“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” ~Rumi
I’ve spent most of my adult life helping people heal.
I’m a podiatrist, a foot and ankle surgeon, and I’ve seen pain in many forms. Torn ligaments. Crushed bones. Wounds that just won’t close. But if I’m being honest, the deepest wounds I’ve encountered weren’t the ones I treated in my clinic. They were the invisible ones, the ones that patients carried silently, and the ones I had unknowingly been carrying myself.
I used to think healing was straightforward. Diagnose. Treat. Follow up. Recover.
That made sense to me. That’s how I was trained. But life and people are rarely that neat.
Years ago, I was treating a woman in her mid-sixties with chronic foot ulcers from diabetes. Medically, we were doing everything right. The right dressings, offloading, antibiotics, regular check-ups. But her wounds weren’t healing. I couldn’t understand why. I grew frustrated. I started questioning my treatment plan. I blamed myself.
Then one day, she said softly, “Sometimes I don’t even want them to heal.”
She wasn’t being difficult. She was being honest.
Her husband had passed, she lived alone, and these appointments were one of the few times someone checked in on her, looked her in the eye, and asked how she was. Her wounds gave her a reason to be seen.
That stopped me in my tracks.
I realized I had been treating her foot, but I wasn’t seeing her, not fully. I was missing the emotional story behind the physical wound. And in doing so, I was also missing something in myself.
I had always prided myself on being composed, efficient, capable. Residency had trained me to push through fatigue, stress, and long hours. It rewarded perfectionism and punished vulnerability. So I wore my resilience like armor.
But under that armor, I was tired. I was emotionally dry. I felt disconnected from the very thing that made me want to become a doctor in the first place: the human connection.
It wasn’t until I saw the pain beneath my patients’ stories—grief, loneliness, shame, fear—that I started to acknowledge the pain I was carrying too.
Not physical pain. Not burnout in the textbook sense. But something softer and harder to name: an unspoken ache to feel more whole.
I’ve had patients apologize to me through tears for “wasting my time,” as if their suffering wasn’t worth attention. I’ve had patients tell me stories of trauma that had nothing to do with their feet but everything to do with why they weren’t healing.
I started listening more. I stopped rushing. I began asking, “How are you, really?” And slowly, as I created space for others to be vulnerable, I began to offer that space to myself too.
I started journaling again. I made peace with taking time off. I reconnected with friends I had been “too busy” to call. I spoke to a therapist, not because I was in a crisis, but because I was curious about the parts of myself I had ignored for too long.
Healing, I learned, isn’t always about fixing what’s broken. Sometimes, it’s about acknowledging what hurts, even if there’s no clear diagnosis.
In medical school, we’re trained to be experts. To have answers. To guide.
But healing, real healing, doesn’t always happen in the exam room. Sometimes it happens in a quiet moment of shared understanding, when two human beings drop their roles and just see each other.
I’ve stopped pretending I have it all together. I’ve started being more honest with myself and with others. My patients sense that, and I think they trust me more because of it. Not because I’m perfect, but because I’m real.
What Have I’ve Learned?
Healing isn’t linear. Neither is growth. People don’t just want to be fixed. They want to be seen.
Pain isn’t always physical. And sometimes the deepest wounds are the quietest.
Presence heals more than performance.
I don’t think I’ll ever stop learning how to be human. But I’m grateful my patients have given me the space to try, not just as their doctor but as a fellow traveler on the road to healing.
Dr. Rizwan Tai is a Houston-based podiatrist and former Chief Resident at UT Health San Antonio. He’s passionate about the human side of healing both for patients and providers. When he’s not in clinic, Rizwan enjoys reflective writing, long walks, and conversations that go beyond surface level. Visit him at vitalpodiatry.com.
“We don’t inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children.” ~Native American Proverb
For years, I blamed my parents for my anxiety, my defensiveness, and my need to be right. Then I learned they inherited the same patterns from their parents. And theirs before them.
This wasn’t about blame. It was about breaking a cycle nobody chose.
The Stutter That Taught Me Everything
As a teenager, I developed a stutter. Not just occasional hesitation—paralyzing anxiety about speaking.
I’d anticipate making mistakes when reading aloud. Starting conversations felt like walking through a minefield. The fear of stuttering made me stutter more—a cruel self-fulfilling prophecy.
In college, studying psychology, I discovered something liberating. The anxiety about stuttering was causing the stuttering.
Once I learned to relax, breathe deeply, and stop anticipating errors, the stutter disappeared. Years later, I successfully presented high-stakes business proposals to executives. Not a single stumble.
I thought I’d conquered a personal flaw through willpower and technique. I was wrong.
The Discovery That Changed Everything
During college, I learned my father’s story. As a child, he had a lisp.
His father—my grandfather—thought it was hilarious. He’d make my dad recite tongue-twisters in front of family and friends. Highlighting his speech impediment for entertainment.
That cruel mockery created anxiety. That anxiety transmitted to me.
Different manifestation—stuttering instead of a lisp. Same underlying pattern: fear of speaking, anticipation of judgment, dread of being heard.
The medical field claims stuttering is genetic. But no gene has been identified. What I inherited wasn’t DNA. It was learned behavior.
My father’s anxiety about speaking became my anxiety about speaking. Not through genetics. Through observation, absorption, and unconscious imitation.
This realization brought us closer. We worked together in the family business after college.
Understanding this generational pattern created compassion between us before he died.
We Learn Who We Are from Birth
We begin learning emotional responses from our first breath. Our parents are our first teachers—not by choice, but by proximity.
We watch how they handle stress. Whether they express emotions or suppress them. How they react to criticism, disappointment, conflict.
These aren’t conscious lessons. Nobody sits down and says, “Today I’ll teach you anxiety.” We absorb patterns the way we absorb language. Through immersion.
Attachment theory tells us early bonds shape how we relate to others throughout life. If our caregivers were emotionally unavailable, we learned that seeking connection leads to disappointment. If they were unpredictable, we learned to stay vigilant, always watching for mood shifts.
These patterns feel normal because they’re all we’ve known. Like growing up in a house where everyone speaks softly—you don’t realize you’re whispering until you visit a family that talks at normal volume.
The Patterns We Inherit Without Knowing
I’ve spent twenty years in change management, helping organizations break dysfunctional patterns. The same patterns that cripple organizations cripple families. They transmit across generations like a computer virus copying itself onto new systems.
Anxiety and self-doubt.
Your parent worried constantly. Now you do too. You scan for danger even when there is none.
Perfectionism.
Nothing you did was quite good enough growing up. Now you drive yourself relentlessly. And criticize yourself harshly when you fall short.
Conflict avoidance.
Arguments in your house were scary—shouting, door-slamming, silent treatments. Now you’d rather suffer in silence than risk confrontation.
Emotional unavailability.
Your parents didn’t know how to talk about feelings. Now you don’t either. You change the subject when conversations get deep.
Boundary struggles.
You were told, “Family has no boundaries. We share everything.” Now you can’t say no. You feel guilty prioritizing your own needs.
These aren’t character flaws. They’re learned responses to the environment you grew up in.
And what you learned, you can unlearn.
Why Blame Keeps You Stuck
When I first understood my stuttering came from my father’s anxiety, I was angry. Why didn’t he fix himself before having kids? Why did he pass his damage to me?
Then I learned about his father’s cruelty. And I had to ask: was my father supposed to heal trauma he didn’t even recognize?
Blame requires someone else to change. But you can only change yourself.
Resentment hurts you more than them. It’s like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.
Here’s the paradox: you can’t heal what you won’t acknowledge. But you can’t move forward while blaming.
The shift that changes everything: “This isn’t my fault. But it is my responsibility.”
Your parents couldn’t teach what they never learned. They did their best with what they inherited. Understanding that doesn’t excuse harmful behavior. But it creates space for compassion.
And compassion—for them and for yourself—is where healing begins.
The Pattern Recognition Practice
Change starts with awareness. You can’t interrupt a pattern you don’t recognize.
