July 2026

For many of us, boundaries were never taught or modeled well.

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Maybe you were told to hug the weird uncle even when every part of your body wanted to pull away. From an early age, many of us learned to bypass our own inner wisdom for the comfort of someone else. We learned that keeping the peace was more important than listening to ourselves.

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So it's no wonder boundaries can feel confusing.

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Before we can set boundaries with others, we have to be connected with ourselves. We have to learn the language of our own nervous system.

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What does no feel like in your body? What does yes feel like in your soul?

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Without that connection, it's difficult to know where we end and someone else begins.

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One of my favorite quotes about boundaries says, "Boundaries are the distance at which I can love both you and me simultaneously." That's what embodied boundaries are really about. They're not walls that keep people out. They're the space that allows us to love others well without abandoning ourselves in the process.

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Boundaries aren't just something we have with other people—they're something we have with ourselves, too.

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Sometimes the thing that would best serve you isn't the thing you want in the moment. What you want may not be what you have capacity for. What you need may not align with what feels good right now.

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Freedom isn't found in having no boundaries.

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Freedom is found in knowing yourself well enough to honor your limits, trust your inner wisdom, and choose what allows you to care for both yourself and the people you love.
 

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June 2026

Build Internal Safety--From The Ground Up

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Building internal safety is a big task—especially for trauma survivors.

For many of us, there was never a "before." We weren't disrupted by danger; we were born into it. When chaos, unpredictability, neglect, or harm are part of your earliest experiences, it can be difficult to know what safety is supposed to feel like. You can't return to a baseline that never existed.

That's why building internal safety often happens very slowly.

Sometimes safety isn't a feeling of complete calm or peace. Sometimes it's simply the absence of present danger. Sometimes it's feeling just a little less unsafe than you did before.

Part of this process is strengthening the connection and communication between the mind and body. The mind may be saying, "Everything is fine," while the body is holding tension, bracing, or signaling discomfort. Or the body may be settled while the mind is preparing for a threat that isn't actually here.

Building internal safety requires us to listen.

To notice the gentle nudges from our body instead of bypassing them. To honor fatigue when it arises. To pay attention when something feels off. To respond to our nervous system's signals with curiosity rather than criticism.

Sometimes I think about safety through the lens of love languages. We often ask how our loved ones receive love. What if we asked the same question of our nervous system?

How are you showing your nervous system safety?

And perhaps more importantly: How does your nervous system receive safety?

Maybe it's through predictable routines. Maybe it's rest. Maybe it's movement, connection, prayer, nature, boundaries, or simply slowing down long enough to hear yourself think.

Regardless of what is happening externally, there is a relationship that is always available to you—the relationship with yourself.

And over time, as you learn to listen, respond, and care for your nervous system, you create something powerful:

A home within yourself that you can return to again and again.
 

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May 2026

Connection: Self, Others, and the World

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Connection sounds simple—but for many of us, it’s anything but.

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Most of us feel disconnected from at least one of these places: ourselves, other people, or the world around us. And if connection in any of these areas has felt dangerous, harmful, or unsafe in the past, it makes sense that it might still feel that way now.

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Your nervous system learned something important: connection can come with harm.
So of course there can be hesitation. Guarding. Distance.

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Healing isn’t about forcing connection.
It’s about gently showing your nervous system that connection is possible without harm.

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That it can be safe to be with yourself.
That it can be safe to be with others.
That it can be safe to exist in the world without bracing against it.

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There’s a quote that often gives me pause:

“What is the taste of home? What is the smell of yes? What sounds make you smile? What does satisfaction feel like in your body?”

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Connection lives in these small, sensory moments. It’s not always big or obvious. Sometimes it’s subtle—a softening in your shoulders, a deeper breath, a sense of presence.

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So what does it feel like to be connected?
How do you know when you are?

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Maybe it feels like being able to stay with yourself without needing to escape.
Maybe it’s a moment of ease in conversation.
Maybe it’s noticing beauty around you without immediately shutting it down.

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Connection doesn’t have to happen all at once.

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It can start small.
A single breath.
A brief moment of noticing.
A tiny reach toward something that feels just a little bit okay.

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Baby steps are still connection.

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April 2026

Taking Up Space: You Belong

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So many of us feel uncomfortable taking up space.

We walk through the world holding a quiet tension—either feeling like we are too much or not enough. And sometimes, somehow, both at the same time.

For me, one of my biggest moments of stepping into my spaciousness and belonging came when I became a yoga teacher.

If you’ve ever been to a yoga studio, you know there are usually not many—if any—people who look like me. As a fat Black woman, it is an uncomfortable space to be in.

And yet, I belong.

The day I got my teaching certification, all I could do was cry.

I cried for younger me—who constantly felt like she didn’t belong. At school. On sports teams. With friends. Sometimes even within her own family.

I cried for college me—who was always oscillating between feeling like too much and not enough. Who tried to find her enoughness through external validation and unhelpful coping mechanisms.

And I cried for all the people who have ever felt like they didn’t belong, or couldn’t take up space in places that explicitly or implicitly told them that.

But those weren’t just tears of grief.

They were tears of joy.
Of something shifting.
Of a new, embodied experience of belonging.

A deep knowing that I don’t have to shrink myself to fit into spaces that weren’t built with me in mind. And more than that—a realization that I have the ability to create spaces where I, and anyone else, can belong.

Taking up space isn’t about being louder or bigger.
It’s about being rooted.

You don’t have to earn your belonging.
You don’t have to prove your worthiness.

You already belong.
 

