame, when perfection isn’t sustained

• Physical symptoms, including headaches, digestive issues, and fatigue

• Mental exhaustion and decision fatigue, which undermine self-trust, making us question if we are doing the right thing.

• Disordered relationships with food, exercise, or self-worth, stemming from all-or-nothing thinking

Discipline, Strictness, and Restriction: What’s the Difference?

We often use these terms interchangeably, but they carry very different energies:

• Discipline is self-guided. It’s rooted in purpose and self-respect. It can also be rooted in codes of behavior that lead to punished when broken. Healthy discipline is aligned with values and creates consistency over time.

• Strictness is externally imposed or performative. It often stems from fear, control, or comparison. It means we never break the “rules”, no matter what.

• Restriction is usually deprivation-based. It’s about removing or denying, often without room for flexibility or compassion.

When we think we need “more discipline,” what we usually need is a shift in energy from punishment to partnership.

Part II: Ayurveda and the Cost of Rigidity

Ayurveda gives us another lens to see this through. The three doshas (remember those from previous blogs: Vata, Pitta, and Kapha) each respond differently to rigidity.

• Vata (Air + Space) needs routine to stay grounded, but not chains. Too much rigidity leaves Vata feeling trapped, scattered, or rebellious. A better approach is rhythmic structure with room to breathe, flexible anchors, not rigid walls.

• Pitta (Fire + Water) thrives on structure, but can overdo it. Rigidity overheats Pitta, leading to irritability, inflammation, and eventual burnout. They crash not from lack of effort, but from overexertion without emotional regulation.

• Kapha (Earth + Water) appreciates consistency, but rigidity adds to their natural heaviness. They may slow down, withdraw, and lose their spark entirely. Instead of igniting change, rigidity can extinguish their inner fire. Instead, depression and procrastination takes hold.

Ayurveda doesn’t praise discipline for its own sake. It praises balance and honors effort that aligns with nature. Not effort that fights against it.

Part III: The Dance of Flexibility and Self-Control

So what do we do when we want to change?

We learn the dance.

Discipline isn’t a whip. It’s a rhythm. It’s choosing to show up with grace, not punishment. Flexibility isn’t laziness, it’s intelligent rest. It’s learning when to bend so we don’t break.

It’s the difference between:

• Forcing yourself to meditate for 30 minutes and resenting it...

  vs.

• sitting down for 5 minutes because you know it nourishes your nervous system.

It’s the difference between:

• Eating "perfectly" all week and then bingeing because you're depleted...

  vs.

• nourishing your body with intention and leaving space for joy.

The secret isn’t in the rules. It’s in the relationship you build with yourself.

A Reflection Activity: The Middle Way

Let’s explore your own dance between discipline and flexibility.

1. Recall a time you "failed" or didn’t follow through.

   • What were you trying to do?

   • What was the pressure or story behind your effort?

2. Without judgment, describe how your body felt during that time.

   • Was there tension? Fatigue? Hunger? Frustration?

3. Name the emotion underneath.

   • Were you overwhelmed? Lonely? Ashamed? Confused?

4. Now imagine a friend you adore is feeling exactly this.

   • What would you say to them? How would you support them?

5. Now say that to yourself. Out loud. In the mirror. In your journal. Let it land.

6. Ask yourself: What would balance look like next time?

   • What’s one small step that feels like a choice, not a punishment?

Remember: One Snickers bar isn’t a failure. Five in a row might be a flag. But what matters most isn’t how many bars you eat. It’s whether the choices you make feel aligned with the life you want to live.

Change doesn’t require war. It requires relationship with your body, rhythm, and inner wisdom.

You don’t need more discipline.
You need more kindness.
From there, the rhythm will come.

References

Arnsten, A. F. T. (2009). Stress signalling pathways that impair prefrontal cortex structure and function. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 10(6), 410–422. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn2648

Besedovsky, L., Lange, T., & Born, J. (2012). Sleep and immune function. Pflugers Archiv - European Journal of Physiology, 463(1), 121–137. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00424-011-1044-0

McEwen, B. S. (2004). Protection and damage from acute and chronic stress: Allostasis and allostatic overload and relevance to the pathophysiology of psychiatric disorders. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1032, 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1196/annals.1314.001

Tomiyama, A. J., Mann, T., Vinas, D., Hunger, J. M., Dejager, J., & Taylor, S. E. (2010). Low calorie dieting increases cortisol. Psychosomatic Medicine, 72(4), 357–364. https://doi.org/10.1097/PSY.0b013e3181d9523c

Ulrich-Lai, Y. M., & Herman, J. P. (2009). Neural regulation of endocrine and autonomic stress responses. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 10(6), 397–409. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn2647

The Ayurvedic knowledge can be attributed to my time as a student, instructor, and faculty member at Maharishi International University (miu.edu)

The Wisdom of Effort

Yesterday, my daughter Zoey and I found a fledgling bird on our patio. It was soaked from rainstorm that had pushed through, unable to fly, and clearly not okay. It fluttered toward some birdseed but couldn't take off. I thought maybe it had just left the nest too early and gotten hypothermic. So, we dried it gently with a towel, made it a warm and safe nest in a box, and set it inside to rest through the storm. I did everything I could. I researched, reached out to people I trust and who have raised birds, and even asked ChatGPT.

But when I woke up the next morning, the bird had passed away.

I cried.

Not because I didn’t try hard enough but because I did. I did everything right. I laid out the best plan I could. I followed through with care. I used all the tools, all the wisdom, all the love available to me. Yet it didn’t matter. It didn’t work out the way I hoped.

That moment held something sacred.

Because here’s what no one likes to admit:

We can do everything right and still fail.

We can have the knowledge, the resources, the mentors and still lose the job, still mess up the launch, still fall short of the goal. The world does not always bend to effort. However, that doesn’t mean effort is wasted.

This is where many people give up. They hit a wall, feel the sting of failure, and convince themselves they’re not cut out for what they had hoped to achieve. They stop trying not because they’re lazy, but because trying but being unsuccessful hurts. Because effort without reward can feel like futility.

But I want to offer a different perspective:

Effort itself is a form of wisdom.

It tells you who you are.
It shows you what you value.
It builds something in you, even when the outcome looks like loss.

After burying the bird under a crepe myrtle in my flower garden, I sat quietly. My heart was heavy, but I knew I had honored its life. I had also honored my effort.

As I sit writing this at my desk I have looked out my bedroom window, where a small bird feeder is suctioned to the glass. I have noticed something beautiful: a flurry of birds came and went all day long, eating the seed I had put out. My effort for one bird may not have panned out, but the care I offered continued to ripple in ways I hadn’t seen.

Not every effort is fruitless. Some just bloom in different directions.

Maybe that’s the lesson I needed most.

In our home, my husband and I tell our kids the same thing over and over: “We don’t expect perfection, just effort.” Didn’t get the grade you wanted? That’s okay. Did you try? Then we’re proud. We celebrate that.

Because effort is all we ask.

And if I believe that for my children, if I teach them that trying is more important than succeeding on the first try, then I need to offer that same grace to myself. To honor my own effort and recognize the sacredness in showing up, even when the outcome isn’t what I imagined.

So today, I want to invite you into this reflection with me.

Where in your life are you giving everything you’ve got, even if the outcome hasn’t matched your hopes?
Where have you quietly honored effort, even when no one noticed?
Where have you dismissed your progress just because it didn’t come wrapped in a win?

Let’s change that.

Let’s reclaim the wisdom in effort.
Let’s stop seeing setbacks as proof we’re not enough, and start seeing them as invitations to keep going.

Because (the towel, the box, the care, the research, the love) you gave something of yourself. That is not nothing, it is everything.

So today, refill your feeder.
Notice where your effort still ripples.
Celebrate the sacredness of trying.

Even when things don’t go as planned, your effort is never wasted.

It’s the root of wisdom.
The start of change.
The seed of every real shift.

Reflection Practice: Honoring Your Effort, Even When It Didn’t Work Out

Take a few quiet moments with a journal or your notes app. You don’t have to fix anything, just bring gentle awareness. This is not a time for judgment. Instead, approach this moment with kindness and curiosity.

1. Recall a time when things didn’t go the way you hoped.
It could be something big or small. A job you didn’t get, a conversation that went sideways, a personal goal that didn’t land.

• What happened? What did you hope would happen instead?

2. List the effort you gave.
Think about all the ways you showed up.

• Did you prepare? Research? Try something new? Seek help? Stay consistent?

• Write down everything you can remember doing, even the invisible effort.

3. Set aside judgment. Gently notice what you’re feeling.

• What emotions come up as you revisit this moment?

• Where do you feel them in your body?

• Is there any shame, regret, anger, grief? Can you name them without rushing to fix them?

4. Detach the outcome from your identity.
This is just something that happened. It is not who you are.

• What stories are you telling yourself about this “failure”?

• If you were watching a friend go through this, what would you say to them?

• Would you offer grace? Encouragement? A reminder of their heart?

5. Offer that same kindness to yourself.

• What would it feel like to believe effort still matters, even when it didn’t “work”?

• Can you write yourself a short note of compassion or encouragement as if you were your own best friend?

6. Ask: What did this effort build in me?

• Did it clarify what matters to you? Strengthen your resilience? Teach you something new?

• Even if the result wasn’t what you wanted, what did the process grow in you?

7. Close by affirming your effort.
Take one deep breath. Say (or write):

“I tried. I showed up. That matters.”

Let that be your offering to the day. You are not defined by what went wrong. You are shaped by how deeply you cared.

The Power of Small Shifts: Why Motivation Starts with Meaning

We all love the idea of a fresh start. New Year, new you. The vision boards, the meal plans, the gym memberships. It feels like this time will be different. But come the second Friday of January, aka “Quitter’s Day,” many of us find ourselves sitting on the kitchen floor, spoon-deep in a pint of Ben & Jerry’s, wondering why we just can’t seem to make the change stick.

It’s not that we’re lazy. It’s not that we don’t want it badly enough. It’s that we’re trying to change without aligning our goals with the three pillars of sustainable motivation:

• Our personal values

• Our environment

• Our expectations

Let’s break these down.

1. Values: The Fuel Behind Motivation

Here’s the truth: if a goal doesn’t truly matter to you, you won’t stay with it. Not when life gets hard. Not when you’re tired, overwhelmed, or pulled in six directions.

