A reflection on the moments that remind us we no longer fit where we once belonged
There are moments in a healing journey that arrive like small flashes. Brief memories that surface without warning. They come as reminders; markers of how far we’ve traveled and how deeply our consciousness has shifted.
One of those memories came to me on a recent morning.
I remembered a short-term relationship from a few years ago, back when I was still figuring out who I was and what I deserved. The reminder was how I elevated certain parts of myself to appeal to someone who was never truly aligned with me. A performance I had unconsciously perfected over decades of tucking parts of myself away to fit into rooms where I didn’t belong.
When that memory resurfaced today, I didn’t feel it negatively. It was clarifying.
It reminded me of an old version of myself. The one who dimmed and softened her presence to make others comfortable. One who thought belonging was something you earned by bending. One who feared that being fully herself might cost her connection.
Over the past few years, I’ve been untucking layers I once kept hidden and stepping into circles of people who are truly doing their own work. Not just dabbling, pretending, or quoting a book they skimmed, but genuinely engaging in transformation. Once you experience that level of authenticity, you notice the difference everywhere.
Suddenly, you notice the rooms where your spirit shrinks. The conversations that overwhelm you.
The groups where you diminish without even realizing it. The relationships that drag you back into an old version of yourself.
And when you feel that shift, you can no longer force yourself to stay.
This is what it means to walk out of a room, not in a dramatic way, but with quiet honesty.
You walk out of a room when you notice you're dimming again or old patterns of performance begin to reappear. You walk out when the cost of belonging is sacrificing authenticity, and staying requires the old version of you, the one you’ve already untucked
Sometimes that room represents a relationship.
Sometimes it’s a friendship.
Sometimes it’s a family dynamic or a social circle you’ve outgrown long ago. Sometimes it’s just an internal pattern, a space created by your own fear or habit.
Leaving isn’t failure; it’s growth.
As we grow in awareness, we begin to see with clearer eyes. Energies that once felt familiar now seem heavy. Places where we once belonged now feel cramped. We tend to gravitate toward people who are also untucking, where connection feels genuine.
At first this can feel disorienting, lonely and even make you question if you’re on the right path. But you cannot ignore the gift of healing. You are different in the best way. More aware, more yourself, more connected to your spirit. 
So today’s memory arrived exactly on time.
Not to pull me backward, but to show me the distance between then and now.
It reminded me that I no longer walk into rooms to fit in. I walk into them to belong.
And if belonging means I have to shrink, I now know how to gently and gracefully walk out.
Because sometimes the most sacred act of self-love is recognizing when the room is too small for who you’ve become.

This past weekend, while hiking with my friend Donna, we found ourselves, as usual, slipping effortlessly into a deep conversation that only certain friendships carry. The kind that bypasses small talk. The kind that feels more like prayer. We weren’t trying to talk about healing or God or the past, but somehow the Holy Spirit rose naturally between us, as if pulled into the open air by our shared intention to live truthfully.
Donna said something that landed in my heart with such clarity:
“Call on the Holy Spirit to heal the parts still tucked away.”
I felt immediately how right it was.
For all the work I’ve done, all the untucking, all the years of peeling back layers and returning to myself, I can sense there may still be small corners inside me that remain unreachable by my own effort. Not out of fear of what's there, but out of habit. Some remnants need more than my willingness; they need Grace.
The next morning, under a dark sky just beginning to soften at the edges, I felt that truth again. The moon hung like a blessing, the kind that makes you remember your size in the best possible way. Not insignificant, but lovingly held within something vast and holy.
I prayed to the Trinity, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, and realized how deeply each presence has been woven into this season of my life. The Father’s vastness is holding me. The Son’s companionship walking beside me. The Spirit’s quiet work rising in the spaces I cannot reach.
And I knew:
I am never meant to do this alone.
The Spirit moves differently than the effort I’ve made. It moves gently and goes where I cannot. It heals what I cannot force open.
Walking with Donna reminded me of this. Some friendships are sacraments, visible signs of invisible grace. When she speaks, something in me recognizes the truth not because it’s new, but because the Spirit inside me has already whispered it.
This reflection feels like a final offering before I release Untucked into the world. A seal of approval and a blessing from the Divine. A recognition that the journey of becoming untucked isn't about perfection, it’s about surrender. It’s about letting the Spirit tend to what remains, softening the last edges with love.
If I’ve learned anything in this season, it’s this:
Call upon the Holy Spirit.
Let grace finish what effort began.
And trust that healing is a partnership.