Here’s how to begin.
Identify inherited behaviors.
Ask yourself: What behaviors did I watch growing up? When do I sound like my parents—even when I swore I wouldn’t? What struggles did they have that I now face? For me, it was the anxiety about speaking. The anticipation of failure. The internal critic that said, “You’ll mess this up.”
Understand the committee in your head.
Those critical voices aren’t yours. They’re recordings of other people’s voices—parents, teachers, bullies, authority figures.
My internal voice said, “You’re going to stutter. Everyone will notice. They’ll think you’re stupid.”
That wasn’t me. That was fear I learned.
Catch yourself mid-pattern.
Awareness itself is the intervention.
When I felt anxiety rising before speaking, I’d pause. Notice the feeling. Name it: “This is the inherited pattern.”
Then breathe. Deeply. Three slow breaths.
That pause—between trigger and response—is where freedom lives.
Choose a different response.
You don’t have to react the way you’ve always reacted.
Instead of avoiding speaking situations, I deliberately practiced. Small presentations at work. Reading aloud to my son. Each time, focusing on breathing rather than anticipating errors.
The pattern weakened. The new response strengthened.
Just as you learned these patterns, you can unlearn them. With focus, time, and awareness.
The Gift You Give Yourself—and Your Children
Breaking inherited patterns isn’t just about healing your past. It’s about transforming your future.
Every time you interrupt an automatic response, you break the generational chain. You stop transmitting that pattern to your children.
My son doesn’t have speech anxiety. Because I didn’t model it for him. The cycle broke with me.
That’s the most profound gift: stopping the transmission.
You can’t change your parents. You can’t erase your past. But you can choose different patterns moving forward.
When my father and I worked together, understanding these patterns created a bridge between us. I stopped resenting him for what he couldn’t give. He stopped feeling guilty about what he’d passed down.
We both recognized we were doing our best with what we inherited. And we could do better for the next generation.
He’s gone now. But that understanding—that compassion—was healing for both of us.
Where Healing Begins
Your poor self-image isn’t your fault. Your anxiety, your perfectionism, your difficulty with boundaries—none of it is a character flaw.
These are learned behaviors. Inherited patterns. The emotional equivalent of your grandmother’s china—passed down through generations without anyone questioning whether you actually wanted it.
You didn’t choose these patterns. But you can choose what to do with them now.
Recognition is the first step. Not to assign blame, but to understand the mechanism.
Then comes practice. Catching yourself mid-pattern. Pausing. Breathing. Choosing a different response.
It won’t be perfect. You’ll slip back into old patterns. That’s normal. Progress, not perfection.
But over time, the inherited patterns weaken. Your conscious choices strengthen.
And one day, you realize that critical voice is quieter. That anxiety is manageable. That automatic reaction doesn’t feel so automatic anymore.
You’ve broken the cycle.
Start Today
Choose one inherited pattern you recognize. Just one.
This week, notice when it shows up. Don’t try to fix it yet. Just notice.
“There’s the perfectionism.”
“There’s the conflict avoidance.”
“There’s the need for approval.”
Awareness is where change begins.
These patterns took years to develop. They won’t disappear overnight. But they will change. Because they’re learned behaviors. And what you learned, you can unlearn.
Your struggles aren’t character flaws. They’re inherited patterns. And patterns can change.
Mike Palm is a change management consultant with over 20 years leading transformation across 60 corporations. After discovering his stuttering was inherited anxiety from his father—who inherited it from his grandfather—he developed frameworks for breaking generational patterns. He leads a nonprofit supporting 12-step programs and is the author of The Legacy of Emotionally Immature Parents. Learn more here.
“Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.” ~Stephen R. Covey
I used to think running a barbershop was all about haircuts, schedules, and keeping clients happy. I measured success by the number of chairs filled, how quickly we moved through the day, and whether everything ran smoothly. Efficiency felt like the most important thing.
Then one afternoon, a moment with a customer changed everything.
Mr. Hicks, a regular, came in looking unusually quiet. He slumped in my chair, barely making eye contact, and gave only short, mumbled answers when I tried to make small talk. Normally, I would have filled the silence, tried to keep him talking, or offered advice. But that day, I paused. I simply listened. I let him sit in silence as I worked, resisting the urge to speak unnecessarily or try to “fix” anything.
Minutes later, he began to share struggles he had been carrying for months—tensions at work, family challenges, the weight of constant exhaustion. By the time I finished his haircut, he looked lighter, calmer, almost relieved.
I realized I hadn’t needed to give advice. I hadn’t needed to solve his problems. I had only given him my attention. That day, I learned a lesson I carry with me every time I sit behind the barber chair: listening is a gift, patience is a practice, and presence can heal in ways words sometimes cannot.
This lesson didn’t just apply to Mr. Hicks. Over time, I began noticing similar moments with other clients, apprentices, and even friends and family.
A young apprentice, struggling to perfect his techniques, came in one morning looking defeated. Instead of correcting him immediately, I stepped back, watched, and let him try on his own. When he finally turned to me for guidance, the lesson became his own. The joy on his face was more rewarding than any praise I could have offered.
I’ve come to understand that patience isn’t just about waiting. It’s about presence. It’s about fully engaging in the moment, without rushing to the next task. In a barbershop, it’s easy to feel pressured—clients waiting, appointments lined up, every second seeming valuable. But slowing down and giving someone your full attention creates connection in a way speed never can.
One afternoon, I faced a particularly challenging situation. A client came in visibly frustrated and tense. Every suggestion I made seemed to irritate him further.
I could have taken offense or brushed him off, but I tried a different approach. I listened not just to his words but to the subtle cues: the tone of his voice, the tension in his shoulders, the hesitation in his movements.
Slowly, he began to relax, and by the time I finished, he was calmer, smiling, and expressing gratitude. That experience reinforced that sometimes, people need more than advice. They need acknowledgment and space to be heard.
I’ve also carried these lessons beyond the shop. With friends, family, and even strangers, I try to pause before responding, asking myself whether I am truly listening or just waiting to reply. I’ve noticed that when I give people room to share openly, relationships deepen and grow more authentic.
Running a barbershop has taught me humility. Not every story is easy to hear, and not every challenge can be solved with words or actions. But being present, patient, and genuinely attentive is a form of service that often matters more than technical skill. I’ve learned that my role isn’t always to fix problems but to create a safe space where people feel seen, understood, and valued.
There have been moments of personal growth too. Early on, I struggled with impatience, rushing through tasks, wanting instant results, and missing the subtle cues from those around me. By paying attention to the human side of my work, I’ve learned to slow down, notice details, and respond thoughtfully rather than react impulsively. This patience has spilled over into other areas of my life—how I manage stress, handle conflict, and nurture relationships.
I’ve also discovered that listening can transform the listener as much as the speaker. Each story I hear challenges me to see the world from a different perspective. I’ve developed empathy I never knew I had, realizing that everyone carries burdens and struggles silently, searching for someone willing to simply acknowledge them. This awareness has made me more compassionate, not just in the shop, but in every interaction.
Sometimes, the lessons come in unexpected ways. I remember a shy teenager who came in for his first haircut. He was nervous, almost silent, and seemed unsure of how to interact. I spoke less, observed more, and let him get comfortable.
By the end of the session, he was laughing, joking, and sharing stories. That simple act of patience, giving him room to open up, reminded me that growth often happens quietly, in small, unassuming moments.
Through all of this, I’ve realized that patience and listening are not passive acts. They are active choices we make every day. They require mindfulness, attention, and the willingness to put another person’s experience before our own need to act or respond. Running a barbershop taught me that these choices, repeated over time, build trust, deepen relationships, and foster genuine human connection.
If there’s one takeaway I can share, it’s this: slow down, be present, and listen. Whether in a barber’s chair, a living room, or a workplace, giving someone your full attention is a rare and valuable gift.
You don’t need special training or expertise, just the willingness to be patient, notice, and understand. The lessons you learn, and the growth you experience, will stay with you long after the conversation ends.