Take me, for example. I would love to exercise more. But right now, I value my PhD work, writing, and content creation more than I value hitting the treadmill. That’s not a failure, it’s clarity. This clarity allows me to be intentional with how I spend my time. It also helps me to feel less guilty when I have spent all day behind a computer writing my blog, making social media posts, and adding to my study proposal.

We often skip this step. We set goals based on what we think we should do (eat better, move more, write the book, be more productive) but never stop to ask: Do I actually value this? Or am I just absorbing someone else’s expectation?

Your values are not just personal. They’re shaped by your culture, family, relationships, and worldview. Sometimes, your goals are in direct conflict with the deeper programming you've inherited. Are you chasing someone else’s idea of success? Are you setting goals from a place of shame, guilt, or comparison? If so, your motivation will wither the moment life gets hard.

To truly understand whether a goal aligns with your values, it helps to examine the layers that construct them:

Family & Inner Circle Values

These are the messages you grew up with or absorbed from those closest to you. They can show up in statements like:

• “Hard work means long hours.”

• “Rest is lazy.”

• “You need to be successful to be loved.”

These internalized beliefs can run the show without us even realizing it. You might say you value health but if your family modeled hustle culture and skipped meals, it may feel “wrong” to slow down and eat mindfully, even if it’s what you want.

Social & Cultural Values

These are the broader messages from your community, culture, or society. They often come in the form of norms, media, or shared ideals:

• “Thin is better.”

• “Success means money and status.”

• “Mothers should sacrifice everything for their children.”

These values are tricky because they can feel like truth when they’re really just repeated messages. If you’re trying to live more intuitively but constantly see influencers glorifying grind culture, you may feel conflicted, torn between what your soul needs and what the world praises.

Personal View Values

These are the values that emerge when you slow down and ask, What truly matters to me?
They sound like:

• “I want to feel good in my body, not shrink it.”

• “I value peace more than productivity.”

• “Joy matters just as much as achievement.”

This is where clarity lives. These are the values that give your goals longevity, because they’re rooted in your truth, not someone else’s template.

When your goals reflect your personal values, not the ones handed to you, they begin to nourish you instead of drain you. They feel like home. And they’re much more likely to stick.

This is why so many people struggle with resolutions. The goal doesn’t match the value. When it does, motivation becomes renewable.

Ask yourself: Do I truly care about this, or do I just feel like I should?

2. Environment: Make the Right Choice the Easy One

Motivation isn’t just willpower. It’s design.

You can have the clearest intentions and strongest desires but if your surroundings are set up to support your old patterns, you’ll default to them every time. Not because you’re weak, but because your brain is wired for efficiency.

If the cookies are front and center on the counter while the fruit is buried in the crisper drawer… guess what you’re reaching for at 9 p.m.?

If your sneakers are tucked away in the back of the closet and your cute-but-painful shoes are at the front door, you’re not taking the stairs, you’re taking the elevator.

If your phone is your alarm clock, your day probably starts with social media noise instead of intention.

We don’t rise to the level of our goals, we fall to the level of our systems.

Your environment is your system.

This is where intentionality comes in.

When you’re trying to form a new habit or live in alignment with a goal, your environment has to reflect that change. Ask yourself:

• Does my space support the behavior I want to build?

• What’s in my line of sight?

• What’s easy to reach?

• What feels like a friction point?

Even subtle shifts can make a difference. Prepping your journal and a pen next to your bed. Setting out your walking shoes and water bottle the night before. Organizing your pantry so the nourishing options are visible first.

Here’s the truth:
At first, it will take effort. Your brain won’t love it. It prefers familiar, energy-efficient loops. But the more you repeat the new behavior, and the more you prime your space to support it, the easier it becomes. Familiarity is comfort, but comfort can be re-trained.

Eventually, the fruit on the counter becomes the default snack.
The shoes by the door become an invitation.
The open journal becomes a ritual instead of a resolution.

The environment you build becomes the behavior you embody.

So take a moment. Look around.
Is this space designed for the version of you you’re becoming or the version you’re trying to outgrow?

If it’s the latter…no shame. Just information. Now you know where to begin.

3. Stretch, Don’t Snap: Finding the Sweet Spot Between Real and Ideal

Sometimes, without realizing it, we build our goals like we’re writing a script for someone else to star in.

The version of us who never skips a workout.
The version who loves meal prepping and color-coded calendars.
The one who wakes up early, never loses her temper, and always has the energy for one more thing.

We imagine her clearly and then try to force ourselves to be her. But here’s the thing:
That version of you? She’s a vision, not a villain.
She’s aspirational but she’s not in charge.

Because the you that’s here, right now, navigating real-life deadlines, messy emotions, limited spoons, and noisy households—is the one actually doing the work. She deserves goals built for her. We think motivation is about how badly we want it but the real secret is in how well we build it.

There is a delicate balance between challenge and attainability., where we want to be and where we are.
If a goal isn’t challenging, we get bored. It feels like we’re not progressing.
If a goal isn’t attainable, we burn out. We feel like we’re failing before we even begin.

When we make a goal for where we want to be, we don’t honor where we are. We set the bar too high and, after a while of trying to reach it, we give up.

So what’s the sweet spot?

It’s that walk that gets your heart rate up but doesn’t leave you limping the next day.
It’s swapping your afternoon soda for sparkling water not cutting every indulgence cold turkey.
It’s journaling for five minutes while your coffee brews instead of expecting a 90-minute morning ritual.

These small, thoughtful shifts add up especially when they’re aligned with who you really are right now.

Real Self vs. Ideal Self: Who’s Setting the Goal?

This is the hardest, and most powerful part of change.

We all carry two versions of ourselves:

• The Real Self: The version of you that exists in this moment. With your current energy, schedule, responsibilities, and emotional landscape.

• The Ideal Self: The version of you that’s been curated in your mind. She’s fit, balanced, radiant, accomplished, endlessly motivated… and somehow has more hours in her day.

Here’s the catch: most of us set goals from the perspective of the ideal self. When the real self can’t keep up, we feel like failures. But you’re not a failure. You’re just not her. Not yet.

Being honest about where you are today is not weakness, it’s strategy because only from truth can we build something that lasts.

So how do you tell the difference?

Ask yourself:

• Does this goal feel exciting or obligatory?

• Am I trying to earn worth or honor it?

• Would I still pursue this if no one saw me do it?

• Am I making this change for me, or for someone else’s approval?

Self-concept isn’t static. It’s built and shaped over time through your values, your past experiences, your relationships, and your aspirations.

And when your self-concept is rooted in who you are rather than who you think you’re supposed to be, you’re finally free to grow from a place of wholeness, not lack.

Remember:

You’re not behind.
You’re not broken.
You don’t need to “fix” yourself to be worthy of care, rest, or joy.

You just need to start where you are.
With goals that stretch you but don’t break you.
With intentions that grow with you not against you.

Ask yourself: Is this goal based on who I am today or who I wish I were already?

The Motivation Formula

Lasting motivation = Values alignment + Supportive environment + Attainable expectations

If any one of those is missing, you’ll find yourself slipping into old patterns, not because you’re broken, but because your system is incomplete.

Want to test this for yourself?

Reflective Exercise: Aligning Your Goal with What Actually Works

Take a moment to think about a goal you’ve struggled to achieve. Maybe it’s one you’ve revisited over and over—always with the best of intentions, but never quite making it stick.

This isn’t about blame or failure. This is about getting honest—so you can get strategic.

Now, ask yourself:

Does this goal align with what I truly value right now?

Not what you wish you valued. Not what others think you should value. What matters most to you in this current season of life?

• What parts of your life are getting your energy, attention, and care?

• What do you protect time for even when things get busy?

• Are you setting this goal because it feels authentic, or because it feels expected?

If your goal doesn’t line up with your current values, motivation will fade fast.
Ask: Can I adjust this goal so it honors what I actually care about?

Is my environment set up to support this goal or sabotage it?

Look around you. Your environment is quietly influencing your choices all day long.

• Is the healthy food easy to grab, or buried in the crisper drawer?

• Are your sneakers by the door or still in a gym bag under a pile of laundry?

• Is your journal on the nightstand or is your phone winning the bedtime battle?

Your habits are shaped by what’s visible, accessible, and easy to engage with.
Ask: What can I shift in my space to make the desired behavior the default behavior?

Are my expectations for myself realistic and sustainable?

This is where the ideal self often takes over, creating a version of success that requires you to be a totally different person with limitless time and energy.

But here’s the truth:
The real you, the one juggling work, family, fatigue, and real emotions, needs to be the one your goals are built for.

• Does this goal make space for your current responsibilities?

• Is the timeline doable without burning you out?

• Will this goal still make sense on your hardest day?

Challenge can be motivating. But if the goal isn’t attainable, it becomes punishment.
Ask: What’s the sweet spot between stretch and sustainability?

Is this goal for the real me or the fantasy me?

If you feel stuck, it may be time to gently revise your goal, your plan, or your pace. Not because you’re weak, but because you’re wise enough to adjust instead of abandon.

Use these prompts to realign:

• What can I simplify without losing purpose?

• How can I better support myself in following through?

• Where am I trying to become someone I’m not, instead of becoming more of who I am?

Ready to Go Deeper?

My Breaking the Cycle journal workbook is designed to help you walk through this process step by step. It’s gentle, insightful, and rooted in real-world change, not fantasy.

You can find it in the Workshops and Offerings section of my site.

Final Thoughts

Change isn’t about flipping a switch. It’s about rewiring a path and that takes time, intention, and grace.

Every small step you take is a signal to your nervous system, your mindset, your identity:
This is who I’m becoming.

You don’t need a perfect morning routine, a color-coded plan, or the motivation of a superhero.

You just need honesty, alignment, and the courage to begin where you are.

Let that be enough, for today, and for the next right step after that.

Because real transformation doesn’t come from pushing harder.
It comes from building smarter.
It comes from rooting change in who you actually are.

And when that happens?

The shift is no longer a struggle.
It becomes a coming home.

References

Boer, Diana, and Klaus Boehnke. “What Are Values? Where Do They Come From? A Developmental Perspective.” Handbook of Value, 1 Oct. 2015, pp. 129–152, academic.oup.com/book/7143/chapter/151694667?login=true, https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198716600.003.0007.

Cherry, Kendra. “What Is Self-Concept?” Verywellmind, 29 July 2024, www.verywellmind.com/what-is-self-concept-2795865.

Clear, James. Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones. New York, Penguin Publishing Group, 16 Oct. 2018.