It’s Friday, and I can feel the relief settling into my bones. My mind was awake early. This week has been long, beautiful in its own way, but long. By the end of it, I will have sat with over fifty people, listening to their concerns, fears, and hopes. And today is another full day of appointments. It’s a lot to hold, and I think that’s why I’m a little emotional this morning. Maybe more than a little.
As I sit with my journal and prayers, a question comes to mind: What parts of my life do I still need to get right with? My past. My fears. My judgments. My humanness.
Can I truly say I’m living as my authentic self if there are still parts of me tucked away asking to be seen and healed?
I find myself asking God to validate where He wants me to serve. Is it my book? Is it my work? Is there something else? Or is it already happening quietly, one person at a time, in ways I haven't fully recognized yet?
I am reminded of the message whispered to me on the Camino: bridge the gap.
I still don’t fully understand what that means, but I feel it stirring again. It seems like an invitation to non-dual thinking and a faith that gently embraces paradox.
So this morning, I ask God to sit with me during my contemplation.
To speak in the quiet ways He always has.
And to help me understand, not just with my mind, but with my whole being.
Even in my exhaustion, even in my questions, I trust that He will.

​It’s Sunday morning, and I’m looking out the window at the valley below. My townhome sits about 950 feet above the neighborhood, and this time of year, the trees are painted in every shade of red and gold. The sunrise is small today, tucked behind soft gray clouds, but it’s still beautiful. It always is. Even in winter, when the branches are bare, this view fills me with gratitude.
Every time I sit here, I reflect on how everything aligned perfectly for me to find this space. I think about my family, this year’s Camino hike, finishing my book, and how my life has become more fulfilling. And I realize that much of it has come together because I’m single.
If I had a partner, this year would have been completely different. Maybe it would have been better, maybe not. I’ll never know. But I do know that I wouldn’t trade this peace for anything.
I spent twenty-five years riding the rollercoaster of someone else’s mental and emotional instability. And if I’m truly honest with myself, it has taken the better part of the past six years to heal from it.
The first section of my book, Untucked, is devoted to stillness and the peace I’ve found in that stillness. It’s become a necessary part of my life. So, at times, I wonder what it would be like to share these quiet mornings with someone.
Looking back at the men I’ve met and dated, I realize how much I’ve learned about relationships and myself. Men, at least those I’ve encountered, seem to struggle with stillness and peace. They feel compelled to fill the silence I’ve come to cherish.
If this were a lighthearted post, I could joke about the memes celebrating single life surrounded by my stuff, my space, and my peace. But honestly, I’m just thinking about what it would really be like to share my life with someone again.
There’s a strange tension between wanting companionship and refusing to sacrifice myself to have it. I see women who are joyfully single and others who stay in relationships, giving up parts of themselves to avoid being alone.
I feel more whole and complete than I ever have in my life. And when people tell me I’m “a catch” or ask why I’m still single, I no longer take it as an insult. I one-hundred percent believe it will take someone very special to meet me where I am and for me to meet them where they are. And I’m willing to wait.
I believe God still has someone for me, but I’m in no rush. I’ve learned that love should never cost you your peace.
For now, I’ll keep enjoying my view, watching the seasons change, and giving thanks for a life that finally feels like mine.