Timothy Warden is a barbershop owner in Stafford who believes haircuts are only part of the story. Listening and presence are just as important. Through his work and daily interactions, he writes about personal growth, mindfulness, and human connection, sharing lessons learned from the barber chair and beyond. Visit his site at numberonebarbershoptx.com.
“There is no way to be whole without first embracing our brokenness. Wounds transform us, if we let them.” ~Sue Monk Kidd
Menopause flagged up everything unresolved, unmet, and unchallenged and asked me to meet it with grace.
I’m not saying it was an overnight thing—more like a ten-year process of discovery, rollercoaster style. One of those “strap yourself in, no brakes, no seatbelt, possibly no survival” rides.
If I’m honest, the process is still unfolding, but with less“aaaaggggghhhhh”and more“oh.”
Having mentally swappedNemesis InfernoforIt’s a Small World, I can now look back with deep compassion for that younger version of me at the start of perimenopause. She was the one frantically Googling her way through a vortex of symptoms, never quite able to figure out whether it was a brain tumor or an underactive thyroid gland.
It all started when I was around thirty-five (for context, I’m now forty-nine). I’d just moved to Brighton from Cheshire to do a degree in songwriting at BIMM and threw myself into it with all the gusto of a twenty-four-year-old; after all, I had it…the gusto, that is.
That first year was wild, to say the least, but then, the ground beneath me started to fracture.
My mind would go blank on stage. The keyboard started looking like a fuzzy blob of jelly. My heart would pound through the night for no apparent reason. I gained a spare tire around my middle. I’d walk into town and have a panic attack, clutching the wall of a bank while strangers side-eyed me with pity or concern.
My libido shot through the roof like a horny teenager. The rage was volcanic, and my poor partner couldn’t even breathe next to me without triggering a tirade (I see the dichotomy too).
It was a maelstrom of symptoms that even Dr. Google couldn’t unpack, and yeah, neither could my actual doctor, but that’s for another time.
The real unraveling came when I went on tour with a band at age forty-two.
It was supposed to be fun-fun-fun, except it wasn’t. It was hell-hell-hell. Ten days, and I slept properly for only one of them. I came home wrecked, assuming that once I returned to my bed and the stability of my beloved, I’d be fine.
But I wasn’t. That’s when insomnia truly began. I’d ‘learned’ how not to sleep, and now my mind was sabotaging me on a loop.
In desperation, I booked in with a functional medicine practitioner who ran some lab tests. The results were “low everything,” and that was the first time I heard the wordperimenopause.
I didn’t think much of it at the time—standard denial. But the word lodged itself somewhere.
Around the same time, I was running a speaker event in Brighton and immersing myself in therapeutic modalities as part of my own healing.
Music, my first (well, actually second) career, had started to feel more frightening than exhilarating. In my search for calm, I stumbled upon a modality called RTT, a kind of deep subconscious reset done under hypnosis, which changed everything for me and launched me into a new career pathway.
As I continued learning and applying what I was discovering, a huge lightbulb moment landed:
“Hang on… A lot of the stories I’m hearing from women in midlife involve more than just symptoms; they involve deep, relational wounds. I wonder if there’s a link between menopause symptom severity and childhood experiences?”
So, I turned to Google Scholar to see if anyone else had spotted this link, and sure enough, there it was.
I came across a 2021 study inMaturitasthat found women with higher ACE (Adverse Childhood Experiences) scores were up to9.6 times more likelyto experience severe menopausal symptoms, even when things like anxiety, depression, and HRT were factored in. That blew my mind.
Another 2023 study from Emory University showed thatperimenopausal women with trauma historiesdemonstrated significantly higher levels of PTSD and depression than those in other hormonal phases. That explained so much of what I was feeling too.
And then I found a 2017 paper in theJournal of Clinical Psychiatryshowing that women who experiencedtwo or more ACEs were over 2.5 times more likelyto have their first major depressive episode during menopause, even if they had no prior history of depression.
Finally, a recent 2024 review framed early trauma as akey driver of hormonal sensitivity, especially during life transitions like perimenopause. It helped me see that my struggles weren’t random or my fault; there was something a lot deeper at play.
But I was still confused. What was the biological mechanism behind all of this?
In trauma-exposed women, our GABA receptors become altered. These receptors, which help calm the nervous system, rely on a metabolite of progesterone called allopregnanolone. But trauma can disrupt both our ability tobreak downprogesterone into allopregnanoloneandour ability toreceiveits effects at the cellular level (because the GABA receptors become dysfunctional).
So basically, that means even if we have enough progesterone, we might not be able to use it properly. The ensuing result is that we become more sensitive to hormonal fluctuations, and we can’t receive the soothing effects weshouldbe getting from progesterone.
As I began to piece all this together, I was forced to confront something in my own history.
Because frankly, I thought I had a happy childhood.
That is, until I came across a concept that stopped me in my tracks. It felt so close to home, I literally clapped the book shut.
It’s calledenmeshment trauma.
It’s a type of relational trauma that often leads to symptoms of CPTSD (which, just to remind you, tends to flare up during menopause). But the thing is, enmeshment hides in plain sight often under the guise of “closeness.” We prided ourselves on being a close family… too close, in fact.
I was an only child with nothing to buffer me from the scrutiny of my parents and the emotional load they placed on me. They’d confide in me about each other as if I were their best friend or therapist. I didn’t know it then, but their lack of emotional maturity meant they were leaning on me for unconditional emotional support. I was a good listener and a very tuned-in child.
I became parentified. Praised and validated for my precociousness, while being robbed of the ability to safely individuate. I was “allowed” to find myself, but the price I paid was emotional withdrawal from my father, equally painful as we’d been so close.
It was confusing and overwhelming, and I had no one to help me metabolize those feelings. It wired me for hyper-responsibility, anxiety, and guilt. Not exactly the best recipe for a smooth menopause transition, which requires slowness, ease, and softness.
As a textbook “daddy’s girl,” I unconsciously sought out older men, bosses, teachers, even married guys. Their energy felt familiar. Meanwhile, emotionally available prospects seemed boring, even if they were safer. That attachment chaos added more voltage to the CPTSD pot I had no idea was simmering under the surface of my somewhat narcissistic facade.
The final ingredient in this complex trauma marinade was a stunted ability to individuate financially. I was still clinging to my parents’ purse strings at age forty-four. The shame, frustration, and despair all came to a head when I dove into the biggest self-sabotaging episode of my life:
I decided to leave my long-term relationship.
He was my rock and my stability. But “daddy’s girl” wanted one last encore. And when he refused to take me back, despite my pleading, it was a mess. But, in a twist of grace, my father had taught me grit. How to get out of a hole. And that’s exactly what I did.
I learned to stand on my own two feet financially. I learned the power of committing to one person and treating them with respect. I learned to set boundaries and become deliciously self-preserving with my energy, because that’s what the menopause transition demanded of me.
And if it weren’t for those wild hormonal shifts, I’m not sure I’d have learned any of this.
Through my experience, I’ve come to see that menopause isn’t just a hormonal event. It’s a complete life transition, both inner and outer. A transition deeply influenced by the state of our nervous system and our capacity for resilience and emotional flexibility.
For those of us with trauma, this resilience and flexibility is often impaired. Hormone therapy can help, yes, but for sensitive systems, it’s only part of the puzzle. And sometimes, it can even make things worse, especially if not dosed correctly.
As sensitive, trauma-aware women navigating these hormonal shifts, there’s so much we can do to support ourselves outside of the medical model.
Slowing it all down is one of the most powerful ways we can create space for the ‘busy work’ our bodies are diligently undertaking during this transition. Gentle, nourishing movement. Yoga Nidra. Early nights. Simple, healthy meals. Earthing and grounding in nature. Magnesium baths. Dry body brushing. Castor oil packs. Vaginal steaming. Think: self-care on steroids.