Magazine, Psychologs. “Ideal Self vs Real Self.” Psychologs Magazine | Mental Health Magazine | Psychology Magazine | Self-Help Magazine, 9 Jan. 2024, www.psychologs.com/ideal-self-vs-real-self/?srsltid=AfmBOoqUreCpRbBnXfUexobWIpOjNaljOyfLEFAIwcKz2BKYyQZZp_hB. Accessed 30 May 2025.

Ponizovskiy, Vladimir, et al. “Social Construction of the Value–Behavior Relation.” Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 10, no. 934, 1 May 2019, pdfs.semanticscholar.org/aefe/636ac006618cde29e82baa9c0ef1c3fb0c4d.pdf?_ga=2.56974122.1258809790.1601865472-1207177935.1600132914, https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00934.

Stone, Allan, and Nicole San Roman. “The “Why” Matters: Setting Successful Goals.” UNM HSC Newsroom, 2024, hscnews.unm.edu/news/setting-successful-goals.

Taylor, Jim. “Personal Growth: Your Values, Your Life.” Psychology Today, 7 May 2012, www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-power-prime/201205/personal-growth-your-values-your-life.

Yale University. “Hit the Mark When You Set SMART Goals | It’s Your Yale.” Your.yale.edu, 2024, your.yale.edu/hit-mark-when-you-set-smart-goals.

You Have the Map: Now Let’s Walk the Landscape

Over the last few months, I’ve written a lot about the Ayurvedic view of the mind, about emotional suppression, about what it means to honor your Prakriti, your natural self. We’ve explored how imbalance arises, what it feels like in the body, and what it looks like in the mind. We’ve looked at the monsters we carry and the internal landscapes we try to ignore. In short, I’ve given you the map.

But a map doesn’t mean much if you don’t know how to use it.

So now, we shift.

This next phase is all about integration. It’s about what you do with the wisdom when the baby’s crying, the bills are due, your boss is being impossible, or your heart is just tired. It’s about using what you’ve learned in real time, in real life.

I want to start sharing more content that brings this home. Down from the theory and into the kitchen, the workplace, the school pickup line, and the hard conversations. Because healing doesn’t just happen in our journals or on the meditation cushion. It happens in the small, daily decisions we make when no one is watching.

In this new series of blog posts and social content, you’ll find:

• Simple self-awareness prompts tied to dosha principles

• Examples of everyday moments and how imbalance shows up

• Gentle practices that help you re-align with your nature without perfectionism

• Real-life stories, small wins, and vulnerable lessons

So if you’ve read the previous posts and thought,

“This all makes sense, but now what?”

this is your invitation. You already have the map. Let’s start walking the path together.

Stay tuned: we’re about to make Ayurveda real, relatable, and rooted in daily life.

When Life Happens…

Here’s the truth: I’m writing this while balancing a full-time job, pursuing a PhD, raising a teenager, and running a business with my husband. Add in meals, sleep, meditation, movement, and trying not to drown in emails and it often feels impossible. Because, honestly, it is impossible. We were not made to handle all these things on our own. The idea of the “nuclear family” or even the two working parents raising kids on their own is a completely new concept in the timeline of humanity. It isn’t how we were made to work and operate.

So if you’re reading this thinking, “I can’t even keep up with basic self-care,”

I see you.

I am you.

I want you to hear this clearly:

Life happens, and that’s okay.

That’s more than just a motto. It’s a mindset.

What is life? Life is the bills, the traffic, the constant appointments and after-school activities. It’s the takeout pizza you ordered because you were too tired to cook. It’s the cereal for dinner on a Tuesday and…

It is all okay.

This society lacks grace, especially self-grace.

How can we live authentically without grace? How can we face our inner monsters without grace? How can we honor our natural recipe without grace?

What is grace? It’s courteous goodwill or unmerited favor. Let those words sink in:

courteous goodwill and unmerited favor.

Ask yourself, why do you believe you don’t deserve that?

You deserve that 10-minute warm water foot bath with aroma oils. You deserve that soothing oil massage after your shower. You deserve that hot cup of herbal tea before bed.

But even more than that, you deserve the grace of saying: I am doing my best. Even when your best is a bowl of cereal.

Because the first step when life gets chaotic isn’t to try harder. It’s to meet yourself with grace.

The second step? Choose one small thing to do for yourself each day.

These aren’t big, showy moments. They’re small, sacred ones that carry maximum impact.

For me, it’s my nightly routine. A warm shower and an oil massage. A message to my nervous system: I’m here. I care.

But this isn’t just about me. This is about you.

Because I know I’m not the only one trying to keep it all together. Maybe you’re caring for others. Maybe you’re navigating grief. Maybe you’re just doing your best to make it through another day.

You don’t need a perfect plan. You need a moment of presence.

So take this blog, this message, and let it be your pause, your breath, and your reminder:

You are not behind.

You are not broken.

You are not failing.

You are a human being, navigating the mess and the magic of life like the rest of us.

You are allowed to start small.

Let’s bring this into your life. Not in the way of “fixing” anything. Not with one more expectation on your already-full plate. But with one gentle invitation: start small.

Pick something nourishing. Something grounding. Something that helps you feel a little more like you. Drink a warm glass of water. Step outside and breathe. Place your hand over your heart. Say something kind to yourself.

And just as important, let something go. Let go of the self-criticism over the skipped workout. Let go of the guilt over takeout. Let go of the pressure to show up as anything other than who you are, right now, in this moment.

You are allowed to start small.

Pick one small thing today that supports your balance. Pick one small thing you’re ready to let go of. That nagging guilt over dishes in the sink? The skipped workout? The cereal-for-dinner shame?

Grace lives in the letting go.

Let both be acts of love.

Life happens. And that’s okay.

Imbalance Is Not a Flaw: Understanding Your Body’s Signals Through Ayurveda and Science

Life isn’t built for perfect balance. It’s full of demands, responsibilities, stressors, and unexpected shifts. Whether it’s work, school, parenting, caregiving, grief, or just trying to get dinner on the table, most of us aren’t living in ideal conditions. That’s not a failure. That’s just reality.

In Ayurveda, imbalance isn’t a flaw, it’s a signal. It’s the body’s way of saying:

“Hey, I need a little help here.”

But too often, we treat imbalance like it’s a moral weakness, like if we were better we’d never feel scattered, sluggish, irritable, or anxious.

Let’s change that story. Let’s talk about imbalance with honesty, science, compassion, and hope.

What Is Imbalance in Ayurveda?

Your Prakriti is your original constitution, the unique blend of Vata, Pitta, and Kapha that was set at conception. It’s your Ayurvedic fingerprint. But your Vikriti is your state after conception. It arises due to the influence of lifestyle, environment, diet, seasonal changes, and more. Vikriti is not just a surface-level disturbance; its roots run deep.

According to Ayurveda and the Vedic tradition, imbalance stems from Pragya-aparadh (pronounced Praw-gee-yuh-aw-Paw-rod), the mistake of the intellect. Maharishi describes this as the loss or forgetting of Samhita (Sam-hee-tah), our inner wholeness. Through the pull of Maya, the dazzling diversity of the world, our awareness gets drawn outward and away from its source. It’s not that the Self is lost; it’s just forgotten. This disconnection gradually pulls us out of alignment with natural law. We don't stray because we mean to. We simply lose our inner compass.

The result is a misalignment in thought, speech, and action, and over time, the doshas (Vata, Pitta, and Kapha) fall out of sync. This is the deeper meaning of Vikriti: an imbalance in the field of consciousness that becomes expressed in the body and mind.

Healing is the journey back to memory. Back to Samhita. Back to the wholeness that was never truly lost.

Here’s the key:

imbalance is temporary.

It’s fluid.

It’s fixable.

But only if we understand what it looks and feels like.

How Each Dosha Looks in Imbalance

• Vata Imbalance may look like anxiety, forgetfulness, poor sleep, dry skin, bloating, constipation, headaches, pain, or feeling “ungrounded.”

• Pitta Imbalance often shows up as irritability, inflammation, acid reflux, diarrhea, red & inflamed skin, inability to fall asleep, impatience, or burnout.

• Kapha Imbalance might feel like fatigue, depression, congestion, sluggish digestion, greed or hoarding, or resistance to change.

Too often, we mistake these imbalances for personality traits. “I’m just an anxious person.” “I’ve always had a short fuse.” “I’m naturally lazy.” These aren’t truths., they’re adaptations. They’re signs you’ve been carrying more than your body is built for.

The Science of Chronic Stress and Why It Matters

Recently, I spoke with a friend who’s highly educated in health and wellness. They know the benefits of meditation, movement, nourishing food, and rest. But life has thrown them off balance, and they haven’t been able to keep up with their usual practices. They were being really hard on themselves.

So I reminded them of something crucial:

when the body is under chronic stress, it shifts into survival mode.

Stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline flood the system. When this happens repeatedly, the body starts conserving energy by shutting down “nonessential” functions, like the logical thinking of the prefrontal cortex. Decision-making becomes reactive instead of thoughtful. The part of your brain that makes rational, aligned choices goes offline.

This pattern has a name: the Stress-Induced Deliberation-to-Intuition (SIDI) model. Under pressure, we revert to habitual behaviors because it requires less mental effort. The brain chooses what feels familiar, even if it isn't aligned with our goals.

That’s why you’ll reach for cake instead of a salad on a hard day. That’s why routines crumble when you’re overwhelmed. That’s not a failure. That’s your body doing its best to survive.

For more on the effects of stress on the body I highly suggest reading "Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers" by Robert Sapolsky. It is a great and scientific deep dive into why chronic stress, well...sucks. 

Healthy Isn’t Binary. It’s a Spectrum

Now that you understand the ancient wisdom and modern science behind stress you also need to know this...

Health isn’t a checkbox. It’s not “you’re either doing everything right or you’re failing.” We need to let go of the all-or-nothing mindset.

Health is a spectrum. And doing one small thing, like drinking warm water throughout the day, breathing for a minute, or choosing veggic sticks over chips, is a win.

So if you haven’t been eating perfectly or meditating daily, please hear this: you’re not failing. You are in a moment. And that moment will pass. Progress isn’t made in perfection. It’s made in presence. It’s made every time you choose to listen to what your body needs and offer it a little kindness instead of judgment.

A Somatic Awareness Practice: Listening to the Body’s Whisper

Imbalance doesn’t always speak in words. Sometimes it shows up as tight shoulders, a clenched jaw, a restless belly, or a heaviness in the chest.