Gratitude for the Seasons of Life
November 8th, 2025, 6:46 am
Thank you God, for this morning
for the beauty of the fall colors,
for the mind that allows me to see the beauty of nature,
the changing of the seasons,
and the changing of human nature.
I see such purity when I sit and look at the beautiful view You’ve allowed me to have from my home.
And I realize not everyone has this opportunity.
For that I am grateful
When I think of my own journey,
of the seasons of my life,
I am grateful for each one
for every change, every situation,
every sunrise and sunset,
every storm and wind that has battered me.
I am grateful for rebirth and for death,
for the shedding,
for the changing,
for the purpose and the growth.
I am grateful for the seasons of life
the brightness and the dullness,
the warmth and the coolness.
As I look out the window and see green, orange, red
clouds and sun
I am in awe of it all.
And I am grateful to be part of that nature,
to remember that for fifty-five years
this skin and these bones have carried me through my life.
That every day, my heart has been beating
without any effort from me
simply living inside me for fifty-five years.
What a miracle that is.
And I am truly full of gratitude and grace.

This morning, gratitude found me as I felt a deep connection with my youngest self, cultivated over the last few years of Untucking. The little girl who existed before the world’s conditions and influences began shaping her. The one who had a voice and moved through life guided by pure curiosity and wonder, and a little bit of SASS.
It’s a sacred thing to return to that version of ourselves. To connect to the Divine blueprint we entered the world with, before the beliefs, fears, and expectations of others molded us.
From the moment we are born, we start absorbing the world around us. We are influenced, for good reasons, by the adults who raise us, their values, their wounds, their ways of navigating life. We are shaped by the rules and structure of education, by religion, by culture, and by the invisible systems that tell us what’s right, what’s wrong, what’s beautiful, and what’s acceptable.
Even the strongest-minded among us are not immune to influence. Over time, those influences begin to dictate who we think we should be. Somewhere along the way, many of us start tucking away the parts of ourselves that don’t fit neatly into the structure or the story we were given.
As I look at the world we live in, I see influence everywhere, stronger and louder than ever. Social media has become a kind of mirror, reflecting back whatever we seek. If we expose ourselves to fear, it feeds us fear. If we search for beauty, we find beauty. But either way, it is shaping us. Every click, every scroll, every comparison speaks into our becoming.
And it makes me wonder how much of who we are today was truly born of our own soul’s wisdom, and how much was borrowed from someone else’s influence?
As I sit with that, I find myself drawn back to the innocence of that young girl untouched by conditioning. The one God made with sacred contracts written on her heart. Before the tucking.
Maybe the spiritual work of adulthood is to return to the child who already knew who she was before the world told her otherwise.
So I offer a few questions as invitations to reflect:
Who were you before the world began shaping you?
What is your earliest memory of feeling completely free to be yourself?
When did you first learn to tuck away a part of who you were to belong?
Whose beliefs or fears have you carried that were never yours to hold?
What would it look like to return to the sacred contract God placed in your soul?
I’m convinced the journey isn’t about becoming someone new but about remembering who you were all along. The one made in Divine image, whole and untucked.
 

November 5th, 2025
This morning, I was thinking about the practice of non-attachment. At the end of my prayers, after reciting Jeremiah 29:11, I always say, “If it is meant for me, it will not pass me by.”
Piggybacking on the November 5th reading from The Book of Awakening, the passage spoke about plans versus planning, and how easily we get caught up in the planning itself.
I think about times when I’ve truly released attachment to the outcome. The first thing that came to mind was my Camino. That journey lived in my heart long before it ever happened. I had researched what it would take, but I wasn’t fixated on making it happen. I just knew, deep down, that one day it would. And when it did, it unfolded almost effortlessly through a series of connections that felt divinely orchestrated.
Even while walking the Camino, though I had prepared physically through training, building endurance, choosing the right gear, the journey itself was only ever about one thing: one foot in front of the other. That was all I could control. Everything else, the thoughts that came, the peace that filled my mind, felt guided by something beyond me. For someone like me, who tends to analyze and overthink, it was astonishing how clear and quiet my mind became. That’s the beauty of non-attachment.
Lately, I feel that same detachment from my book. I’m proud of it, deeply proud, but I’m not attached to who reads it or how far it spreads. I trust that God will guide it to where it’s meant to go. I’ve done my part in writing it; now it’s about staying open and responsive to divine guidance, not forcing or overplanning.
I don’t want to be like the fisherman who prepares endlessly but never casts the line. I’m learning to let each day show me what’s mine to do. Especially now, as the year winds down, I feel peace in simply doing what I can and trusting the rest to unfold in God’s time.
There’s a quiet strength that comes from releasing control and choosing trust. When we stop gripping life so tightly, our hands are open enough to receive what’s truly meant for us. I’m reminded again that surrender isn’t giving up, it’s giving over. To divine timing. To grace. To the mysterious unfolding of our lives.

