Tag: mental-health
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The Courage to Be Seen
Vulnerability is one of those things we talk about like it’s beautiful and inspiring — which it is —but let’s tell the truth: In the beginning, vulnerability feels terrifying. Unnatural. Unsafe. For those of us who grew up in chaos, survived trauma, lived in addiction, or spent years using masks to survive, vulnerability isn’t just…
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Building a Life You Don’t Need to Escape From
There’s a moment in recovery — sometimes early, sometimes much later — when you realize something shocking: Sobriety and recovery are not the same thing. Sobriety is about stopping the behavior.Recovery is about rebuilding the person. Sobriety removes the substance.Recovery restores your soul. Sobriety is the doorway.Recovery is the home you build once you’ve walked…
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Learning to Live in Your Skin
One of the strangest parts of recovery — the part I didn’t expect — was how hard it would be to feel safe inside my own body. For so long, I lived completely disconnected from myself.Disconnected from my emotions.Disconnected from my intuition.Disconnected from the sensations that warned me something was wrong or tried to tell…
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Choosing Hope When Hope Feels Hard
Let’s be honest:Hope is not always the easy choice.Peace isn’t always comfortable.And abundance — the real, grounded, spiritual kind — can feel terrifying when you’ve spent most of your life living in chaos. People don’t talk about this enough. We like to imagine that the moment we get sober or start healing, we suddenly feel…
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The Ripple Effect of Healing
One of the most beautiful, humbling things about recovery is realizing that healing doesn’t stop with you.It ripples outward — touching your family, your friendships, your work, your community — everything. When I first stepped into recovery, I didn’t know that was possible. I couldn’t even imagine it. My world felt small and chaotic, like…
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Rebuilding Trust (With Yourself First)
One of the quietest, slowest, and most humbling parts of recovery is rebuilding trust.Not just with the people we hurt — but with ourselves. For me, this was one of the hardest realities to face. I didn’t trust myself for a long time.How could I?I had broken promise after promise.I had sworn to myself, “This…
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Living With Integrity
If there is one thing recovery has forced me to confront head-on, it’s this:Living with integrity is hard — but it’s also unbelievably freeing. For most of my life, honesty wasn’t my default. Not because I wanted to be deceptive or manipulative, but because lies felt like survival. Every truth felt like a threat. Every…
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The Power of Daily Practices
If recovery has taught me anything, it’s this:our lives are shaped far more by the small things we do every day than the big things we do once in a while. We love to romanticize breakthrough moments — the dramatic turning points, the rock-bottom awakenings, the big spiritual revelations. And those moments matter, of course.…
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The Gift of Joy
For a long time, joy felt like something reserved for other people.People who hadn’t made a mess of their lives.People who didn’t carry around shame like a weighted blanket.People who didn’t wake up every day wondering how they were going to survive themselves. Addiction stole a lot from me — time, relationships, trust, integrity —…
Radiant Redemption 