Making Room

What I released, what I’m still releasing, and an invitation to join me

I’m on my third attempt to write this.

Not because I do not know what I want to say, but because I do. And sometimes the most vulnerable things are the hardest to put into words. They sit on your chest. They weigh on you. They follow you around while you make coffee, fold laundry, answer emails, and try to be a functional person, until you finally admit: I can’t do anything else until I do the thing.

A friend and mentor recently called me out, in a semi-loving way, about not sharing my story. She knows what has been going on in my life, but she’s right: there hasn’t been much to indicate to others what has been shifting behind the scenes.

And I realized something. I thought I had been doing the vulnerable work. I thought I had been sharing the hard parts. But the truth is, I’ve been circling this one for a week. Sitting down every day. Opening a blank document. Writing a few sentences. Closing it again.

Because it’s raw. And it’s different to tell the people closest to you than it is to tell the world.

Today we’re closing out 2025, and I know for a lot of people it has been a hard year.

I really thought 2025 was going to be my “finally” year. The year after the divorce. The year where I would settle into my new life and feel safe again. I thought I would build a beautiful community. I thought I would start writing again. I thought my career would take off. I thought I would reconcile with family members I’d become estranged from. I thought I would launch my new coaching business.

None of those things happened the way I expected.

Instead, the relationships I thought I had carefully built began to unravel. And it hurt. A lot. But the unraveling showed me the places I was still playing small. The places I was still bending myself into what other people wanted me to be. The places I was still handing other people the authority to define whether I was happy, whether I was “enough,” whether I belonged.

I experienced a dark night of the soul. The kind where you look around and think you have nothing. The kind where the old stories come back in full force and try to convince you that the emptiness is proof that you were never worthy of more.

And I wish I could tell you I reached some dramatic finish line. I didn’t.

What I reached was something quieter and more honest: the willingness to shed what isn’t true, one layer at a time.

A quick note, because I keep seeing it everywhere: on January 1st, we’re not moving from the Year of the Snake to the Year of the Horse. Chinese New Year doesn’t begin until February 17th. And even then, a date on the calendar isn’t a magic wand. If you’re feeling tender, messy, or unfinished, you’re not behind. You’re still in the shedding.

And honestly, I am too.

Midnight is not a magic wand. A new calendar doesn’t erase the old patterns. Transformation does not happen because the clock changes. Transformation happens because you choose to tell the truth and release what’s been weighing you down, again and again, until the weight is no longer yours to carry.

If you’ve been feeling that too, I want you to hear this clearly: you do not have to be “done” to begin again. You do not have to be finished to be growing. Releasing is not a single bonfire and then you’re healed forever. It’s a spiral. Each time you come back to it, you go deeper. Each layer you let go of makes room for more life.

I spent Christmas alone.

That’s a story for another time, but it matters here because I had five days off work in a row, and usually when I have that kind of time I’m traveling or doing something exciting. This time I was home in my apartment with quiet and time and nowhere to hide.

So I decided to go through boxes I hadn’t looked at since I left my ex-husband.

When I left, I had just a few days to get what I could and go. It was frantic. Friends helping me shove my life into boxes, grabbing what seemed important, trying not to fall apart. Afterward, some of those boxes ended up shoved into the back of my closet, untouched. I didn’t even know what was in them. I assumed they weren’t that important.

Over Christmas, I pulled them out and started sorting. Purging. Cleansing. That “new year clean-out” energy.

I shredded old financial documents I didn’t need anymore. And what struck me, as I sat there feeding paper into the shredder, was how much emotion lived inside those pages.

I saw an old bill and felt the anxiety from that year, that season, that version of me. I remembered wondering how we were going to make ends meet. I remembered the tightness in my chest. The fear.

And then I looked at that paper in my hands and realized: I did survive it. I did get through. I did have enough.

Every bill, every check stub, every account statement I shredded was proof that I was always provided for in the ways I needed, even when my nervous system was convinced I wasn’t going to make it.

If you have ever found yourself living like you’re still in an old emergency, even though you are not there anymore, you know what I mean. Sometimes the circumstances change, but our bodies keep bracing. Sometimes we’re safe now, but part of us is still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

There was another realization tucked inside that shredding: I’ve been wrestling with imposter syndrome for a long time. Being around authors who feel more successful than me. Feeling like I’m somehow pretending.

And then I did the math. I have made more than six figures with my writing. I am a six-figure author. Maybe it wasn’t all in one calendar year, and maybe it’s not what financially sustains me right now. But I did it. I know how to do it. I can do it again.

I’m not an imposter. I’m not a hack. I am someone who has survived hard seasons and still created something real.

Maybe you need that reminder too. Maybe you have proof of who you are and what you’ve done, and you still keep acting like you have to earn the right to take up space.

And then I opened another box.

A shoebox of letters and cards my ex had written me.

When I left him, I thought I had left all of that behind. In the middle of the fight about splitting up, one of the things he threw in my face was how he’d written me all these letters to show me he loved me, and how I didn’t appreciate them.

I am a sentimental person. If someone writes me a love note, I keep it somewhere special. I reread it. I let it remind me that I matter.

So yes, I had those letters in a box.

And when I left, I put that box in my empty office with a note that said, essentially: you told me these were worthless to me, and I want you to know they meant everything. Here they are.