The body carries what the mind won’t say out loud.

By tuning into those sensations, you can begin to understand what your body is asking for.

Try this simple exercise:

1. Pause and find stillness.
   Sit or lie down in a comfortable, quiet space. Close your eyes or soften your gaze.

2. Take 3 deep breaths.
   Inhale slowly through the nose, exhale through the mouth. Let your belly rise and fall. Let yourself arrive.

3. Scan your body.
   Gently bring your attention from the crown of your head down to your toes. Don’t rush. Ask:
   Where do I feel tension? What feels dull, heavy, or tight? What feels open, warm, or alive?

4. Notice without fixing.
   Choose one area that calls your attention. Just sit with it. What is this part of your body trying to tell you? Is it asking for movement, rest, nourishment, release?

5. Respond with kindness.
   Place your hand over that area and take one more deep breath. Say to yourself:
   “I hear you. I’m here.”

Let this practice be a conversation, not a correction. Over time, you’ll begin to rebuild trust with your body, and you’ll start to catch the whispers before they become cries.

You Are Allowed to Be In Progress

There is nothing shameful about needing time. About starting again. About adjusting what health looks like depending on the season you’re in.

You are not behind. You are not broken. You are not a problem to fix.

Imbalance is not failure.

It’s just your body waving a flag and asking for your attention.

Start small. Be gentle. Begin again.

Homework: The First Step Toward Balance

As I write in my book Breaking the Cycle: Identifying & Removing the Habits That Hold You Back, you can’t change what you can’t see. The very first step in reclaiming your balance is awareness.

So here’s your invitation:

Start noticing. Without judgment, begin to track what throws you off and what brings you back. What drains you? What restores you? When do you feel most yourself?

Journal Prompt: Where in my life am I feeling off balance? What are the habits, environments, or patterns contributing to this?

Don’t rush into fixing. Just start to see. Awareness is the beginning of every transformation.

If you want more support, structure, and encouragement in this process, Breaking the Cycle walks you through it step by step. You can find it on my website and through the link in my bio.

References

American Psychological Association. (2021, October). Stress in America 2021: Stress and decision-making during the pandemic. https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/stress/2021/october-decision-making

Kanbara, K., & Fukunaga, M. (2016). Links among emotional awareness, somatic awareness and autonomic homeostatic processing. BioPsychoSocial Medicine, 10(16). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13030-016-0059-3

The Decision Lab. (n.d.). How stress redesigns decision making. https://thedecisionlab.com/insights/health/stress-redesigns-decision-making

Walden University. (n.d.). How stress impacts decision making. https://www.waldenu.edu/online-masters-programs/ms-in-clinical-mental-health-counseling/resource/how-stress-impacts-decision-making

Well+Good. (n.d.). Anxiety and decision-making: How stress impacts your brain. https://www.wellandgood.com/anxiety-stress-decision-making

Yu, R. (2016). Stress potentiates decision biases: A stress-induced deliberation-to-intuition (SIDI) model. Neurobiology of Stress, 3, 83–95. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ynstr.2015.12.006

You Are Not a Problem to Fix: Honoring Your Unique Ayurvedic Recipe

This world can be harsh. Each year brings a new trend, a new standard, a new expectation that demands we shape-shift our bodies, personalities, and lifestyles to fit it. We're told to shrink, tone, lift, or smooth ourselves to match ideals crafted in boardrooms, not born from wisdom. We’re sold fixes for problems we never knew we had until someone told us we were broken.

But you are not broken.

And you were never meant to fit a mold.

In Ayurveda, we see each person as a unique combination of the three doshas: Vata, Pitta, and Kapha. These are the building blocks of life—the elemental forces that govern everything from your digestion to your thoughts. Your specific blend, or Prakriti, is your original nature, the cosmic recipe that shaped you before you were born.

Prakriti: Your Sacred Recipe

Prakriti (pronounced PRAH-krit-tee) isn't made from life experiences. It’s the subtle, intelligent design of your body, mind, and spirit. It’s a combination of genetics and ancient cosmic intelligence that formed your constitution when you were stardust. While it can influence personality, it goes deeper—it is how you are built.

Each of us has all three doshas, but in different proportions. Think of them like ingredients in a recipe. One person may be more fiery (Pitta), another more airy (Vata), and another more earthy (Kapha). Most of us are a blend. Your goal isn't to become like someone else or reach some generic balance. Your goal is to honor your recipe.

Nature isn’t beautiful because it conforms. It’s beautiful because of its wild, radiant diversity. You don’t look at a forest and wish the oak trees were more like the pine. You don’t ask the rose to bloom like the sunflower. And yet, we often ask ourselves to fit into narrow ideals, shaped by trends, media, and impossible wellness standards that were never meant to hold the full truth of who you are.

Manufactured Beauty vs. Authentic Nature

Part of what pulls us away from our true nature is a carefully crafted illusion.

We are surrounded by images of beauty that have been engineered. Layered in makeup, filtered through lenses, Photoshopped, and now increasingly altered by AI. These images are often supported by teams of estheticians, trainers, stylists, and surgeons. They don’t represent reality. They represent an industry designed to profit from our insecurities.

When we compare ourselves to these polished projections, we begin to think that we are the problem. That our skin, our body, our pace, our temperament need fixing.

But nature doesn’t work that way.

A daisy doesn’t apologize for not being a rose. The moon doesn’t try to glow like the sun. You, too, were never meant to look, act, or live like anyone else. The wisdom of Ayurveda doesn’t ask you to chase a beauty trend. It asks you to remember who you are.

You are most radiant not when you fit in, but when you align with your original design.

Many of Us Are Living in Our Imbalance

Here’s the tricky part: many of us have become so accustomed to living in a state of imbalance that we think it's just who we are. The anxious Vata may think, "I’ve always been this way." The irritable Pitta may say, "I just have a temper." The sluggish Kapha may believe, "I'm just lazy."

But these aren't personality flaws. They are signs that your current state, your Vikriti (Vih-krit-tee), has drifted from your true nature. Vikriti is your current imbalance. It can change based on stress, diet, season, trauma, or habits. And it can be rebalanced.

Each dosha has its radiant, balanced qualities:

• Vata is not scatterbrained and anxious. Vata, in balance, is creative, intuitive, and filled with imagination.

• Pitta is not angry or aggressive. Pitta, in balance, is a passionate leader, discerning, focused, and courageous.

• Kapha is not lazy or stuck. Kapha, in balance, is nurturing, calm, stable, and deeply compassionate.

These are the aspects of yourself that feel natural and fulfilling. When you are living from a place of balance, you feel like you. When you're disconnected, it's often because you're living in your imbalance, not your truth.

You Are Not a Problem to Fix

If you've ever looked at a dosha chart and thought, "I'm doing everything wrong," please pause.

You are not wrong.

You are not a problem to fix.

You are simply a person with a beautiful original design who may be temporarily out of sync.

The solution is not punishment or discipline.

It's curiosity. It's kindness. It's learning the language of your body and honoring its messages.

Begin with Compassionate Curiosity

So how do you begin?

Not with a cleanse. Not with rules. But with observation.

• When do I feel most like myself?

• What foods or environments make me feel ungrounded, agitated, or heavy?

• When did I start feeling off-balance?

These questions help you move from judgment into inquiry. From reaction into relationship.

Ayurveda isn't a prescriptive set of rules. It's a conversation with your own nature. One that invites you to soften, listen, and return to yourself.

Let Your Healing Be an Act of Love

This week, try treating yourself as someone worth listening to. Not fixing. Not improving. Just listening.

• Return to your breath.

• Eat slowly and warmly.

• Rest without guilt.

• Speak kindly to the parts of you that feel overwhelmed or exhausted.

You are not a project.

You are a person, crafted by stardust, remembered through rhythm, and worthy of deep compassion.

You are not here to fit into a mold.

You are here to honor your nature.

And your unique Ayurvedic recipe is not a flaw. It's your path home.

A Final Word: Don't Shrink to Fit, Expand to Thrive

As you explore Ayurveda, be mindful not to box yourself into a single dosha identity. While one dosha may be predominant, your care must reflect all of who you are. A person with 80% Pitta, 10% Vata, and 10% Kapha will have different needs than someone with 70% Pitta, 20% Kapha, and 10% Vata.

You are a full recipe, not a single ingredient.

If you want support in uncovering your Prakriti and learning how to align your life with your unique nature, consider scheduling a Prakriti assessment with me. Let's discover your natural design together, with love, respect, and empowerment.

Honoring the Kapha Within: Balancing Earth and Water in the Physiology

Kapha is the dosha of structure and cohesion, composed of the elements earth (prithvi) and water (jala). It is the force that grounds, stabilizes, nourishes, and connects. Heavy, slow, soft, cool, and steady, Kapha governs the body's physical form, immune strength, and emotional resilience.

When in balance, Kapha gives us deep calm, compassion, patience, endurance, and a sense of loyalty and love that anchors our relationships and purpose. We feel content, emotionally steady, physically strong, and spiritually rooted. But when Kapha is out of balance, it becomes stagnant. We may feel sluggish, attached, overindulgent, greedy, or emotionally withdrawn.

Kapha is most easily provoked by excess heaviness, too much food, sleep, routine, or emotional clinging. It accumulates in late winter and early spring, during cold damp weather, and in times of emotional holding or inertia. Honoring the Kapha in us all means learning how to appreciate its sacred stillness without becoming stuck. It means knowing when to rest, and when to rise.

Understanding Kapha means understanding its five subdoshas, the internal waters and weight that govern nourishment, lubrication, memory, and immunity. When these are in balance, Kapha offers profound strength and peace. When imbalanced, it may leave us heavy, withdrawn, or immobilized.

The Five Kapha Subdoshas: The Waters Within

Like dew on five petals, Kapha’s subdoshas moisten and stabilize essential functions throughout the mind and body.

Kledaka Kapha (Klay-dah-kuh): The Moisture Manager
Located in the stomach, Kledaka protects the stomach lining, moistens food, and supports the early stages of digestion. It prevents ulcers by maintaining a healthy mucosal layer and helps to transform nourishment into something the body can truly absorb.

When in balance: digestion feels smooth and steady, with a sense of satisfaction after meals.
When imbalanced: heaviness after eating, mucus in the stool, or the formation of ama (toxins). When decreased, ulcers and burning may appear.

