Healing and Growth
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I Was Raised to Push Through Everything. Now I’m Learning That I Need to Pause.
On generational expectations, mental exhaustion, burnout, and realizing that what helped previous generations survive doesn’t always help us heal. Lately, I’ve been thinking about something that’s been weighing on me. What happens when the advice you grew up hearing no longer works for the person you’ve become? You know the advice. Just keep going. Push through it. Don’t think about it so much. You’ll be fine. Everyone gets tired. That’s just life. I grew up around that kind of mindset. And honestly, I understand where it comes from. Our parents and grandparents lived through their own challenges. They had responsibilities. Bills. Families. Jobs. And situations where slowing down might not…
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I Believe in Letting People Be Themselves, So Why Am I Still Unlearning How I Was Raised?
AM Thoughts | Faith, Diversity, Acceptance, and the Complicated Process of Unlearning There’s something I’ve been thinking about lately, and honestly, I don’t know if I’m going to explain it perfectly. But that’s kind of the point of this Substack, isn’t it? Having conversations about things we’re still figuring out, even when those conversations are uncomfortable, complicated, or difficult to put into words. I consider myself a fairly open-minded person. I believe people deserve kindness, respect, understanding, and the freedom to live their own lives. I believe people should be able to love who they love, express themselves, and discover who they truly are. But here’s where things get complicated…
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We’re Human. We’re Not Supposed to Be Perfect. But We Could Be Kinder.
Maybe the world doesn’t need more perfect people. Maybe it just needs more people willing to treat each other with kindness. I’ve been thinking about something lately. When did we start expecting everyone to be perfect? Perfect lives. Perfect appearances. Perfect careers. Perfect relationships. Perfect opinions. Perfect responses. It’s exhausting. We’re human beings. We’re going to make mistakes. We’re going to have bad days. We’re going to say things we wish we hadn’t. We’re going to misunderstand people, make questionable decisions, struggle with our emotions, and occasionally have absolutely no idea what we’re doing. And you know what? That’s part of being human. But there’s something else I’ve been thinking…
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Protecting My Peace Doesn’t Mean I Stopped Caring. It Means I Finally Started Caring About Myself.
On people-pleasing, anxiety, outgrowing relationships, and learning that being a good person doesn’t mean being available to everyone all the time. There was a time when I thought being a good person meant always being available. Answering every message. Listening to everyone’s problems. Saying yes when I really wanted to say no. Giving people chance after chance because I believed that’s what kindness looked like. And honestly? I think part of me was afraid of what would happen if I stopped. Would people think I was selfish? Would they get upset? Would they stop talking to me? Would I somehow become the bad person simply because I started putting myself…
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I’m Still Learning to Take My Own Advice About Self-Care
Sometimes the reminders we give others are the ones we need to hear ourselves. There’s something strangely vulnerable about being the person who reminds everyone else to rest… while secretly forgetting how to rest yourself. And if I’m being completely real, I do this more often than I’d like to admit. I spend so much time writing about self-care, mental health, healing, boundaries, and learning to be kinder to ourselves. I create comforting reminders, write reflections, and make little pieces of art that I hope help someone feel less alone. But here’s the funny thing. Sometimes I’m the one who needs those reminders the most. I’ll write about slowing down…
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A Millennial Trying Her Best-ish While Running an Online Business
Because apparently surviving adulthood wasn’t challenging enough, I decided to become my own boss… while still having a regular job. Remember when we were kids in the ‘90s and thought being an adult meant having everything figured out? A steady job. A house. Financial stability. Maybe a little extra money for fun things. Yeah. That was adorable. Fast-forward to my 30s, and here I am running an online business, working a regular job, managing multiple websites, creating digital products, designing artwork, building apps, and trying to remember whether I’ve actually eaten lunch. And somehow, I’m still wondering what I want to be when I grow up. Welcome to being a…
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Maybe This Is My Season of Undoing, Not Doing More
Because apparently, even resting feels like something I need to accomplish. I’ve spent so much of my life trying to keep up. Keep up with work.Keep up with responsibilities.Keep up with my creative projects.Keep up with everyone else’s expectations. And somewhere along the way, I think I forgot how to just… exist. Without feeling guilty about it. I recently came across the idea of a season of undoing, inspired by something Allison Lyons shared, and it really stuck with me. Because what if this chapter of my life isn’t about doing more? What if it’s about unlearning everything that convinced me I wasn’t doing enough in the first place? The World…
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Welp, It’s Official. #ByeInstagram 👋
It’s not you, Instagram. It’s me. Okay, maybe it’s a little you. Welp. It’s official. After years of posting, rebranding, trying again, questioning myself, and wondering if the algorithm secretly has a personal vendetta against me… I’m finally giving up on Instagram. And honestly? It’s a little bittersweet. Instagram and I practically grew up together. I created my first account back in 2014, during my senior year of high school. You know, back when Instagram was actually about sharing photos? When you could post a random picture of your dog, your coffee, a sunset, or literally whatever you wanted, and the people who followed you would actually SEE it? Remember…
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Being an Adult Is Basically Being a Permanently Exhausted Pigeon
We grew up watching Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide. Too bad nobody made an adulthood version. Remember when we were kids in the 90s and thought adults had everything figured out? They knew how to pay bills, make appointments, cook dinner, manage money, and somehow keep an entire household functioning. I genuinely thought that when I became an adult, all this knowledge would just magically appear in my brain. Like, congratulations! You’re 18! Here’s your official adulthood handbook. Spoiler alert: THERE IS NO HANDBOOK. I’m now 30, and I’ve come to the conclusion that adulthood is basically being a permanently exhausted pigeon. Just wandering around, trying to survive, occasionally finding…
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I’m 30, and I’m Finally Learning That Saying No Doesn’t Make Me Selfish 💜
Growing up meant learning to make everyone happy. Healing is teaching me that my happiness matters, too. Can I admit something? I’ve spent a ridiculous amount of my life worrying about disappointing people. Saying yes when I really wanted to say no. Taking on extra responsibilities when I was already exhausted. And feeling guilty whenever I put my own needs first. Because somewhere along the way, I started believing that being a good person meant always being available. Apparently, my younger self thought having boundaries was against the rules. 🙃 We Were Taught to Push Through Everything Growing up as a millennial, I feel like there was always this expectation to…