Living From Within

05/28/2026

It’s been raining in the Atlanta metro area for over seven days. This past holiday weekend it rained pretty continuously I started to notice my mood dropping. I started to feel tired, unmotivated and sad. And I was lighting lots of candles. I was seeking light.

I checked in with myself and wasn’t able to pinpoint anything specifically I was sad about. And then I remembered; I experience in the winter when there’s a lack of sunshine.

Seasonal Affective Disorder, SAD is associated with winter, but prolonged stretches of rain and lack of sunlight can affect us in the summertime too. This is called “Summer-pattern SAD”.

This can feel especially confusing because summer carries so many expectations of lightness, energy, connection, movement, and play .

The nervous system responds to light, rhythm, nature, and environment more than we realize. When the skies stay dark for days, you may notice yourself feeling more tired, emotionally tender, foggy, unmotivated, restless, or heavy.

Sometimes this is deeper depression. Sometimes it’s burnout, grief, nervous system depletion, or accumulated stress becoming more noticeable in quieter weather. And sometimes it really is as simple as: your body misses the sun.

I also think sensitive people, creatives, intuitive people, and those recovering from chronic stress often feel weather shifts more deeply than others.

What helps is less about forcing yourself to “push through” and more about intentionally creating small pockets of warmth and aliveness:

🔹opening the curtains
🔹go outside during breaks in the rain,
🔹moving your body
🔹light candles,
🔹bring flowers indoors
🔹staying connected to people who nourish you
🌈and seeking rainbows when the sun reappears.

05/22/2026

There’s a kind of loneliness that can happen inside relationships that look “normal” from the outside but leave you feeling like something’s missing.
 
There may be time spent, history, holiday gatherings, phone calls, shared memories, or roles that have been in place for years, including yours.
 
And yet, after you spend time with certain people, you may feel sad, tired, confused, or strangely alone.
 
This can be so confusing because nothing obvious may have happened. No big fight or dramatic disagreement. No one necessarily did anything that would be easy to explain.

It’s confusing!
 
But something in you still knows si@etching is missing.

There may have been very little curiosity about your inner world or what the psychological realm calls emotional attunement.
 
If you grew up with childhood emotional neglect, CEN, this can feel especially familiar. People may have been around, and things may have looked fine, but your feelings and needs were not really known or tended to in a deep way.
 
So you may have learned to question yourself instead.
 
A part of you may try to make sense of it by offering g you these thoughts;
Maybe I’m expecting too much or I’m 
too sensitive as I’ve been told.
I shouldbe grateful.
This is just how they are.
 
IFS therapy can help you slow this down and listen to the parts of you that doubt yourself, over-explain, people-please, or keep reaching for connection where there may not be much coming back.
 
This inner work isn’t about blaming anyone, it’s getting to know what YOU feel and then becoming your own best advocate and caregiver. 
 
It is about finally noticing what happens inside of you when connection is surface, inconsistent, or missing altogether.
 
Your confusion may be trying to tell you something very important. 

If this is something you’re sitting with, IFS therapy can help you understand the parts of you that keep doubting, hoping, over-giving, or blaming yourself and help you come back to your own inner knowing with clarity.  I have a few opening for IFS therapy in GA, link above 🫶

05/18/2026

Pets know.

Yesterday I wasn’t feeling well, and both of my cats seemed to know. They curled up close to me and stayed nearby in that quiet, comforting way animals have.

That’s attunement.

Attunement is the ability to sense and respond to another being’s emotional or physical state with presence, sensitivity, and care. It’s not about fixing anything. It’s about simply being with.

Our pets do this so naturally. They notice when our energy shifts, when we slow down, when something feels different. And often, they respond by coming closer, settling in, and offering their steady presence.

Yesterday, my cats didn’t need to know exactly what was wrong. They simply tuned in and stayed close.