Kledaka shows us how we receive nourishment. When digestion is bogged down, we often feel sluggish in more ways than one.

Avalambaka Kapha (Ah-vah-lum-bah-kuh): The Chest's Support
Residing in the thoracic cavity, heart, and lumbar spine, Avalambaka Kapha provides structure and stability to the lungs and heart. It helps us breathe deeply and feel supported physically and emotionally.

When in balance: clear breath, steady posture, emotional resilience.
When imbalanced: lung congestion, chest tightness, asthma, low back pain.

Avalambaka reminds us what it feels like to be held. When life feels too heavy, we often feel the burden in our chest and spine.

Bodhaka Kapha (Bo-dah-kuh): The Sensory Gateway
Found in the mouth, tongue, and salivary glands, Bodhaka helps us experience taste and begins the digestive process by liquefying food.

When in balance: saliva flows easily, food is enjoyable and satisfying.
When imbalanced: dry mouth, plaque buildup, dull taste perception, or excessive salivation.

Bodhaka teaches us how we begin to take in life. If we’re over-saturated or disconnected, the joy of the senses begins to fade.

Tarpaka Kapha (Tar-pah-kuh): The Mind’s Moisture
Present in the brain, spinal cord, nasal passages, and sinus cavities, Tarpaka Kapha cushions and protects the nervous system and supports emotional security.

When in balance: clear thinking, emotional calm, a sense of protection.
When imbalanced: mental dullness, depression, sinus congestion, emotional withdrawal.

Tarpaka is the emotional blanket that allows us to feel safe in our own minds. When it’s imbalanced, life can feel foggy and emotionally distant.

Shleshaka Kapha (Shlay-sha-kuh): The Lubricator
Located in the joints, Shleshaka Kapha lubricates and cushions movement, nourishing bones and connective tissue.

When in balance: easeful movement, fluidity, and comfort in the body.
When imbalanced: stiffness, joint swelling, arthritis, or fluid retention.

Shleshaka is the graceful glide of movement in body and spirit. When it diminishes, we feel stuck, physically and emotionally.

When Kapha Goes Off Balance: The Stillness That Stagnates

Kapha becomes disturbed through excess: too much sleep, food, inactivity, emotional clinging, or repetition. The very qualities that give Kapha its grounding power can also weigh it down.

When Kapha is imbalanced, we may experience:

Physically: weight gain, congestion, fatigue, water retention, slow metabolism.
Mentally: lethargy, brain fog, slow thinking, resistance to change.
Emotionally: attachment, depression, stubbornness, emotional overeating.

Imbalance may begin in one subdosha or spread across many. If Kledaka is disturbed, digestion becomes sluggish. If Tarpaka is imbalanced, emotional heaviness may cloud clarity and dampen joy.

Kapha in Nature: Seasons and Life Stages

Kapha is everywhere that form, stability, and connection are required in nature, in the body, in time. Recognizing where and when Kapha accumulates helps us prevent stagnation and support its strength.

The Kapha Season
Kapha season is spring (March through June). Cold, damp, and heavy, this is when snow melts, soil softens, and water collects. These qualities mirror Kapha's elemental makeup, making it the time when Kapha most often goes out of balance.

During this season, respiratory issues, lethargy, and emotional withdrawal may rise. Lightening the diet, increasing movement, and embracing change help balance this energy.

The Kapha Time of Life
From conception through early adulthood (birth to age 30), Kapha predominates. This is the time of growth, bonding, and forming foundational resilience both physical and emotional.

Children often display Kapha's qualities: strong immunity, soft features, emotional tenderness, and deep sleep. Awareness of Kapha’s influence helps parents support healthy development.

Kapha Times of Day and Week
Times of Day: 6am–10am and 6pm–10pm
Days of the Week: Monday, Thursday, and Friday

Kapha is strongest during the early morning and evening, inviting us to ease into wakefulness and settle into rest. These are times of stillness, but also the best times to break inertia with movement.

Kapha and the Planets
The Moon, Jupiter, and Venus are most associated with Kapha. They represent nurturing, love, stability, fertility, and emotional grounding.

Why It Matters

Knowing how and when Kapha arises in you allows you to bring warmth and motion to moments of heaviness. Instead of labeling yourself lazy, unmotivated, or overly sensitive, you begin to understand that your body and mind may simply be carrying too much.

Kapha asks us to move, not to force. To let go, not to detach. To energize, not to agitate.

When you embrace Kapha's gifts of love, loyalty, and patience without letting them harden into inertia or overattachment. You embody true groundedness. In that steadiness, life can bloom.

Supporting Kapha: Lifestyle, Diet & Daily Routine

Kapha needs lightness, stimulation, warmth, and variety. It benefits from inspiration and change, and it thrives with consistency that includes healthy challenge.

Lifestyle Tips for Energizing Kapha

• Wake before sunrise and avoid daytime napping.

• Start the day with movement: brisk walks, energizing yoga, or invigorating breathwork.

• Break routine periodically. Explore new ideas, places, or hobbies.

• Use invigorating scents like eucalyptus or rosemary.

• Keep your spaces clean and uncluttered to promote clarity.

Kapha-Pacifying Diet
Favor:

• Light, dry, and warm foods

• Spices: ginger, black pepper, turmeric, cinnamon

• Astringent, bitter, and pungent tastes

• Legumes, leafy greens, apples, and berries

Avoid:

• Dairy, heavy oils, and fried foods

• Cold or creamy dishes

• Excess salt and sugar

Herbs & Practices

• Allspice, Anise, Basil, Cardamom, Clove and basically anything you can find in pumpkin spice decrease Kapha

• Breathwork: Bhastrika

• Sun salutations, early morning walks, and dynamic movement

• Daily dry brushing and light self-massage with sesame oil

Honoring the Kapha Within: A Gentle Reflection

Kapha is the embrace that holds the world, the steady rhythm of a heartbeat, the gravity that anchors us to the earth.

But even the earth must shift.

If you feel stuck, heavy, or numb, try this:

"I let go of what no longer serves me. I welcome movement. I welcome joy."

Then:

• Open the windows.

• Dance for five minutes.

• Drink warm lemon water and step outside.

Let this be your invitation to move again. To trust that stillness is sacred, but so is your becoming.

A Kapha-Balancing Practice:
In the morning, try this simple wake-up ritual:

• Stand near a window and stretch your arms overhead

• Breathe in deeply through your nose

• Repeat the mantra: “I rise with energy, I move with purpose.”

• Shake out your arms, legs, and spine

When we honor the Kapha within, we don’t just find stability.

We find the strength to rise from it.

This blog is informed by years of formal study in Maharishi AyurVeda and Integrative Health at Maharishi International University.

Honoring the Pitta Within: Balancing Fire and Water in the Physiology

Pitta is the dosha of transformation, governed by the elements of fire (agni) and a touch of water (jala). It is the heat that digests, the light that illuminates, and the force that fuels drive, ambition, and clarity. Hot, sharp, light, mobile, and oily, Pitta governs our digestion, metabolism, intellect, and emotional intensity.

When in balance, Pitta grants us courage, focus, discernment, and a radiant vitality that moves through both body and mind. We feel motivated, clear, purposeful, and passionate. But when Pitta is out of balance, it can overheat the system. We may find ourselves irritated, inflamed, overly critical, or burnt out. The fire that once gave us direction begins to scorch everything in its path.

Pitta is most easily provoked by hea, whether in the form of spicy foods, hot weather, fast-paced environments, or emotional tension. It rises during summer, at high noon, and during periods of overwork or competition. Honoring the Pitta in us all means learning how to harness its brilliance while protecting ourselves from its excess. It means knowing when to push, and when to pause.

Understanding Pitta means understanding its subdoshas, the flames within that regulate specific systems and responses. These inner firekeepers manage digestion, perception, clarity, and radiance. When in balance, they empower us to process and transform. When imbalanced, they may leave us reactive, rigid, or inflamed.

The Five Pitta Subdoshas: The Flames Within

Like the sun shining through five windows, Pitta expresses itself uniquely through each subdosha. These are the specific functions and expressions of Pitta throughout the mind-body system.

1. Pachaka Pitta (Pa-cha-kuh): The Digestive Alchemist Located in the small intestine and lower stomach, Pachaka is the primary site of Agni, the main digestive fire. It governs the breakdown, absorption, and assimilation of food. It nourishes all the other fires in the body.

   When in balance: strong digestion, vitality, contentment, clear mind. When imbalanced: heartburn, hyperacidity, nausea, inflammation, fatigue.

   Pachaka shows us how well we can digest life, both food and experience. When digestion is clear, so is perception.

2. Ranjaka Pitta (Rawn-juh-kuh): The Blood Purifier Residing in the liver, spleen, and blood, Ranjaka gives color to the body and purifies the blood. It also aids in detoxifying emotional residue, especially anger or resentment stored in the liver (Frawley, 2001).

   When in balance: healthy liver function, steady emotions. When imbalanced: jaundice, blood disorders, toxic overload, emotional volatility.

   Ranjaka teaches us how to filter intensity. When it flows well, we feel energized and emotionally clear.

3. Sadhaka Pitta (Sah-dah-kuh): The Heart-Mind Flame Found in the brain and heart, Sadhaka governs emotional processing, clarity of thought, memory, learning, motivation, and the connection between desire and purpose.

   When in balance: inspiration, inner drive, compassion, healthy ego. When imbalanced: burnout, mood disorders, cynicism, ego rigidity, disconnection from purpose.

   Sadhaka is the inner spark that asks, "Why do I care?" and leads us toward fulfillment.

4. Alochaka Pitta (Ah-low-cha-kuh): The Seer Located in the eyes and the mind’s eye, Alochaka governs both physical sight and insight. It supports perception, discernment, and intuitive vision.

   When in balance: strong vision, good judgment, clarity. When imbalanced: eye strain, visual problems, harsh judgment, limited perspective.

   Alochaka helps us see the world and ourselves clearly, without distortion.

5. Bhrajaka Pitta (Bhrah-jah-kuh): The Skin Radiance Present in the skin, Bhrajaka controls the absorption of heat, light, and substances. It gives glow to the skin and regulates our sense of touch and external boundaries.

   When in balance: glowing skin, healthy boundaries. When imbalanced: acne, rashes, inflammation, hypersensitivity.

   Bhrajaka reflects how safe we feel in our skin, literally and emotionally.

When Pitta Goes Off Balance: The Overheating Within

Because Pitta governs digestion and transformation, it can be easily provoked by excessive heat, overstimulation, or relentless ambition. It doesn’t take much for a spark to become a wildfire.

