Where Healing Meets the Wound

There is something profoundly challenging about returning to the environment where your inner scars were formed — especially when you’ve done so much work to heal.

For me, that place is the dynamic between my parents.

After traveling for sixteen months, living on the road, and immersing myself in nature, something within me softened. I found peace. I found a stronger connection to my heart. I loosened my grip on control and began trusting life again — allowing things to flow instead of forcing them.

That alone is a story for another time.

What matters here is what happened when I returned home — to the family dynamics that shaped my earliest patterns and pain.

I came back transformed — more grounded, more aware, more open. I let go of the past in a way I hadn’t before. I consciously chose love. I chose empathy. I chose to see my parents not only through the lens of the pain they caused, but through the context of the lives they lived and the wounds they still carry.

I remembered the environments they grew up in.
The scars they never had the tools to heal.
The ways they are still living with that pain.

And something shifted.

I found myself able to truly meet them where they are — to hold space, to offer compassion, and to genuinely want to touch their lives for the better. Not from obligation. Not from guilt. But from the heart.

And yet… their hurtful habits still exist.

And hurtful is exactly what they are.

No matter how much awareness I bring, there are moments when it gets to me. When old feelings resurface. When my body remembers what survival mode felt like. In those moments, I notice how quickly my mind wants to return to old coping patterns — even small habits I once relied on to numb or escape.

This is where the work shows itself.

Because now, I notice.

I can feel what’s happening in my body. I can hear the old stories trying to take over. And instead of reacting, I pause. I breathe. I choose.

I choose the version of myself I’ve become.

The one who knows how to sit with emotion instead of running from it.
The one who wants to respond to life with compassion instead of reacting from pain.
The one who believes in kindness, fairness, and heart-led action.

I have tools now. I have resources. I know how to realign my energy and return to a place where loving solutions can emerge. When I act from that space — when my emotions and intentions are aligned — my actions come from clarity, not chaos.

This is not easy work.

In fact, it’s some of the hardest work there is.

Transformation doesn’t happen when everything is calm and comfortable. It happens in the moment you choose something different — something that serves your well-being — even when it takes more effort, more presence, and more courage.

That is where growth lives.

As I look around me here in the Pacific Northwest in December, nature mirrors this truth beautifully. Everything appears dormant. The trees are bare. The ground is quiet. It can look like nothing is happening at all.

But underground, something is always shifting.

Roots are strengthening.
Energy is gathering.
Transformation is underway — unseen, slow, necessary.

Growth doesn’t announce itself right away.
It happens quietly, at its own pace, in its own season.

And then one day, you notice it — a bud on a branch, a bulb pushing through the soil. Subtle at first. Easy to miss if you’re not paying attention.

But once it blooms, it’s undeniable.

That’s how real transformation works within us, too.

At your speed.
In your season.
Quietly, patiently, and with deep intention.

And when it emerges — it’s beautiful.