But perhaps the most radical thing I ever did was to carve out more space in my diary just to S.L.O.W. D.O.W.N.
Now, eighteen months post-menopause, I find myself reflecting.
What did she teach me?
She flagged up everything unresolved, unmet, and unchallenged.
She showed me where I was still saying yes to others and no to myself.
She taught me that I need more space than society finds comfortable.
She helped me let go of beauty standards and gave me time for rest.
She absolved me of guilt for not living according to others’ expectations.
She reframed my symptoms aslove letters from my inner child, calling me home to myself.
Sally Garozzo is a clinical hypnotherapist and curious explorer of the midlife and menopause transition inside her podcast The Menopause Mindset. After a winding journey through music, anxiety, and unexpected hormone chaos, she now helps others navigate their own transitions through hypnotherapy. Her passion is helping others reclaim agency over their lives during menopause and beyond. Visit her at sallygarozzo.com and on Instagram and Facebook.
“Have no fear of perfection—you’ll never reach it.” ~Salvador Dalí
We live in a world that worships polish.
Perfect photos on Instagram. Seamless podcasts with no awkward pauses. Articles that read like they’ve passed through a dozen editors.
And now, with AI tools that can produce mistake-free writing in seconds, the bar feels even higher. Machines can generate flawless sentences, perfect grammar, and shiny ideas on demand. Meanwhile, I’m over here second-guessing a paragraph, rewriting the same sentence six different ways, and still wondering if “Best” or “Warmly” is the less awkward email sign-off.
It’s easy to feel like our messy, human work doesn’t measure up.
I’ve fallen into that trap plenty of times. I’ve delayed publishing because “it’s not ready.” I’ve rerecorded podcasts because I stumbled on a word. I’ve tweaked and reformatted things no one else would even notice.
Perfectionism whispers: If it isn’t flawless, don’t share it.
But over time, I’ve learned something else: imperfection is not a liability. It’s the whole point.
A Table Full of Flaws
One of the best lessons I’ve ever learned about imperfection came not from writing or technology, but from woodworking.
About a decade ago, I decided to build a dining table. I spent hours measuring, cutting, sanding, and staining. I wanted it to be perfect.
But here’s the truth about woodworking: nothing ever turns out perfect. Ever.
That table looks solid from across the room. But if you step closer, you’ll notice the flaws. The board I mismeasured by a quarter inch. The corner I over-sanded. The stain that didn’t set evenly.
At first, I saw those flaws as failures. Proof that I wasn’t skilled enough, patient enough, or careful enough.
But then something surprising happened. My wife walked into the room, saw the finished table, and said she loved it. She didn’t see the mistakes. She saw something that had been made with love and care.
And slowly, I began to see it that way, too.
That table isn’t just furniture. It’s proof of effort, process, and patience. It carries my fingerprints, my sweat, and my imperfect humanity.
And here’s the kicker: it’s way more fulfilling than anything mass-produced or manufactured as machine-perfect.
Why Imperfection Connects Us
That table taught me something AI never could: flaws tell a story.
Machines can produce flawless outputs, but they can’t create meaning. They can’t replicate the pride of sanding wood with your own hands or the laughter around a table that wobbled for the first month.
Imperfections are what make something ours. They carry our fingerprints, quirks, and lived experiences.
In contrast, perfection is sterile. It might be impressive, but it rarely feels alive.
Think about the things that move us most—a friend’s vulnerable story, a laugh that turns into a snort, a talk where the speaker loses their train of thought but recovers with honesty. When was the last time you felt closest to someone? Chances are, it wasn’t when they were polished, it was when they were real. Those moments connect us precisely because they are imperfect.
They remind us we’re not alone in our flaws.
The AI Contrast
AI dazzles us because it never stutters. It never doubts. It never sends an awkward text or spills coffee on its keyboard. AI can do flawless. But flawless isn’t the same as meaningful.
But here’s what it doesn’t do:
It doesn’t feel the mix of pride and embarrassment in showing someone your wobbly table.
It doesn’t understand the joy of cooking a meal that didn’t go exactly to plan.
It doesn’t know what it’s like to hit “publish” while your stomach churns with nerves, only to get a message later that says, “This made me feel less alone.”
Flawlessness might be a machine’s strength. But humanity is ours.
The very things I used to try to hide—the quirks, the rough edges, the imperfections—are the things that make my work worth sharing.
A Different Kind of Readiness
I used to think I needed to wait until something was “ready.” The blog post polished just right. The podcast that’s perfectly edited. The message refined until it couldn’t possibly be criticized.
But I’ve learned that readiness is a mirage. It’s often just perfectionism in disguise.
The truth is, most of the things that resonated most with people—my most-downloaded podcast episode, the articles that readers emailed me about months later—were the ones I almost didn’t share. The ones that felt too messy, too vulnerable, too real.
And yet, those are the ones people said, “This is exactly what I needed to hear.”
Not the flawless ones. The human ones.
How We Can Embrace Imperfection
I’m not saying it’s easy. Perfectionism is sneaky. It wears the disguise of “high standards” or “being thorough.”
Here’s what I’ve found helps me. Not rules, but reminders I keep returning to:
Share before you feel ready.If it feels 80% good enough, release it. The last 20% is often just endless polishing.
Reframe mistakes as stories.My table’s flaws? Now they’re conversation starters. What mistakes of yours might carry meaning, too?
Notice where imperfection builds connection.The things that make people feel closer to you usually aren’t the shiny parts. They’re the honest ones.
The Bigger Picture
We live in a culture obsessed with speed, optimization, and polish. AI accelerates that pressure. It tempts us to compete on machine terms: flawless, instant, infinite.
But that’s not the game we’re meant to play.
Our advantage—our only real advantage—is that we’re human. We bring nuance, empathy, humor, vulnerability, and lived experience.
Robots don’t laugh until they snort. They don’t ugly cry during Pixar movies. They don’t mismeasure wood or forget to use the wood glue and build a table that their partner loves anyway.
You do. I do. That’s the point.
So maybe we don’t need to sand down every rough edge. Perhaps we don’t need to hide every flaw.
Because when the world is flooded with flawless, machine-polished work, the imperfect, human things will stand out.
Chris Cage is the author ofStill Human: Staying Sane, Productive, and Fully You in the Age of AI.He is a product manager, writer, and mental health advocate. He writes at The Mental Lens blog and hosts the podcast Through the Mental Lens, where he explores the intersection of productivity, mental well-being, and technology. Learn more and subscribe to the newsletter atTheMentalLens.com. You can also follow Chris on Instagram, Goodreads, and Amazon.
“The strongest people are the ones who are still kind after the world tore them apart.” ~Raven Emotion
A few months ago, I stopped being friends with my best friend from childhood, whom I had always considered like my brother.
It was a tough decision, but I had to make it.
In the past five years, my friend (let’s call him Andy) had become increasingly rude and dismissive toward my feelings.
Not a single week went by without him criticizing me for being optimistic and for never giving up despite being a “failure.”
Still, I tried to be understanding. I really did.
I knew he was always stressed because he was going to graduate from college two years later than his peers.
And I knew he felt insecure about not being as rich and successful as “everyone else.”
But one can only take so much, and after so many years, I just couldn’t anymore.
It’s hard to keep showing up with warmth and patience when the other person not only doesn’t appreciate you but even attacks you for being “naive in the face of reality.”
(Yeah, he’d somehow convinced himself that I was in denial about my lack of success—as if the only way to react to failure were to get angry and frustrated.)
If you’ve always tried your best to be kind and gentle, you too might have been in a similar situation and wondered at least once, “Why bother?”
Because even though we don’t expect trophies or medals, a complete lack of appreciation can become difficult to accept after a while, and a simple “thank you” can start to matter more than we wish it did.
I’ll admit that, because of Andy, I almost gave up on being a kind person multiple times.
Luckily, I didn’t, and in the months that led to my difficult decision, I learned some important lessons on how to stay kind even when it starts to feel like there’s no point to it.