When Pitta is imbalanced, we may experience:

Physically: acid reflux, skin rashes, hot flashes, inflammation, diarrhea, burning sensations, excessive sweating.

Mentally: irritability, perfectionism, impatience, obsessiveness, over-analyzing, difficulty relaxing.

Emotionally: anger, resentment, jealousy, self-judgment, burnout.

We may push too hard, speak too sharply, or hold ourselves to impossible standards. Our fire is no longer warming, it’s burning.

Imbalance can occur in one subdosha or ripple across all five. If Pachaka is disturbed, digestion and clarity suffer. If Sadhaka is out of sync, burnout or disillusionment may set in. Understanding where the imbalance arises can help us focus our healing.

Pitta in Nature: Seasons and Life Stages

Just as Pitta lives within, it is also reflected in the rhythms of the natural world. Knowing when Pitta is likely to rise allows us to support ourselves with care and intention.

The Pitta Season

Pitta season is summer (roughly June through September). The days are hot, bright, and intense. The sun is high and unrelenting, mirroring Pitta’s qualities of heat, intensity, and transformation.

During this season, everyone is more susceptible to Pitta imbalance. Tempers may flare, digestion may become erratic, and skin conditions may arise. Cooling foods, time in water, and less screen time can help balance the excess heat.

The Pitta Time of Life

Pitta starts at age 30 and goes until age 60. It is the dosha of energy and action, motivating us to work, raise a family, and engage in day to day life.

From puberty to middle age (approximately ages 30–60), Pitta rules. This is when our ambition is strongest, our metabolism is most active, and our minds are sharp and engaged.

It is a time of building, striving, expressing, and leading, but also a time when we are most prone to burnout, stress, and inflammation.

Pitta Times of Day and Week

Times of Day: 10am–2pm and 10pm–2am Days of the Week: Tuesday and Sunday

Pitta is strongest in the middle of the day and night, when digestion and metabolic processes are most active. It is also reflected in the assertive energy of Tuesday and the focused clarity of Sunday.

Pitta and the Planets

The Sun,Mars, and Ketu (the southern node of the moon) are the celestial bodies most associated with Pitta. They represent energy, discipline, strength, and assertiveness, all qualities of this fiery dosha.

What You Can Do With This Information

Understanding Pitta’s influence in nature and your life allows you to work with your fire rather than against it. You can learn when to stoke it and when to soothe it.

Here’s how to bring ease and balance to Pitta:

• Time of Day Awareness (10–2): Midday and midnight amplify Pitta. → Eat your main meal at noon for optimal digestion. → Avoid late-night stimulation to protect your sleep and mind.

• Seasonal Care (Summer): Focus on cooling, hydrating, and gentle activities. → Enjoy cooling herbs, moonlight walks, swims, and creative expression without competition.

• Weekly Rhythms (Tuesday & Sunday): Lean into focus and leadership, but balance with rest. → Schedule high-energy tasks early in the week and make Sunday restorative.

• Life Stage (30–60): Watch for signs of overdrive. → Build boundaries, nourish your body, and don’t let success cost your well-being.

• Planetary Influence (Sun, Mars, Ketu): Astrological events involving these planets may intensify Pitta qualities. → Use these times to reflect, not react.

Why It Matters

Understanding how and when Pitta shows up in your body and your life helps you align with its strengths while softening its intensity. Rather than reacting to irritability, inflammation, or perfectionism, you learn to anticipate and respond with compassion. You begin to recognize when your inner fire is warming you and when it’s starting to burn.

By observing your rhythms, honoring your digestion, and tending your emotional flame with care, you return to a place of centered clarity. You become the steward of your spark, not the victim of your burnout. This is the beginning of true balance: living not from reaction, but from recognition.

When we live in rhythm with the elements, we don’t have to constantly fight for harmony.

We embody it.

Supporting Pitta: Lifestyle, Diet & Daily Routine

Pitta doesn’t need to be extinguished, just honored and cooled. It thrives with rhythm, hydration, and calm focus.

Lifestyle Tips for Calming Pitta

• Create space in your day to breathe and reflect.

• Prioritize cooling, non-competitive movement (like swimming or yin yoga).

• Avoid overworking or overcommitting.

• Spend time in nature, especially near water.

• Surround yourself with beauty, art, and softness.

Pitta-Pacifying Diet

Favor:

• Cooling foods: cucumbers, melons, leafy greens, basmati rice, coconut

• Sweet, bitter, and astringent tastes

• Herbs: coriander, mint, fennel, aloe vera

• Ghee and small amounts of olive or coconut oil

Avoid:

• Spicy, salty, sour foods

• Caffeine and alcohol

• Fried or fermented foods

Herbs & Practices

• Mint, Turmeric, Cumin, Coriander,and Licorice* soothe Pitta

• Breathwork: Sheetali

• Meditation, especially in nature

• Daily self-massage with coconut oil

*If you have any blood pressure issues please use caution when eating licorice or avoid it all together as it is known to increase blood pressure.

Honoring the Pitta Within: A Gentle Reflection

Pitta is the light that guides, the spark of transformation, the passion that births purpose. But even fire must rest.

If you find yourself pushing too hard, overheated with anger or perfectionism, place your hands over your heart and say:

"I am enough. I release the need to prove."

Then:

• Sip cool mint tea.

• Step outside and feel the breeze.

• Watch the sky change.

Let this be your invitation to soften. To return to your center. To allow the fire within to warm rather than consume.

A Pitta-Balancing Practice:

Before bed, try this cooling ritual:

• Sit in a quiet, darkened space

• Close your eyes and breathe through a rolled tongue (Shitali pranayama)

• Imagine a cool blue light entering your body with each inhale

• Repeat the mantra: “I am light, I am ease, I am peace.”

When we honor the fire within, we don’t lose our spark. We simply learn to shine without burning out.

References

Frawley, D. (2001). Ayurvedic healing: A comprehensive guide (2nd ed.). Lotus Press.

This blog is informed by years of formal study in Maharishi AyurVeda and Integrative Health at Maharishi International University.

Honoring the Vata in Us All: Balancing Space & Air in the Physiology

Vata is the dosha of movement, governed by the elements of space (akasha) and air (vayu). It is the subtle current that animates the body and mind, the breath that flows, the thoughts that rise, the creativity that sparks from silence. Light, cold, dry, mobile, and irregular, Vata governs all motion in the body, from the beating of the heart to the firing of neurons to the circulation of ideas.

When in balance, Vata brings vitality, enthusiasm, inspiration, and adaptability. The mind is clear. The body moves freely. Words come easily. But when Vata is out of balance, we may find ourselves anxious, scattered, forgetful, or physically depleted. We may feel dry, brittle, cold, or overwhelmed, blown about by life with no anchor.

Vata is the first dosha to become imbalanced, especially during times of transition: seasonal shifts, travel, stress, grief, irregular routines, or overstimulation. Honoring the Vata in us all means learning how to recognize its gifts and its vulnerabilities. It means knowing how to support our nervous system with warmth, steadiness, nourishment, and routine.

Understanding Vata means understanding the subdoshas that govern specific functions throughout the body and mind. It is also about knowing how to bring them back into harmony when they drift out of alignment.

The Five Vata Subdoshas: The Winds Within

In Ayurveda, each dosha has five subtypes, or subdoshas, that direct its influence to different parts of the body. Think of Vata as the wind, and these subdoshas as the five directions in which it moves. When they are in balance, they orchestrate every aspect of motion and communication within us. When imbalanced, they can feel like an internal storm.

1. Prana Vata (Pra-nah): The inward-moving wind
Located in the head and found mainly in the nervous & respirator systems, Prana is the lightest of the subdoshas. It governs sensory perception, mental focus, and the movement of thoughts and breath. It’s responsible for inhalation, swallowing, and the intake of impressions, both physical and subtle.
When imbalanced: anxiety, racing thoughts, sensory overwhelm, shallow breathing, fear, dizziness.

2. Udana Vata (Oo-dah-nah): The upward-moving wind
Seated in the throat and chest, Udana controls speech, self-expression, memory recall, and upward movements like exhalation and belching.
When imbalanced: difficulty speaking or expressing, hoarseness, weak voice, forgetfulness, lack of direction or inspiration.

3. Samana Vata (Sa-mah-nah): The equalizing wind
Centered in the navel, Samana supports digestion and assimilation, both of food and experience. It balances upward and downward movement, making it crucial for processing.
When imbalanced: indigestion, loss of appetite, irregular digestion, difficulty integrating emotions or lessons.

4. Apana Vata (Ah-pah-nah): The downward-moving wind
Located in the colon and pelvic region, Apana governs elimination, menstruation, childbirth, and all forms of letting go. It’s the force that helps us release what no longer serves.
When imbalanced: constipation, irregular menstruation, urinary issues, holding onto emotional baggage, fear of release.

5. Vyana Vata (Vee-yah-nah): The circulating wind
Distributed throughout the entire body, Vyana moves blood, nutrients, impulses, and ideas. It supports circulation, movement, and coordination.
When imbalanced: poor circulation, muscle twitching, tics, scattered energy, overwhelm.

When Vata Goes Off Balance: The Storm Within

Because Vata governs movement, it is the most sensitive and the easiest to disturb. In Ayurveda, we often say that Vata leads the way in imbalance. When Vata is disturbed, it can disrupt the other doshas, leading to wide-ranging issues in body and mind.

When Vata becomes imbalanced, we may experience:

• Physically: dry skin, cracking joints, gas and bloating, constipation, cold hands and feet, weight loss, irregular appetite, insomnia.

• Mentally: anxiety, restlessness, forgetfulness, overthinking, difficulty focusing.

• Emotionally: fear, overwhelm, a sense of being ungrounded or unsupported.

Just as the wind can quickly change direction and stir up chaos, imbalanced Vata can leave us feeling scattered, overstimulated, and depleted. The subtleties of thought, emotion, digestion, and sensation can become disjointed. This is especially true when we live life in a rushed, erratic, or over-stimulated way. In fact, modern life with its screens, schedules, and stimulation tends to provoke Vata on a daily basis.

Imbalance can occur in a single subdosha, or all five. For example, if Apana Vata is disturbed, elimination may become irregular. If Prana Vata is out of sync, anxiety may take hold or inspiration may dry up. Knowing where the imbalance originates can help us bring clarity and direction to our healing process.