I truly thought that was the end of it.

Turns out, I had two shoeboxes.

So there I was, holding this second box of letters I didn’t even remember existed, asking myself: what do I do with this?

I read through them again.

And it was both beautiful and brutal.

Because there were lovely notes. Encouraging notes. Notes that showed he did love me in his own way. That’s part of why I kept them. When we were fighting or I was hurt, I would reread the tender ones to remind myself that things had once been good.

But mixed in with those were letters that were also reminders of why I left. Letters that said, in a hundred different ways, “I love you, but you disappoint me. I love you, but you’re failing me. I love you, but you’re the reason I feel terrible.”

Back then, I thought that was love. Now I recognize it as something deeply unhealthy.

And as I read them this time, I saw two things at once.

I saw a man who loved a woman, but didn’t know how to communicate that love in a healthy way. He didn’t know how to ask for what he needed. He didn’t know how to take responsibility for his feelings. He didn’t know how to apologize without making it someone else’s fault. He didn’t even know what he needed, because so much of what he wrote was contradictory.

And I felt an unexpected compassion for him.

Not because it excuses anything. Not because he is “off the hook.” Not because I want him back in my life.

But because I could see a man who desperately wanted to be loved and didn’t know how to find it.

And then I saw the second thing.

I saw myself.

Because I was also someone who desperately wanted to be loved and didn’t know how to receive it.

I didn’t know my own intrinsic worth. I believed love had to be earned. I believed I had to perform, achieve, prove, and check boxes to deserve being chosen. And those letters were the evidence of that entire system: a scoreboard of how I was doing at being lovable.

If you’ve ever lived inside that system, you know how exhausting it is.

Always scanning. Always adjusting. Always trying to anticipate what will keep you safe and what will make someone pull away. Always thinking that if you can just get it right, you’ll finally be loved.

And the heartbreaking part is that even when someone did say something kind, I often couldn’t receive it.

When he would write that I was wonderful, I needed him to explain why. I needed the checklist. I needed the proof. Because I didn’t feel wonderful, and I couldn’t accept that I could be wonderful without a reason.

Here’s what I have finally come to accept, through this year of wrestling with my own darkness:

I am awesome.

Not because I have earned it.
Not because I checked the boxes.
Not because I performed correctly.
Not because I made everyone happy.

I am awesome because I am awesome. My worth is inherent. My lovability is not up for negotiation.

And as much as I hate to admit it, his worth is inherent too. That doesn’t excuse harm. It doesn’t erase the past. But it does change how I carry it.

So I wrote a letter to the woman I used to be. The woman who thought she had to be everything to everyone to be valuable. The woman who believed criticism meant she was unlovable. The woman who believed other people’s moods were her responsibility.

And then, on Christmas Eve, I burned the letters.

Not as a dramatic performance. As a release.

I released the power and hold that box had over me.
I forgave him.
I forgave myself.
I gave love to the young woman who tried so hard and thought she failed.
I honored the woman I am now, who finally understands that her worth isn’t dependent on someone else’s approval.

And I want to be honest about the part we do not always say out loud:

That burning was not the end of my healing.

It was one layer.
It was one moment of choosing myself again.

Because releasing is a practice. And I am not done releasing. I am done pretending I should be.

I’m also done believing I have to be fully healed before I’m allowed to live a happy, meaningful life. I can choose peace and joy while I keep shedding what no longer serves me.

Each time I return to this work, I find another layer beneath the last one. Another place I’m ready to tell the truth. Another belief that seemed normal until the light hit it. Another old story that I’m ready to set down.

And that is where the moon comes in.

One of the practices that has helped me more than anything is working with the full moon as a rhythm for releasing. The full moon doesn’t make your life change overnight. But it can be a powerful mirror.

In its fullness, the moon has a way of telling the truth. Not to shame you, not to punish you, but to illuminate what you have been carrying for so long it started to feel normal. It asks a few simple questions that can change everything: Do I still need this? Do I still want to carry it? Is this even mine?

And because this is the first full moon of the new year, it’s a powerful threshold. A moment to step into January with less weight. A chance to shed what cannot come with you, so the life you say you want actually has room to arrive.

On Saturday, January 3rd, I’m hosting a full moon releasing ceremony. I want you there if you are ready for transformation.

If you are tired of carrying an old story.
If you are tired of performing for love.
If you are tired of outsourcing your worth.
If you are tired of bracing for an emergency that already ended.
If you can feel that something in you is ready to be shed, even if you cannot name it yet.

You do not have to be finished. You do not have to be fully healed. You do not have to have the perfect words. You just have to be willing to show up and tell the truth about what you are ready to release.

In our ceremony, I’ll guide you through a simple, grounded process to:

• identify what you are ready to release right now

• practice a gentle release through reflection and ritual

• leave with a clear intention and an aftercare plan so you feel supported, not cracked open and alone

This is not about becoming a new person overnight. It’s about creating room. Room for more peace. Room for more self-trust. Room for more of you.

If you’re feeling the pull to shed a layer and start the year lighter, I would love to have you with me on January 3rd.

Simply register at the link below: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/aXIjOYEzQ8yRaG6HS34oMg

All are welcome. Replay available to paid subscribers.