I hope these lessons will help you stay true to yourself, too.
1. Make sure you’re not using kindness as a bargaining chip.
Just as positivity can become toxic, there is such a thing as a harmful way of sharing kindness.
Here’s what I mean.
In my teenage years, I used to be what some would call a “nice guy.”
You know, the type of guy who prides himself on being nice, except he’s really not.
In typical “nice guy” fashion, I treated kindness as a transaction. (”I’m doing all these things for them, so they should do the same for me” was a typical thought always floating in my mind.)
I would be nice and generous to others, but I would always compare what they did for me to what I had done for them.
Then, if they didn’t reciprocate in a way that I found satisfactory, I would secretly start to resent them.
It’s not my proudest memory, but it shows how even something positive like kindness can be weaponized.
And it’s not just “nice guys” who do that, either.
Many parents make the same mistake: they try to guilt their children into showing gratitude or obedience by bringing up all the sacrifices they’ve made for them.
Of course, all this does is make the kids feel bad and even distrustful, as they may start to wonder whether their parents’ sacrifices were made out of love or selfish motives.
Because when kindness is given conditionally, it stops being about helping—it becomes about satisfying one’s desperate need for appreciation.
Needless to say, this is unhealthy for all parties involved.
That’s why it’s best to…
2. View kindness as an expression of who you are.
It’s easy to forget—especially when it goes underappreciated for too long—that kindness should be, fundamentally, an expression of yourself.
You are kind because it’s who you are, not because you want someone else’s approval.
When I look back on my friendship with Andy, I’m obviously not happy about all the times he attacked my self-esteem, dismissed my feelings, and put cracks in our relationship without a second thought. However, I can at least be proud that I didn’t let that break me and instead stayed strong.
Because that’s what this is about.
Being kind, even in the absence of thanks, is an act of self-respect.
It’s not about wanting others to notice.
It’s about staying true to yourself, regardless of how unappreciative others might be.
3. Remember you’re allowed to withdraw your kindness.
Kind people always struggle with this.
We worry that if we quit going above and beyond for someone, it might mean that we’re not good people anymore.
This is why it took me so many years to finally stop being best friends with Andy: I was afraid of being told I wasn’t really kind after all.
I didn’t want that to happen, so I kept being as generous as possible, despite how often he hurt me.
For years, I kept cooking, doing the dishes, vacuuming, mopping, and doing all sorts of chores that normally would be divided equally among roommates.
I wanted to do my best to give him as much time and space to focus on his studies (although I was in his same situation and had my own studying to do).
I refused to see that he didn’t plan on treating me any better.
In fact, years before, he’d already made it clear he didn’t believe I deserved to be repaid for all the things I did.
Yet, I just let him disrespect me and hurt me and kept being kind to him. Because kindness shouldn’t be conditional, right? Because it should just be an expression of yourself, right?
But here’s what I now understand: just because you shouldn’t expect people to treat you well in exchange for your kindness, it doesn’t mean you should accept being treated badly.
There’s a limit to how much thanklessness you can tolerate before it starts eating you up inside.
You have every right to pause or withdraw your kindness when you’re being treated poorly. This is about setting healthy boundaries. You’re not being selfish or arrogant.
I can’t believe how long it took me to realize that unconditional doesn’t mean boundaryless.
Kindness with zero boundaries isn’t kindness at all but self-abandonment.
There’s nothing noble about completely neglecting yourself just to be as generous as possible to someone else.
Be kind because that’s who you are, but don’t let yourself be taken for granted.
4. Don’t let negative people convince you to quit.
We all know people who are never content with feeling miserable by themselves, so they try to make others feel just as miserable.
And when they keep criticizing you for being a “goody two-shoes” just because you have a positive attitude, it’s hard to stay unperturbed.
You may even start to question yourself and if you should maybe stop being a positive person.
But let me assure you: letting negative people decide what kind of person you should be and what kind of life you should live is NEVER a good idea.
Because, again, some people just want to tear others down.
You could change your whole personality and become exactly like them, and they would still criticize you and judge you.
Why? Because the reason they hurt others in the first place is that they’re (unsuccessfully) wrestling with their own problems.
It’s not about you being “too nice” or “fake.” It’s about them not being able to find it in themselves to be patient and generous and always choosing to just lash out instead.
Good people are never going to criticize you for being kind.
Even if they believed that your brand of kindness might not be pleasant in some instances, they’d just tell you. They wouldn’t try to make you feel bad.
Stay True to Yourself
When kindness feels thankless, it’s easy to wonder if it’s even worth it—especially if the thanklessness comes from someone we care about.
I’ve been there more times than I can count, and yes, it always feels awful.
But kindness isn’t merely a way to please others—it’s how we respect ourselves.
You have the right to press PAUSE or STOP when someone disrespects you too much.
You don’t have to let others take you for granted just because you’re worried they might have something to say about your genuineness.
Because, honestly, what if they did?
You don’t need their approval.
You’re kind because you’re kind. It’s that simple.
Paolo writes about habits, happiness, self-esteem, and anything that can improve one’s life. He believes that failure is not an insurmountable obstacle to success but an integral part of it and that most failures are really just “successes in progress.” You can join his weekly newsletter here.
“True self-love is not about becoming someone better; it’s about softening into the truth of who you already are.” ~Yung Pueblo
One morning, I sat at my kitchen table with my journal open, a cup of green tea steaming beside me, and a stack of self-help books spread out like an emergency toolkit.
The sunlight was spilling across the counter, but I didn’t notice. My eyes kept darting between the dog-eared pages of a book called Becoming Your Best Self and the neatly written to-do list in my journal.
Meditation.
Gratitude journaling.
Affirmations.
Ten thousand steps.
Hydration tracker.
“Inner child work” … still unchecked.
It was only 9:00 a.m., and I’d already meditated, journaled, listened to a personal development podcast, and planned my “healing workout” for later.
By all accounts, I was doing everything right. But instead of feeling inspired or light, I felt… tired. Bone-deep tired.
When Self-Improvement Becomes Self-Criticism
I didn’t realize it at the time, but I had turned personal growth into a job I could never leave.
Every podcast was a strategy meeting. Every book was an employee manual for a better me. Every quiet moment became a chance to find another flaw to address.
And if I missed something, a day without journaling, a skipped meditation, a workout cut short, I felt like I had failed. Not failed at the task itself but failed as a person. I told myself this was dedication. That it was healthy to be committed to becoming the best version of myself.
But underneath, there was a quieter truth I didn’t want to admit:
I wasn’t growing from a place of self-love. I was hustling for my own worth.
Somewhere along the way, “self-improvement” had stopped being about building a life I loved and had become about fixing a person I didn’t.
Self-Growth Burnout Is Real
We talk about burnout from work, parenting, and caregiving, but we don’t often talk about self-growth burnout. The kind that comes when you’ve been “working on yourself” for so long it becomes another obligation.
It’s subtle, but you can feel it.
It’s the heaviness you carry into your meditation practice, the quiet resentment when someone tells you about a “life-changing” book you have to read, the way even rest feels like you’re falling behind in your own healing.
The worst part? It’s wrapped in such positive language that it’s hard to admit you’re tired of it.
When you say you’re exhausted, people tell you to “take a self-care day,” which often just becomes another checkbox. When you say you’re feeling stuck, they hand you another podcast, another journal prompt, another morning routine to try.
It’s exhausting to realize that even your downtime is part of a performance review you’re constantly giving yourself.
The Moment I Stepped Off the Hamster Wheel
My turning point wasn’t dramatic. No breakdown, no grand epiphany. Just a Tuesday night in early spring.
I had planned to do my usual “nighttime routine” … ten minutes of breathwork, ten minutes of journaling, reading a chapter of a personal growth book before bed. But that night, I walked past my desk, grabbed a blanket, and went outside instead.
The air was cool, and the sky was streaked with soft pink and gold. I sat down on the porch steps and just… watched it change. No phone. No agenda. No trying to make the moment “productive” by mentally drafting a gratitude list.