Vata in Nature: Seasons and Life Stages

Just as doshas exist within us, they are also reflected in the world around us. Vata is present in the environment, in the cycles of the day, in the changing of seasons, and in the phases of life. Understanding seasons and times where we may encounter increased Vata can help us to plan accordingly! These are times when you will want to engage in Vata pacifying and balancing diets, routines, and lifestyle.

The Vata Season
In most climates, Vata season corresponds to winter (December through March). The air is dry, the wind begins to pick up, and temperatures drop. Leaves fall, nature quiets down, and the rhythm of life begins to shift inward. These qualities mirror Vata’s elemental makeup: cold, dry, mobile, light, and clear.

During Vata season, everyone, regardless of their primary dosha, can begin to feel the effects of increased Vata in the environment. It is during this time that we are more vulnerable to anxiety, poor sleep, and dryness in both body and mind. Staying warm, keeping a consistent routine, and nourishing ourselves deeply are key to staying balanced.

The Vata Time of Life
According to Ayurveda, our lives unfold in three main stages, each governed by a dosha. We will discuss the other 2 doshas in later weeks.

Vata starts at age 60 and rules elderhood. It is the dosha of wisdom, lightness, and increased sensitivity.

As we age, our bodies naturally become drier and more brittle. Sleep may be lighter, digestion more delicate, and the mind may wander more often. But with proper care, this phase can also be one of immense creativity, spiritual depth, and reflective insight.

The Vata Times of Day & Days of the Week

• Times of the Day: 2am to 6am and 2pm to 6pm

• Days of the Week:

  • Monday (Shared with Kapha)

  • Friday (Shared with Kapha)

  • Saturday

Vata and the Planets

The planets that are dominated by Vata are the Moon, Rahu (the North Node of the moon considered a Shadow Planet in Hindu astrology), Saturn, and Venus.

Understanding the doshic cycles of nature and life allows us to prepare, adapt, and align. Instead of resisting change, we learn to move with it.

What You Can Do With This Information

By understanding Vata’s presence in nature through the time of day, the rhythm of the week, the seasons, and even the cosmic alignments, you gain insight into when you are most likely to feel ungrounded, scattered, or overstimulated… and when to lean into practices that restore balance.

This doesn’t mean you need to track the planets obsessively or overhaul your entire schedule. Instead, consider this an invitation to become more attuned to the rhythms around you so you can respond with more grace, not more stress.

Here’s how to work with Vata’s influence in your life:

• Time of Day Awareness (2–6 AM & 2–6 PM):
  These windows carry Vata’s airy, mobile energy.
  → Morning tip: Rise gently, meditate, or do slow movement to anchor your day.
  → Afternoon tip: Take breaks, eat warm food, and avoid overstimulation to prevent burnout or overwhelm.

• Seasonal Care (Winter / Early Spring):
  In Vata season, it's easier to feel anxious, cold, or dry.
  → Support yourself with heavier, moist foods (like soups and stews), sesame oil for self-massage, cozy routines, and early bedtimes.

• Weekly Rhythms (Monday, Friday, Saturday):
  On these Vata-influenced days, you may feel a stronger pull toward reflection, creative expression, or emotional sensitivity.
  → Grounding rituals like journaling, nature walks, or warm baths can help stabilize your energy.

• Life Stage (60+):
  As we enter the Vata phase of life, our tissues become lighter, and the mind often becomes more spacious.
  → Care deeply for your body and spirit with nourishing routines, spiritual practices, and connection with others to avoid loneliness or mental cloudiness.

• Cosmic Alignments (Moon, Saturn, Venus, Rahu):
  When these planets are particularly active—like during a Saturn return or a Venus retrograde—Vata qualities may become amplified.
  → Stay rooted. Avoid over-scheduling, double down on rest, and trust your intuition over your impulse.

Why It Matters

Understanding how and when Vata is likely to rise isn’t about control, it’s about alignment. It’s about making room for your body and mind to move with the currents of nature, instead of resisting them.

When you can anticipate the winds of change, you’re better equipped to ride them with steadiness and grace.

Because space and air are not the enemies, they are the canvas for your creativity, your insights, and your expansion.
You don’t need to “fix” Vata.

You just need to honor it.

Supporting Vata: Lifestyle, Diet & Daily Routine

To bring Vata back into balance, we must offer it what it most needs: warmth, nourishment, rhythm, and grounding. Think of calming the wind not by stopping it, but by anchoring it gently to the earth.

Lifestyle Tips for Calming Vata

• Create a stable daily routine. Vata thrives on consistency. Try to wake, eat, and sleep at the same times each day.

• Slow down. Build in space between activities. Vata becomes agitated when the nervous system is overwhelmed.

• Prioritize rest and sleep. Fatigue magnifies Vata imbalance. Aim for 7–9 hours of warm, uninterrupted rest each night.

• Stay warm. Bundle up in cooler weather, sip warm water or teas, and take regular warm baths or oil massages (abhyanga) to soothe the body.

Vata-Pacifying Diet
Vata responds beautifully to food that is warm, moist, grounding, and gently spiced. I will be creating a comprehensive list of foods and herbs/spices that will be posted on the Vata page in the days to come this week.
Favor:

• Cooked grains like oatmeal, rice, and quinoa

• Stewed vegetables and soups

• Healthy oils (ghee, sesame, avocado)

• Sweet, sour, and salty tastes

• Spices like ginger, cinnamon, cumin, and cardamom

Minimize:

• Raw or cold foods (salads, smoothies, ice water)

• Caffeine and stimulants

• Dry, crunchy snacks

• Bitter and astringent foods in excess

Herbs & Practices

• Ashwagandha, Ginger, Cardamom, Haritaki, and Brahmi are calming herbs that help stabilize Vata’s mental energy.

• Transcendental Meditation (TM) and breathwork practices like Nadi Shodhana (alternate nostril breathing) calm the mind and anchor Prana Vata.

• Daily abhyanga with warm sesame oil grounds the nervous system and supports circulation.

This is not about restriction, it’s about nourishment. Vata doesn't need punishment or correction. It needs gentleness, structure, and the invitation to feel safe again.

Honoring the Vata Within: A Gentle Reflection

Vata is the breath of creativity, the whisper of intuition, the breeze that carries ideas from one heart to another. It is wonder, movement, and magic. But even the wind needs to rest.

If you find yourself rushing through life, thoughts darting from one task to the next, pause. Place your hand on your chest. Breathe deep into the belly. Say quietly:

"I am here now, and that is enough."

Let this be your invitation to soften. To sip warm tea with both hands. To wrap yourself in a favorite sweater. To speak kindly to your nerves and your thoughts and your beautiful, spinning mind.

A Vata-Balancing Practice:
At the end of the day, try this short grounding ritual:

• Rub warm sesame oil into your feet.

• Put on cozy socks.

• Sit quietly with a candle and breathe gently, noticing the rise and fall of your chest.

• Repeat the mantra: “I am held, I am safe, I am home.”

Vata reminds us that the sky is not the limit, it’s the beginning.

When we honor the air and space within, we don’t have to chase the wind.
We become it.

Vata, Pitta, and Kapha in the Mind: Understanding Emotional Balance Through Ayurveda

Not all emotions feel the same, some flutter, some burn, some settle like fog. In Ayurveda, this isn’t a coincidence. Just as each of us has a unique mind-body constitution, our emotional patterns are also shaped by the doshas: Vata, Pitta, and Kapha. These elemental energies don’t just govern digestion or skin type. They influence how we think, feel, remember, and respond to life.

In this post, we’ll explore how each dosha expresses itself emotionally; both in balance and in imbalance. We’ll blend ancient Ayurvedic wisdom with modern psychological insight, showing how these patterns affect not only our moods but also our relationships, memory, and nervous system. Most importantly, we’ll explore how to work with the doshas, not against them, to support emotional freedom and inner peace.

Not sure what your dominant dosha is? Take the quiz here before you continue.

Because your feelings were never meant to be suppressed. They were meant to move. And through that movement, you return to the most powerful healing force of all:

your true self.

In Ayurveda, the mind is not separate from the body it is an extension of consciousness, moving and expressing through subtle channels called manovaha srotas. These channels weave throughout the entire body, carrying not blood or lymph, but thought, perception, imagination, memory, and intention.

The state of the mind is shaped by the three maha gunas:

• Sattva: clarity, truth, light

• Rajas: activity, agitation, desire

• Tamas: heaviness, dullness, ignorance

Each guna colors our emotional reality. When Sattva predominates, we experience emotional balance: clear thinking, patience, compassion, and memory of the Self. But when Rajas or Tamas dominate, through overstimulation, trauma, poor diet, or irregular routine, we spiral into mental and emotional imbalance.

This understanding is at the heart of Sattva Vijaya Chikitsa, Ayurveda’s approach to mental health. The goal is not to eliminate emotion but to elevate the mind; to gain victory through Sattva. That means strengthening the qualities of wisdom, self-awareness, patience, and spiritual memory (Smriti), and restoring our connection to pure consciousness.

In modern terms, we might call this the original mind-body medicine. But it is far more holistic than any modern framework, it doesn’t stop at the brain or hormones. It includes all levels of experience, from the physical body to the subtle channels of thought to the unbounded field of awareness.

Ayurveda doesn’t ask, “What’s wrong with you?”
It asks, “What’s out of alignment?”

And perhaps most importantly, it reminds us: you are not your anxiety. You are not your depression. These are expressions of disconnection, not definitions of who you are.

Just as the body reflects our doshic balance, so does the mind. Each dosha expresses itself emotionally in unique ways. And just like the body, when the mind is out of balance, the symptoms are loud, often misunderstood, and deeply tied to how we’ve been living.

Vata in the Mind

When balanced: Vata brings creativity, quick insight, curiosity, and a childlike sense of wonder. The Vata mind dances between ideas with elegance, often catching truths others miss.

When imbalanced: That same mind becomes ungrounded. Overthinking, worry, fear, and restlessness become dominant. The nervous system is overstimulated, and sleep suffers. There's a tendency to dissociate or spiral into “what ifs.” This is when we say, “I just can’t turn my brain off.”

Pitta in the Mind

When balanced: Pitta offers clarity, focus, ambition, and courageous honesty. It allows us to discern truth and act on it with purpose.

When imbalanced: The fire turns inwards or outwards—becoming criticism, perfectionism, irritability, and at times, rage. There may be strong emotional outbursts followed by guilt, or a retreat into silent judgment and resentment.