It reminded me how much our animals give us through their presence, and why losing them can feel so deep. We don’t just miss their bodies in our homes. We miss the way they knew us.

05/16/2026

Just in case you need a reminder; you’re right on time. Just BE right, where you are.

05/14/2026

When you stop carrying the connection, things may get very quiet.

And at first, that quiet can feel unsettling .

A part of you may feel guilty.

You may wonder if you should text first, check in, make the plan, ask how they are, listen again, soften the silence, or make sure everything is okay.

Because for a long time, you may have been the one who kept the relationship alive.

The one who remembered.The one who reached.The one who listened.The one who adjusted.The one who made it easy and convenient for other people to stay connected to you.

So when you stop doing all the reaching, it can feel uncomfortable.

But sometimes the quiet is information.

Sometimes it shows you which relationships were mutual and which ones were mostly held together by your availability, your effort, your emotional labor, and your willingness to keep showing up without being truly met.

That kind of clarity can bring grief.

But it can also bring relief.

Because when you stop carrying what was never fully yours to carry, your energy begins to return.

You begin to notice the difference between being loved and being needed.

A relationship built only on your giving is not intimacy.It’s a transaction dressed up as connection.

You are allowed to stop disappearing in order to keep people close.

You don’t have to self abandon or self sacrifice in order to have healthy relationships. And it starts with the relationship with yourself.

I help clients get to know the parts of them that are overly focused on others so they can live their life instead of the life of those around them.

link above 🫶

05/13/2026

Over functioning in relationships can become a quiet exhaustion.

If this is you, read on as hope is on the horizon should you choose to see it for what it is.

Overfunctioning doesn’t always look like managing everything.

Sometimes it looks like being the one who keeps the relationship breathing.

The one who texts first, remembers birthdays, checks in after their hard day, listens with full attention.The one who makes the plan, adjusts the plan, and reassures everyone about the plan.

You may tell yourself, “I’m just thoughtful.”

And you probably are.

But there is a difference between being thoughtful and becoming responsible for the entire emotional life of a relationship.

When you are always the one reaching, soothing, planning, initiating, listening, and responding, the relationship can start to feel less mutual.

For many overfunctioners, this pattern began early. A part of you may have learned that being useful, available, pleasing, or emotionally attuned was how you stayed safe or stayed connected.

So now, even as an adult, you may keep proving your worth through effort.

However, care that requires you to disappear is not intimacy.

A gentle question:

Where are you doing all the reaching and calling it connection?

If you’re ready to shift out of this pattern and become available to yourself and others who truly desire to connect with you I’m available for in- depth IFS therapy in GA, link above 🫶

05/11/2026

Take inventory of the relationships in your life.

Where are you over-functioning?
Where are you carrying the connection, making the effort, checking in, adjusting, accommodating?

Sometimes parts of us are afraid to pull back because over-giving was how we learned to stay connected. It may have been how we felt needed, included, or safe.

So of course it can feel scary to stop.

However, when you begin to step back, you get clearer. You start to see who naturally moves toward you, who is able to meet you, and where your energy actually feels nourishing instead of draining.

And something else can happen too:
you make room to notice people who can show up.

When we’re locked into old patterns of chasing, proving, or over-giving, we may miss the relationships that are waiting to be more mutual.

You don’t have to close your heart.
You just get to stop abandoning yourself to keep a connection alive.

05/06/2026

Before I knew the language of grief, they taught me the language of love and connection.

I arrived here in love with animals and even insects! The phrase she wouldn’t hurt to fly applies to me. And yes, I es**rt bugs out of my house 🐜

my pet last book is taking me a while to write as it’s a very heartfelt journey to go on and writing about. Grief is not a light subject. The intention I have for my book is for it to be a caring companion with the loss of a beloved pet.

Sometimes we feel more for a pet than we do for people and I’ll be sharing what this means in one of my chapters. It’s the most common question I get.

💗😻🐕‍🦺🐶🐾

04/25/2026