My Spirit

‘Family is everything' sounds like love, but sometimes it becomes a rule that keeps us tied to relationships that cost us our peace. A personal essay on estrangement, guilt, and loyalty, and the painful freedom of learning that love can matter deeply without requiring you to erase yourself to keep it.

Solitude and loneliness are not the same. Learn how to tell the difference between restorative alone time and isolation that may be affecting your emotional and physical health.

The body does not respond only to events. It also responds to the meanings we assign to them — especially when those meanings are inaccurate, exaggerated, or incomplete. This is not a piece about positive thinking. The point is more precise: the body responds not only to what is happening, but also to how accurately we interpret what is happening. Accurate thinking allows reality to be serious without allowing imagination to become evidence.

Every April we tell children the rules: say no, tell a trusted adult, don't keep secrets. The rules are necessary. They are also incomplete. Here's what's missing.

For decades we've given children rules: don't talk to strangers, say no, never keep secrets. These rules are useful — and insufficient.

“Buried feelings don’t disappear. They accumulate, pressurize, and eventually leak out through rage, numbness, or addiction.”