For the first time in years, I let something be just what it was.
And in that stillness, I realized how much of my life I’d been missing in the chase to become “better.” I was so focused on the next version of me that I’d been neglecting the one living my actual life right now.
Why We Keep Fixing What Isn’t Broken
Looking back, I can see why I got stuck there.
We live in a culture that profits from our constant self-doubt. There’s always a “next step,” a new program, a thirty-day challenge promising to “transform” us.
And there’s nothing inherently wrong with learning, growing, or challenging ourselves. The problem comes when growth is rooted in the belief that who we are today is inadequate.
When every action is motivated by I’m not enough yet, we end up in an endless loop of striving without ever feeling at peace.
How I Started Shifting from Fixing to Living
It wasn’t an overnight change. I had to relearn how to interact with personal growth in a way that felt nourishing instead of punishing. Here’s what helped me:
1. I checked the weight of what I was doing.
I started asking myself: Does this feel like support, or does it feel like pressure? If it felt heavy, exhausting, or like another form of self-criticism, I paused or dropped it completely.
2. I let rest be part of the process.
Not “rest so I could be more productive later,” but real rest—reading a novel just because I liked it, taking a walk without tracking my steps, watching the clouds without trying to meditate.
3. I stopped chasing every “should.”
I let go of the belief that I had to try every method, read every book, or follow every guru to heal. I gave myself permission to choose what resonated and ignore the rest.
4. I practiced being okay with “good enough.”
Instead of asking, “How can I make this better?” I practiced noticing what was already working in my life, even if it wasn’t perfect.
What I Learned
Healing isn’t a ladder you climb to a perfect view.
It’s more like a rhythm—one that includes rest days, quiet seasons, and moments where nothing changes except your ability to notice you’re okay right now.
I learned that sometimes the most transformative thing you can do is stop. Stop chasing, stop fixing, stop critiquing every part of yourself like you’re a never-ending renovation project.
Because maybe the real work isn’t fixing yourself into a future you’ll finally love. Maybe the real work is learning to live fully in the self you already are.
Cristie Robbins is a published author, speaker, and certified mental wellness coach. Through The Wellness Blueprint, she helps women reduce stress and reclaim vitality with a root-cause approach. Her books, including Scars Like Constellations, explore resilience, healing, and personal growth, and can be found on Amazon at her Author Page. Connect at The Wellness Blueprint. You can find her on Facebook here and Instagram here.
“Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory.” ~Dr. Seuss
The notification pops up on my phone: “Jason, we made a new memory reel for you.” I pause whatever I’m doing, probably something stressful involving deadlines or dishes, and feel that familiar flutter of excitement. What chapter of my life has Google decided to surprise me with today?
I tap the notification, and suddenly I’m watching years of Father’s Day adventures unfold. It started accidentally—one Father’s Day trip to the Buffalo Zoo that somehow became our tradition. Instead of buying me something I didn’t really need, we chose experiences. Year after year, we’d visit a new aquarium or zoo.
There’s my son at age three at the Erie Zoo, barely tall enough to see over the penguin exhibit barrier. The same kid at five at the Baltimore Aquarium, tentative but overjoyed as he touched a stingray for the first time. Then six at the Philadelphia Zoo, taking in the fact that there is a tube system where some of the big cats can walk overhead.
Buffalo, Erie, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charleston. We’d mapped Father’s Days across the Eastern Seaboard without ever planning it. So much time has passed since we started. My son has grown taller, lost teeth, found his voice. I’ve gotten balder, maybe a little softer around the edges. But there we are, year after year, choosing moments over things.
We tell ourselves to create experiences instead of accumulating stuff, but just how important that choice is never really hits until you play it back. Here was the proof: a memory bank I didn’t even realize we were building, one Father’s Day adventure at a time.
The emotions hit in waves. Pure joy at his excitement over feeding the stingrays, happy sadness watching his younger self discover jellyfish for the first time, overwhelming gratitude for every single trip we took. This ninety-second reel has become medicine for whatever current stress I’m carrying.
And that’s when it hits me. My phone accidentally became my therapist.
When Technology Gets It Right
I never intended for Google Photos to become part of my self-care practice. Like most people, my wife and I take hundreds of photos without much thought, letting them pile up in digital storage. The idea of actually organizing or regularly looking through them feels overwhelming. Iƒt feels like thousands of images scattered across years of living.
But then technology stepped in with an unexpected gift. These automated memory reels started appearing, curating my own life back to me in perfectly sized emotional portions. Not the entire overwhelming archive, just a gentle serving of “Remember this?”
At first, I was skeptical. Another way for a tech company to keep me glued to my screen when I routinely looked for ways to escape. But as these memory notifications became part of my routine, I realized something profound was happening. Google’s algorithm had accidentally created something I never knew I needed: regular reminders of how blessed my life has been.
The beauty is in the surprise element. I’m not seeking out specific photos when I’m feeling down. That can sometimes backfire, making me feel more nostalgic or sad. Instead, these curated moments arrive when I least expect them, like getting a text from an old friend who you haven’t heard from it a while.
The Science of Digital Reminiscence
Research shows that positive reminiscence (deliberately recalling happy memories) can significantly improve mood and reduce stress. When we engage with positive memories, our brains release dopamine and activate the same neural pathways associated with the original experience. We literally get to relive moments of joy.
Visual memories are particularly powerful. Studies in cognitive psychology reveal that images trigger stronger emotional responses and more vivid recall than other types of memory cues. When we see a photo from a happy time, we don’t just remember the moment. We can almost feel ourselves back there.
Nostalgia, once thought to be a purely melancholy emotion, is now understood to be a powerful mood regulator. Research from the University of Southampton shows that nostalgic reflection increases feelings of social connectedness, boosts self-esteem, and provides a sense of meaning and continuity in our lives.
But what makes these digital memory reels especially effective is that they’re unexpected and brief. Unlike deliberately scrolling through old photos (which can sometimes lead to rumination or sadness), these automated highlights arrive as pleasant surprises and end before we get overwhelmed.
The timing is often perfect too. These notifications tend to pop up during mundane moments, like waiting in line, taking a work break, sitting in traffic. Exactly when we need a little perspective on what really matters.
The Emotional Range of Remembering
Not every memory reel hits the same way. Some make me laugh out loud, like the diversity of my son’s increasingly elaborate Halloween costumes or the series of failed attempts to get a decent group photo at our destination wedding. Others bring that “happy sadness” I’ve come to appreciate… seeing my grandmother in photos from a few years back, her smile bright even when her health was declining.
Then there are the reels that just make me feel deeply grateful. The random afternoon when we decided to try goat yoga. The collection of action shots over the years: chasing my son around the house in a homemade superhero costume, his skateboarding phase, catching up with friends we haven’t seen in some time. These aren’t momentous occasions, just evidence of a life filled with small adventures and genuine connection.
What strikes me most is how these photos capture joy I might have forgotten. In the daily grind of parenting, working, and managing life, it’s easy to remember the stress and overlook the sweetness. But here’s photographic proof: we’ve actually had a lot of fun together.
The reels remind me that while life hasn’t been all butterflies and rainbows, the good has consistently outweighed the tough times. The visual evidence is overwhelming. We’ve been blessed, again and again, in ways both big and small.
Embracing Digital Self-Care
I’ve learned to treat these memory notifications as legitimate self-care appointments. When that notification pops up, I pause whatever I’m doing and give it my full attention. No multitasking, no rushing through. I let myself feel whatever comes up. The giggles, the happy sadness, the overwhelming gratitude.
Sometimes the timing feels almost magical. The day my social anxiety took over because I had to present during three different meetings, a reel appeared featuring peaceful moments from the trip my wife and I took to Newport, Rhode Island (mostly so I could try a lobster roll). When I was worried about whether I was doing enough as a parent, I was served a compilation of my son’s biggest smiles over the years.