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March 2026

Uncoupling: You Are Not Your Past

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You are not your past.
You are not your memories, your experiences, or the sum of the things that have happened to you.

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This month’s theme—Uncoupling—comes from a somatic term that helps us understand something important about activation and triggers. When we’ve experienced trauma, different elements of our experience can become over-linked (overcoupled) or under-linked (undercoupled).

One way overcoupling can happen is when something in the present moment gets connected to something from the past—even when the two things are actually unrelated.

For example: imagine getting stung by a bee that happened to be sitting on a rose. The sting hurts. Your body goes into fear. Later, every time you see a rose, you feel panic—even though the rose itself isn’t dangerous. The present moment (rose) has become linked to the past event (bee sting).

This is the mechanism behind many of our triggers.

Uncoupling is the gentle process of helping the nervous system differentiate between then and now. It’s reminding the body that the current moment is not the past. It’s widening the lens so that we are not fused with every thought, emotion, or memory that arises.

Part of the uncoupling process is offering our bodies clear, consistent reminders that we are here—now.

That we are in a different season.
That we have more resources.
That the threat is not happening in this moment.

You are not the surge of anxiety.
You are not the memory.
You are not the old story replaying itself.

You are the one noticing.

As we move through this month, I invite you to get curious:
What helps you know you are here right now?

Is it feeling your feet on the ground?
Noticing the temperature of the air?
Hearing the sounds around you?

Uncoupling isn’t about erasing the past. It’s about loosening the links that keep you stuck in it—so you can live more fully in the present.
 

 

 

February 2026

Radical Self-Care: Embodying Caring for Yourself

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The term self-care has been swept up by social media and pop psychology and flattened into something it was never meant to be. It’s been framed as lavish spending, constant indulgence, or becoming so self-focused that meaningful relationships and connection fall away. That version of self-care is loud, marketable, and incomplete.

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Yes—radical self-care might include a massage, a long bath, or a weekend getaway. Those things can be nourishing. But radical self-care is so much more than what you buy or how aesthetic your rest looks.

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Radical self-care is about managing your expectations while honoring your actual capacity. It’s the ongoing practice of listening to your body and being honest about what you can and cannot hold in a given season. It’s doing the hard, uncomfortable work of setting boundaries—even when that means disappointing others or tolerating guilt.

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Radical self-care also includes doing things you may not want to do in the present because you care about future you. It’s choosing the slower path, the steadier rhythm, the decision that supports your nervous system long-term rather than offering immediate relief.

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Sometimes radical self-care looks like pushing yourself to rest—especially if you’ve been conditioned to equate your worth with productivity. It’s actively working to uncouple your value from how much you produce, how much you give, or how available you are to others.

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And sometimes, radical self-care is letting yourself cry. Letting the tears come even if your inner child learned that crying was dangerous, shameful, or something that would be punished. It’s allowing your body to release what it was once forced to hold.

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Radical self-care is embodied. It’s relational. It’s not always pretty or easy—but it is deeply protective and profoundly healing.

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Caring for yourself isn’t about doing more, indulgence, or a reward for productivity.
It’s a practice of listening more closely and learning how to honor yourself—consistently.

 

 

 

January 2026

You Are What You Needed and Deserved--Connecting With Your Inner Child

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For many people, the idea of “connecting with your inner child” brings up an immediate reaction—this feels weird, cringey, or even unsafe. If that’s you, you’re not doing it wrong. You’re being honest.

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Inner child work isn’t always soft, sweet, or tender. Sometimes it brings up embarrassment, resistance, anger, or deep shame. Sometimes the inner child doesn’t feel lovable at all—they feel needy, annoying, fragile, or like a reminder of everything that wasn’t protected.

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And that makes sense.

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For those of us who grew up having to be “too mature,” self-reliant, emotionally quiet, or constantly attuned to others, our inner child may feel like a liability rather than someone deserving care. You may have learned—explicitly or implicitly—that having needs was dangerous, inconvenient, or pointless. So of course there can be resentment toward that younger part of you. Why were you so sensitive? Why couldn’t you just deal with it? Why do you still show up now?

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Sometimes the anger we feel toward our inner child is actually grief in disguise. Grief for what they endured. Grief for what no one stepped in to provide.

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And sometimes there is shame—because that child holds the memories, the fear, the longing, the unmet needs. Shame often shows up not because something is wrong with the child, but because no one taught them they were allowed to exist fully.

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Here’s the reframe I want to offer you gently:

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You are what you needed and deserved.

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Not because you should have had to be.
Not because it was fair.
But because you survived—and now you get to choose something different.

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Connecting with your inner child doesn’t mean forcing affection or pretending things were okay. It doesn’t mean talking in a way that feels unnatural or performative. It starts with permission. Permission to notice. Permission to feel ambivalent. Permission to move slowly.

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Sometimes connection looks like saying:
I didn’t protect you then—but I see you now.

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Sometimes it looks like boundaries:
I won’t abandon myself the way others did.

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Sometimes it’s simply recognizing how hard that child worked to keep you alive.

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You don’t have to like your inner child right away. You don’t have to feel warmth or tenderness. Relationship takes time—especially when trust was broken early.

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But over time, something shifts when you stop asking, What’s wrong with this part of me?
And start asking, What happened to you?

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Healing doesn’t come from erasing the child you were.
It comes from standing beside them—steadier, resourced, and present—offering what they never received.

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You are not too late.
You are not doing it wrong.
And you don’t have to do it all at once.

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Connection begins with willingness.
And sometimes, that’s more than enough.