​I notice an interesting shift as I think about change and uncertainty. Instead of reacting, I pause to listen to the deeper current moving underneath the surface. In the stillness, I mostly feel this shift physically. Isn’t that interesting? There’s wisdom in this kind of stillness, the kind that comes from years of learning to trust the process before the next step becomes clear.
I can feel how much I’ve grown. I’m not rushing to fix or understand everything. I’m approaching this with curiosity instead of fear. I’ve learned to recognize the difference between my true self and the survival roles I once played. The helper in me no longer needs to please everyone to feel loved. The achiever no longer depends on validation to feel worthy.
Lately, I’ve been reflecting on how each challenge presents an invitation to “break open.” When we are broken open by experience, there is always a tender, sacred place where we can touch God. Maybe that’s what this season is offering, not an ending, but an opening.
My daily spiritual practice keeps me anchored in that truth. It reminds me that life moves in rhythms and seasons, and each transition has its own purpose. Sometimes the stirring we feel is simply making space for what wants to emerge next.
My book, Untucked, feels like part of that unfolding. A vessel for healing, not just for me but for others who are standing at their own thresholds. I no longer want to bridge from people-pleasing but from authenticity, from a heart that has learned connection through its own breaking open.
I’m trusting the quiet knowing that continues to guide me. It’s whispering that this is not a time of loss, but of transformation. The same strength that once helped me survive is now being reshaped into creation.
When I listen deeply to my heart, I don’t need to force or control anything. I can let go of how I think things “should” be and allow what’s meant to unfold to unfold with grace and gratitude.
This journey from performance to presence, from survival to true living, is the sacred work of becoming.

The Curator of Masks
I was the curator of a very unique museum
A museum of masks and armors,
displayed in glass cases for all to see,
each crafted with meticulous care.
The People Pleaser, gilded in eternal smiles.
The Achiever, brandished with gold stars.
The Good Girl, pristine porcelain.
The Armor of Strength, burnished with survival.
Visitors praised my collection,
never knowing how each mask
carved deeper grooves into my face,
or how heavy my body grew
under the perfectly protective armor.
Until I noticed a crack
in the People Pleaser’s smile
A fracture of truth.
The Achiever’s star began to tarnish,
The Good Girl’s porcelain chipped.
I stood amid the familiar weight,
watching years of careful curation
CRUMBLE
And in the empty space
where masks once hung,
I saw my reflection in the glass
Raw, unadorned, and magnificent.
Now I run a different museum,
one with a single exhibit:
A woman who wears her truth,
who knows the difference
between display and dignity,
who refuses to hide behind
anyone else’s idea
of who she should be.
The admission is free
but not everyone is ready
for this kind of art.

This morning, I wrote a question in my journal:
What have I risked to live my truth?
At first, I didn’t know how to answer.
But as I sat with it, I realized, it feels like I’ve risked everything.
Vulnerability. Isolation.
Misunderstanding. Safety.
Loss of what I believed I knew.
And yet, when I look at that list, I see how temporary those losses were.
They stripped me down, yes, but they also upgraded me.
Because in releasing what wasn’t truly mine,
I found something far more sacred: peace.
For years, I stayed stuck in the lies I told myself,
that I was fine,
that I could handle it,
that this was just how life was supposed to feel.
Those lies became a kind of comfort.
They wrapped around me like a familiar blanket,
even as they suffocated my spirit.
It’s astonishing how long we can live inside our own stories,
believing that staying small will keep us safe.
But safety isn’t the same as peace.
And pretending isn’t living.
When we finally risk telling ourselves the truth,
even when it shakes the ground beneath us,
we open the door to everything that’s real.
The truth will cost you your illusions,
but it will give you yourself in return.