It’s become a form of mindfulness I never planned. These brief interruptions that pull me out of current anxiety and remind me of the bigger picture. They’re proof that I’ve been present for beautiful moments, that I’ve prioritized what matters, that love has been the consistent thread running through our ordinary days.
The Memory Bank We Don’t Realize We’re Building
Those Father’s Day zoo trips felt routine at the time. Just something we did because that’s what families do on special days. I wasn’t thinking about creating lasting memories or building traditions. I was just trying to make sure my son had a good day.
But now I see what we were doing, and that was making deposits in a memory bank that would pay dividends years later. Every photo was evidence of intention, of showing up, of choosing joy even when life felt overwhelming.
The beauty of these digital memory reels is that they reveal patterns we might not see in real time. They show us that we’ve been more intentional than we realized, more present than we felt, more blessed than our current mood might suggest.
The Gift of Automated Gratitude
In a world where technology often leaves us feeling more anxious and disconnected, these memory reels offer something different: automated gratitude practice. They’re gentle reminders to pause and appreciate not just where we are, but where we’ve been.
They don’t require apps to download or habits to build. They just arrive, like grace, when we need them most.
So, the next time you get one of those memory notifications, pause. Let yourself be surprised by your own joy. Look at the evidence of love in your life. The big moments and especially the small ones. Notice how much good has happened, even during life’s inevitable challenges.
Your phone is holding more than photos. It’s holding proof of how blessed your life has been.
And sometimes, that’s exactly the reminder we need to keep building that memory bank, one ordinary, beautiful day at a time.
Jason Hall is a writer, mental wellness advocate, and professional overthinker who believes in the power of imperfect faith, a well-timed joke, and the occasional snack-fueled epiphany. He writes about finding light in the messy middle of life and the small, stubborn joys that help us float through. You can find him at chilltheduckout.com, where he shares stories about stress, hope, growth, and how to chill the duck out one microjoy at a time.
“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ever since I was about four years old, I knew I was different from the other kids. I was always on the outside looking in. As I approach middle age, I’ve never shaken that feeling—the knowing—of being different.
We live in a noisy world where we find whatever we seek. If we’re looking for validation that we don’t belong, that’s exactly what we’ll find.
While flawed, the standard ‘life blueprint’ hasn’t quite sailed off into the sunset. The path to happiness, according to societal norms and expectations, goes something like:
Getting the degree
Climbing the corporate ladder
Finding ‘the one’
Having children and the ‘dream’ family
Buying the fancy house, the car or whatever else we desire
Buckling up for retirement and living ‘happily ever after’
Let’s Stop Selling People the Fairytale
For many, life’s expectations sink so deeply into their bones that they hardly pause to ask: Do I actually want this life? Am I simply following the path I was told to walk?
The reality is that, as someone living through the experience, choosing a life that doesn’t look like everyone else’s can be confronting. I’m single at thirty-eight and have no kids and live alone.
I always say everything has its pros and cons, but when I am alone with no outside noise to sway me, I am genuinely content. I feel this at my core. I’m home.
The Heavy Weight of the Word ‘Should’
I despise the word “should.” It’s a heavy word because it comes wrapped in fear. More pointedly, fear of letting people down, of being rejected, of daring to dream of something that isn’t on the tried and tested path, and ultimately, the fear of getting lost in uncertainty.
I was never a fan of ticking boxes. Even more so when I learned through experience that every box left me feeling emptier.
Recently, I’ve become increasingly interested in the origins of societal ideas. We are the only people walking in our shoes and experiencing this world as we do. Checklists may seem comforting thanks to their supposed certainty, but I speak from experience when I say they are suffocating when they fail to align with who we truly are.
What would happen if you engaged in a self-audit on the “shoulds” in your life? You’d be surprised at how often the word pops up. I know I was.
Being Open to Curiosity
Curiosity is a superpower. If people asked questions more than they assumed, the world would be a softer place.
When I was younger, I remember a family member saying something along the lines of, “Everyone wants to find their person, settle down, and have kids.”
Even as a teenager, I knew that assertion didn’t sit right with me. How can everyone on this planet have the same life path and desires?
Permitting ourselves to ask the uncomfortable questions is a gift in the long term because it helps to prevent us from creating a life where we are playing a character rather than truly living.
What if I don’t want children?
What if owning a home isn’t important to me?
What if [enter whatever your greatest desire is] doesn’t make me feel how I think it will?
Listening to the Wisdom of Our Body
It’s odd to me how we compartmentalize mental, physical, and emotional health and well-being. There’s no mental health without physical health and vice versa. The body knows before the mind latches on.
That sinking heaviness in your chest when you picture a future you don’t truly want. The flutter of lightness when you imagine an alternative that feels more aligned, even if it scares you. This is not your imagination.
Our bodies are constantly speaking to us on a 24/7 basis, willing us to listen. Learning to listen to our body’s signals can be a compass.
If a decision leaves you feeling constricted, drained, or resentful, it may not be congruent with your values. If it leaves you feeling expansive, calm, or quietly excited, it may be pointing you toward your version of freedom.
Of course, this doesn’t mean the path will always be easy (it won’t), but it will be yours. And there is peace in that.
Facing the Fear of Judgment
Let’s be honest: choosing a life that is counterculture often means facing judgement. Lots of people think all kinds of things about me. I let them because correcting them isn’t important to me.
Here’s the truth: People are often most unsettled not by our choices, but by the mirror our choices reflect back to them.
When you step outside the script, you remind others that they, too, have the option to choose differently. For some, that’s inspiring. For others, it’s threatening.
Creating Your Own Life, Not Someone Else’s
The beauty of life lies in diversity. Your version of a meaningful life may shift and evolve as you do, and that’s okay. What matters most is you choose it consciously rather than by default.
Choosing a life that doesn’t look like everyone else’s isn’t about rebellion for the sake of it. It’s about alignment.
It’s about living in a way that honors your values, nourishes your well-being, and allows you to show up authentically.
I’m not here to offer fun tips and tricks. I assure you that if you feel you are destined for something greater or more, you’re not alone.
So what will you choose?
If you feel your life doesn’t fit into a standard mold, you aren’t broken. You are simply hearing the call to create something authentic for yourself.
It takes courage to step off the well-worn path. And every time you choose your own version of enough—your own rhythms, joys, and definitions of success—you make space for others to do the same.
The world doesn’t need more cookie-cutter lives; it needs people who are brave enough to live in alignment with their hearts.
Sarah Cannata is the creator of Storytelling for the Soul. She uses journaling and body-based practices to help women in midlife and beyond reconnect with themselves and gently shift how they live and feel. Get your free Gentle Journaling Jumpstart printable. Sarah’s work is grounded in lived experience, in-depth exploration, and a commitment to providing safe, trauma-informed support. She creates a nurturing space where people feel seen, heard, and held.
“The paradox of trauma is that it has both the power to destroy and the power to transform and resurrect.” ~Peter Levine
I was sitting in the conference room at work with the CEO and my abusive male boss.
The same boss who had been love-bombing and manipulating me since I started nine months earlier, slowly pushing my nervous system into a constant state of fight-or-flight.
When I was four months into the job, this boss went on a three-day bender during an overnight work conference at a fancy hotel in Boston.
He skipped client meetings or showed up smelling like alcohol, wearing yesterday’s clothes.
When I texted him to ask where he was, he replied, “I f**king hate you.”
When my CEO found out and called me five minutes after I got home, I told him I trusted him to handle it however he saw fit.
I really believed he would. But over the next five months, the abuse didn’t stop. I just didn’t know it was abuse yet.
He was over-the-top obsessed with me. He regularly told me:
“You’re going to make so much money here.”
“You have the ‘it’ factor.”
“You know how I feel about you.”
“I’m going to fast-track you.”
“You’re such a good culture fit.”
“This has been your home all along.”
He told me everything I wanted to hear.
I had spent the prior fifteen years in corporate America, wondering where I belonged. Wondering where my work family was.
At first, I felt like I had finally found it.