Kapha in the Mind

When balanced: Kapha brings emotional steadiness, compassion, and the ability to hold space for others. It is nurturing, loyal, and deeply present.

When imbalanced: That beautiful stillness can become stagnation. The Kapha mind can sink into lethargy, sadness, withdrawal, and emotional heaviness that’s hard to move. There may be a tendency to numb or avoid, mistaking stillness for comfort even when it hurts.

Emotions Move Like the Doshas Do

Emotions are not the problem. They’re messengers of imbalance, guides to healing.

Each dosha has its own emotional rhythm and your job isn’t to suppress those rhythms, but to listen, move with them, and restore flow.

Your emotions were never meant to be swallowed.
They were meant to move.

Closing Reflection: Listening to the Mind's Whisper

Take a quiet moment today and ask yourself:

• Which dosha feels most present in my mind right now?

• How do I tend to respond when that dosha is out of balance?

• What might it look like to honor my emotions instead of resisting them?

You don’t need to have all the answers. You just need to be curious.

Awareness is always the first medicine.

Supporting Emotional Balance Through the Doshas

When the emotional body is dysregulated, so too is the physical body. And vice versa. Here are some ways to gently bring balance back to both.

For Vata Minds (Anxious, Overthinking, Unsettled)

• Create calm through routine: same wake and sleep time each day.

• Eat warm, moist, grounding meals (like kitchari or root veggies).

• Touch the body daily: warm oil self-massage (abhyanga) calms the nervous system.

• Limit overstimulation: step away from screens and give yourself silence.

• Breath practice: Nadi Shodhana (alternate nostril breathing) soothes Vata beautifully.

For Pitta Minds (Irritable, Controlling, Critical)

• Cool the system with coconut water, sweet fruits, and leafy greens.

• Prioritize play and rest over productivity.

• Practice self-compassion: perfection is not the goal, peace is.

• Breath practice: Sheetali (Cooling Breath) can reduce inner heat.

• Cultivate forgiveness, starting with yourself.

For Kapha Minds (Heavy, Stuck, Withdrawn)

• Get moving: even a short, brisk walk clears emotional stagnation.

• Lighten up the diet: favor spices, bitter greens, and lighter grains.

• Seek connection: talk, express, share your heart with someone safe.

• Avoid emotional hoarding: journaling or expressive arts can help emotions flow.

• Breath practice: Bhastrika (Bellows Breath) stimulates energy and clarity.

Your emotional experiences are not mistakes.
They are intelligent signals from within. Part of your healing, not separate from it.

When you learn to recognize the doshic language of the mind, you gain access to deeper understanding and a more loving relationship with yourself.

And from that place… the real transformation begins.

Much of the understanding shared in this post comes from my graduate training in the MS in Maharishi Ayurveda and Integrative Medicine at Maharishi International University (MIU), particularly from the final course on mental health and Vedic psychiatry. These teachings have deeply shaped how I understand the mind, not as broken, but as a reflection of our inner and outer environments seeking balance. Click the picture below to see what degree programs MIU has to offer!

When We Swallow Our Feelings: How Suppressing Emotions Disrupts Vata

We talk a lot about emotions around here, especially big ones. How they rise up unexpectedly. How they hijack your ability to stay grounded. How they demand to be seen. But what about the opposite? What happens when we don’t express them at all?

What happens when we swallow our feelings whole?

In Ayurveda, there’s a concept known as pratishyaya, the suppression of natural urges. This includes urges like sneezing, yawning, sleeping, and eating, but also emotional urges. The urge to cry. The instinct to shout. The need to speak your truth. These are all considered natural movements of the physiology, and when we suppress them, especially repeatedly, we interrupt the natural flow of energy through the body.

We create imbalance.

Vata and the Flow of Emotion

Vata is the dosha that governs movement. It rules the nervous system, breath, circulation, and the movement of thoughts and feelings. When Vata is healthy and supported, our emotions flow freely. They rise, they are felt, and they move on. But when we suppress those emotions, we disturb the movement of Vata. Emotions become blocked, and Vata becomes irregular.

That’s when things get noisy. You may begin to feel scattered. Restless. Anxious. Or frozen in place. You might find your thoughts racing or completely shutting down. Over time, this suppression becomes a habit and as the Vata imbalance deepens, the symptoms settle deeper into the body and mind becoming chronic.

The suppression of emotional movement is not just a mental experience. It’s a full-body disruption that, when left unchecked, can manifest in physical dysfunctions across the body.

From the Mind to the Gut: What Research Now Shows

Modern science is finally catching up to what Ayurveda has known all along, that the body and mind are deeply connected. How we feel emotionally doesn’t just affect our mood. It affects how our body functions, especially our gut.

In Ayurveda, the gut is considered the foundation of all health. It's where we digest not just food, but experiences. And when we suppress emotions — when we swallow our truth or bottle up what we feel, it can disrupt digestion on every level.

Recent studies now show that our emotional state is directly linked to the balance of bacteria in our gut. One 2020 study by Lee et al. found that people who had more positive emotions tended to have more diverse and resilient gut bacteria, but only if they had a particular type of microbiome known as Prevotella-dominant. Those with a different gut profile (called Bacteroides-dominant) didn’t show the same benefit.

In other words, the type of bacteria in your gut may affect how your emotions shape your health and vice versa.

Another fascinating study from Ke et al (2023), focused specifically on women, looked at how different emotion regulation styles impact gut health. It found that women who habitually suppressed their emotions had less diverse microbiomes, and their gut bacteria were more likely to be associated with negative emotional states like sadness, stress, or anxiety.

It didn’t stop there. These women also had lower levels of activity in some key biological systems, like energy production and cellular repair. In short: emotional suppression wasn’t just impacting how they felt. It was affecting how their bodies healed, energized, and functioned at a foundational level.

Let’s pause here.

That means when you hold back tears, smile when you want to scream, or keep quiet about what hurts, your body listens. It adapts. It shifts. And if that becomes a pattern, it begins to rewire itself around the suppression.

All of this points back to what Ayurveda teaches: all health begins in the gut, and the gut is deeply influenced by the state of our mind and emotions. When we suppress what we feel, we weaken our agni, our digestive fire. Over time, that leads to confusion in the tissues (dhatus), depletion of our vital energy (ojas), and instability in the nervous system (vata).

The science confirms what the sages already knew: suppressing emotions isn’t just a bad habit, it’s a root cause of imbalance.

The Ayurvedic View: Where Emotions Settle in the Body

Ayurveda teaches us that unresolved emotions don’t just vanish — they accumulate. And depending on the doshic quality of the emotion, they settle in specific parts of the body.

• Anxiety, being cold, mobile, and light, belongs to Vata. It builds up in the colon, where Vata resides.

• Anger, with its sharp, hot nature, is linked to Pitta. It accumulates in the liver, small intestine, and spleen, the seat of Pitta.

• Depression, being heavy, cool, and dull, reflects Kapha. It tends to settle in the lungs and chest, where Kapha governs stability and emotion.

When these areas become congested with unprocessed emotional residue, it disrupts the srotas, the subtle channels through which energy and nourishment flow. Especially affected is the manovaha srotas, the channel of the mind, which is rooted in the heart.

This isn’t just metaphor. In Ayurveda, the heart is seen as the central processing hub for emotional experience. It is home to the ten great vessels that connect mind and body. So when feelings become stuck and stagnant, the heart bears the burden. It’s why we use phrases like “with a heavy heart,” “heartache,” or “a change of heart.”

The language reflects the body’s truth.

Blocked channels in the heart center affect not only our emotional processing, but also circulation, hormonal balance, breath, and perception. If left unaddressed, emotional congestion here circulates throughout the entire body.

Returning to Flow: How to Heal Emotional Suppression

The first step to healing these imbalances is simple but not easy: end what is causing the imbalance and feel your feelings. Create space for emotional truth, not judgment. Honor what arises. Don’t run from it, don’t shame it, and don’t try to logic your way around it. Instead, let yourself move through it.

That might look like:

• Crying without apology

• Screaming into a pillow

• Journaling what you wish you could say out loud

• Speaking honestly to someone who hurt you or simply to yourself

After emotional expression comes the sacred work of restoring flow in the body.

Try:

• Chetan Asana: A subtle, deeply grounding yoga sequence that reconnects body and mind

• Nadi Shodhana (alternate nostril breathing): Soothes the nervous system and re-establishes Vata’s rhythm

• Vata balancing diet: Warm, nourishing foods, spiced stews, ghee, and sweet, sour, and salty flavors

• Soothing your environment: Use gentle lighting, natural textures, calming scents like lavender.

• Transcendental Meditation: A reliable technique for integrating body and mind into a state of deep harmony and rest

These practices invite Vata back into rhythm. They tell the body it is safe to flow again.

A Reflection for You

Take a moment. Pause your scroll, your racing thoughts, your next task. Ask yourself gently:

• What feelings have I been holding back?

• Where do I feel tension in my body that I haven’t named?

• What would it look like if I gave that emotion space to move?

Now imagine what might shift if you did.

You don’t have to scream in the forest or spill your secrets on social media. But you do have to listen to your body. To trust that your emotions are messengers, not mistakes. That they are part of your internal wisdom.

The next time you find yourself choking down a feeling or tensing your chest to keep the tears in, ask yourself: What would happen if I just let it move?

Coming Soon: Vata, Pitta, and Kapha in the Mind

In the next post, we’ll explore the unique emotional expressions of each dosha. What it looks like when Vata governs the mind in balance and out of it. How Pitta’s fire can become clarity or rage. How Kapha brings emotional steadiness or emotional heaviness.

We’ll also look at practices to restore emotional balance by working with the doshas, rather than against them.

Because your feelings were never meant to be suppressed. They were meant to move. And through that movement, you return to the most powerful healing force of all:

Our true self.

References

Ke, S., Guimond, A.-J., Tworoger, S. S., Huang, T., Chan, A. T., Liu, Y.-Y., & Kubzansky, L. D. (2023). Gut feelings: Associations of emotions and emotion regulation with the gut microbiome in women. Psychological Medicine, 53(15), 7151–7160. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291723000612

Lee, S.-H., Yoon, S.-H., Jung, Y., Kim, N., Min, U., Chun, J., & Choi, I. (2020). Emotional well-being and gut microbiome profiles by enterotype. Scientific Reports, 10, Article 20736. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-77721-y

Chetan Asana