Then the attention escalated. What started as friendly check-ins became constant interruptions. The group Teams chats turned into direct messages. The work texts turned into personal texts—at night and on the weekends.
He asked to go to dinner with me and my husband. He offered to buy me lunch while ignoring my coworkers. He brought in cookies for the office but made sure I knew they were for me. He singled me out in meetings and asked how I was doing while ignoring everyone else.
I told myself, “There are worse things than your boss liking you.” But over time…I started to feel unsafe.
My body started to send signals. I was having panic attacks on Sunday nights. I couldn’t sleep. I found myself using PTO just to get away from him. My fight-or-flight response was fully activated, and I finally had to admit I wasn’t in control anymore.
Eventually, a coworker reported it to the CEO. Which brings me back to the conference room.
I sat across from the CEO, body tense, heart racing, but filled with hope. I was ready for resolution. Support. Justice.
That’s not what happened.
Whatever the CEO said that day affected me in a way I didn’t expect. I felt minimized. Judged. Dismissed.
Then my body reacted.
The pressure in my chest started to build until I couldn’t control it anymore. I started shaking—full-body, uncontrollable shaking. I tried to sit still, tried to pretend nothing was happening, but it was too late.
There was no hiding it. No escaping it.
Just a forty-two-year-old corporate woman, uncontrollably shaking in a conference room across from the CEO.
I excused myself and ran to the restroom.
I lay on the floor of the public bathroom and cried harder than I ever had. My body was forcing the energy out of me. There was nothing I could do but let it come out.
Once the tears slowed, I left the building as fast as I could.
What had just happened to me?
Why did it feel like a gaping wound had opened in my chest?
Why did I feel physically damaged?
It would take almost a year before I understood: that was trauma. That was new trauma layered on top of old trauma.
Almost exactly twenty years earlier, I had been sexually assaulted by a coworker.
I reported it to the police, and they didn’t even take a statement. I was sent away. Dismissed. Minimized.
My brain had filed this memory away. But my body remembered.
That moment in the conference room—being in a position of vulnerability, being ignored, unheard, unprotected—triggered a trauma response that had been waiting quietly inside of me for decades.
My brain couldn’t tell the difference between past and present. It just knew I wasn’t safe. So it mobilized. It tried to protect me. And it left me raw, shut down, and checked out from the world—including my own kids—for a long time afterward.
It was the worst time of my life.
Several months after the conference room incident, I got a new job.
It wasn’t easy to leave despite everything that had happened. I liked my job. I was good at it. My coworkers were my friends, and we had been through so much together. But I had become a shell of myself, and leaving seemed like the only way to get myself back.
Even so, the first six months at my new job were not easy. I remained hypervigilant and emotionally reactive. Standard feedback and performance reviews brought me right back to that conference room, no matter what was said.
That’s when I learned: trauma doesn’t stay with the toxic job. It comes with you. And this was trauma.
What I Learned About Trauma
I needed to learn everything I could, so I enrolled in a trauma-informed coaching program and studied my experience through that lens.
From a trauma perspective, I learned:
The brain constantly scans the environment for safety and danger, a process called neuroception.
My brain perceived danger in countless ways during my employment and alerted me through my nervous system.
I rationalized those signals away, telling myself I could handle it.
But the signals—racing heart, insomnia, panic, emotional reactivity—only got louder until they could no longer be ignored.
It felt like my body was attacking me. In reality, it was trying to save me.
Trauma is what happens when your system struggles to cope with overwhelming distress, leaving a wound behind. Those wounds don’t need your permission to exist; they only need a trigger.
That day in the conference room, multiple unhealed wounds surfaced all at once—sexual trauma, financial trauma, friendship trauma, life purpose trauma, and institutional betrayal trauma.
The new trauma stacked on the old was simply too much for my system to manage. So my body did what it was designed to do: protect me.
Learning this allowed me to release the shame I was carrying. It allowed me to have compassion for myself and others.
It made me stop looking backward and start looking forward.
What I Learned About Work
While I was learning about trauma, I started asking bigger questions in my new role as an HR consultant.
I had never worked in HR before, so I studied every conversation, policy, and process to understand how the system works behind the scenes and to view my own experience through the employer’s lens.
Who really has the power?
What rights do employees have?
What responsibilities do employers have to protect them?
Here’s what I learned:
The employment agreement is simple—employees agree to perform the duties on their job description, and employers agree to compensate them for performing those duties.
Both parties can end the agreement at any time.
HR and employment attorneys are paid to protect the company from risk. Period.
That’s it. Anything beyond that is optional, unless required by law.
Work is a contract. It is not a family. It is a system built for labor, not love.
And this system is not immune to abuse. It is not immune to trauma.
Just because it’s a professional setting doesn’t mean it’s a safe one. And just because you’re a high performer doesn’t mean you’re not vulnerable to harm.
The idea that work is a family, that it should provide belonging, meaning, and loyalty, didn’t come from nowhere—it reflects how work itself has changed over time.
In the past, belonging came from many places at once: tight-knit communities, extended families, faith traditions, and work that was often woven into local or family life.
When industrialization pulled people into factories, corporations, and offices, many of those community anchors began to lose influence. To fill the void, workplaces leaned into family language—promising connection and loyalty in exchange for more of people’s time, energy, and devotion.
For a time, many companies did try to live up to that promise with pensions, long-term employment, and mutual loyalty between employer and employee.
But as work has become more globalized and transactional, that loyalty has faded. Today, organizations still borrow the language of family, but the commitment is one-sided. When it serves them, they lean on employees’ devotion; when it doesn’t, the illusion disappears.
That’s how we know work is not family—because families don’t withdraw love, belonging, or loyalty the moment it no longer serves them.
What Helped Me Heal
The good news is healing is possible.
For me, healing meant more than just learning about trauma in a classroom and HR policies in an office. It meant implementing daily practices into my life that rebuilt my sense of safety and helped me trust myself again. This included:
Monitoring my nervous system and honoring my body’s responses to triggers.
I started noticing the small cues—a clenched jaw, a racing heart, a stomach that wouldn’t settle. Instead of pushing through, I learned to pause, breathe, and respond with care. These moments of noticing became the foundation of feeling safe in my own body again.
Exploring my past experiences with compassion instead of judgment.
For years, I believed I had compassion for myself, but it was shallow—more like telling myself to “let it go” than honoring what I had lived through. It wasn’t until I became aware of the experiences that shaped my patterns and behaviors that I finally understood real self-compassion.
Recognizing the subconscious behaviors that put me at risk.
Perfectionism, rationalizing red flags, unhealthy coping strategies—these were patterns I had carried for decades. Becoming aware of them gave me the power to make different choices, rather than repeating the same painful cycles.
Setting boundaries at work to protect my energy and healing.
I learned how to say no without guilt, how to step away from people who drain me, and how to handle the frustrations of work without getting emotionally activated. Boundaries have become an act of self-love.
Honoring the complexity of the human body and lived experience.
This was the hardest lesson of all. I carry a body, brain, and nervous system that remember everything I’ve been through, even the parts I’ve tried to forget. My responsibility now is to honor that complexity in every environment I step into—including work.
That doesn’t mean molding myself to whatever the workplace demands. It means protecting my well-being first and remembering that I am more than a role, a paycheck, or the approval of others.
It took time, but these practices slowly closed the wound that had once left me gasping for air on the floor of that bathroom. The open wound in my chest has now been closed for over a year and has been replaced with peace.
That day in the conference room broke me. But it also cracked me open. I put myself back together, stronger than ever.
Katie Hadiaris is the founder of Work Is Not Family, a movement that challenges workplace norms and helps professionals restore self-trust, rebuild confidence, and step into their power so they can protect their time, energy, and peace—no matter where they work. An ICF-certified somatic trauma-informed coach with a background in HR and corporate leadership, Katie combines personal insight with professional expertise to share practical tools for nervous system regulation and self-protection. Learn more at workisnotfamily.com or join her free Facebook group.
