Close-up view of an open book with a poem on a wooden table Grief has terrible manners. It arrives without calling, pulls up a chair, and sometimes brings every memory you thought you had safely tucked away. You can be having a perfectly ordinary morning, coffee in hand, when a song begins, or a familiar smell drifts past and suddenly, you are missing someone with your whole body. There is no tidy schedule for this. Believe me, I would appreciate a little notice. What I have

Understanding the Cycle of Abuse There are mornings when I sit with my coffee and feel grateful for the quiet I have worked so hard to build. Then someone shares a story, and that peace is pierced in an instant. A friend’s daughter. A new acquaintance. Another woman whose story sounds painfully, intimately familiar. Different faces. Different homes. Different men. And still, the exact same questions rise in me: How is this still happening? How are young men still growing up

Life has a way of testing us when we least expect it. Moments of uncertainty, loss, or hardship can feel completely overwhelming. Yet, right within those dark and heavy shadows, there is always a soft spark waiting to be found a quiet chance to rediscover hope. I want to sit with you in this space, walking alongside you with gentle encouragement and cozy truths to help you spot the light, even when the hour feels late. Together, we can tend to that inner warmth and build a re

There’s something so lovely about meeting someone without needing to know where it’s all heading. Maybe that’s just one of the quiet gifts of getting older—we finally stop trying to write the ending before we’ve even had a chance to enjoy the beginning. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how friendships actually get built. It’s rarely through grand confessions or big, dramatic moments. It’s usually just... the ordinary stuff. A favourite meal. A song that shaped a season o

This morning, I sat quietly cradling my warm coffee, still smiling over the wonderfully ordinary verdict my cardiologist handed down yesterday. "Your heart is fine. It’s a little noisy, but it’s healthy. There’s absolutely no reason to change a thing." A little noisy. I love that so much. My heart isn’t a pristine, silent, high-performance sports car. It’s basically a reliable old station wagon with a noisy lifter, but still gets you exactly where you need to go. Isn't that t

For most of my life, I operated under the quiet assumption that my primary job was to matter. Not to myself, of course, but to everyone else. I carried this unspoken belief that if I could just be kind enough, strong enough, patient, or interesting enough, someone would finally choose me. And in that choosing, I would finally have the proof I needed that I was worthy of love. The trouble with living this way is that the audition never actually ends. There is always another pe

Lately, I’ve fallen in love with jazz. That sentence surprises me as much as anyone. For most of my life, music has been a faithful companion; looking back, I can almost trace the chapters of my life through the genres I loved. In the 80s, it was pop—bright, energetic, adventurous, and full of possibility. In the 90s, country music wrapped itself around me like a comfortable blanket; its stories felt familiar, speaking of love, heartbreak, family, and home in a way that made

Before I understood emotions, I understood music. Long before I had language for grief, loneliness, longing, joy, heartbreak, freedom, or hope… I had songs. Looking back now, I think music may have been my first friend. It wasn't a friend that asked questions, demanded explanations, or judged who I was or who I should become. Music simply sat beside me and allowed me to feel. I did not grow up in a musical family in the traditional sense. There were no piano lessons or guitar

Family is where our stories begin. Long before we understand ourselves, we are shaped by the people around us. By the way love is offered. By silence. By kindness. By tension. By the things spoken openly and the things quietly carried for generations. Without realizing it, we often inherit far more than eye colour or mannerisms. We inherit fears. Patterns. Ways of coping. Ways of loving. Ways of protecting ourselves. And sometimes we spend years believing those patterns are s

Grief is not only the loss of a loved one. It lives in many quiet spaces of our hearts and souls. It can arrive through the ending of a marriage, the loss of a job, the drifting away of friends, or the slow realization that life no longer looks the way we once imagined it would. Sometimes grief is the ache of watching our children grow older, knowing the innocence we once held in our arms can never fully remain. Sometimes it is grieving parts of ourselves we once cherished —

We underestimate the power of solidarity in womanhood. Women often move through the world carrying far more than anyone realizes. We operate from heart, emotion, intuition, memory, responsibility, and soul. We hold families together, show up for work, comfort friends, study late into the night, care for children, aging parents, partners, and patients, and somehow still carry ourselves forward. And because many of us become exceptionally good at functioning, the world often mi

Recently, while texting, a friend typed “fear”rather than “create”while discussing revealing a differside of oneself. At first I laughed at the mistake, but the more I sat with it, the more it felt like life whispering something important: Perhaps fear and creation have always lived very close together. When I look back over my life, nearly every meaningful chapter began with fear standing beside me. At twenty-seven years old, I loaded a U-Haul truck with everything I owned,

A weekend in the county was surprisingly illuminating. It reminded me of a version of myself the world almost convinced me to abandon. She wore muddy boots instead of high heels. She knew the smell of rain before it arrived. She trusted silence. She waved at strangers on back roads and believed kindness mattered simply because it did. She was taught that when a neighbour is sick, you cook, you bake, and you show up. She was a prairie girl. Not perfect. Not polished. But groun

The Joy That Wakes Inside Us For a long time, I thought happiness was something people stumbled into. A lucky break. A perfect romance. More money. Less struggle. A smoother road. But life, in its quiet wisdom, has taught me something deeper. Joy is not always found in ease. Sometimes joy arrives when we witness someone brave enough to live as themselves. We often think we touch one another only through words. A conversation. A hug. An act of kindness. A hand reaching out in

I looked at a rubber band and felt sad for it. Strange, I know. But there it was—small, circular, peaceful in its natural form. Then the moment human hands touched it, it was pulled, stretched, twisted, snapped against purpose. Its value seemed to begin only when it was under tension. And I thought… how much like us. So many people spend their lives stretched. Stretched toward success. Stretched toward love. Stretched toward healing. Stretched toward money. Stretched toward a

Life doesn’t gently test us. It presses. It strips. It waits to see what we believe when everything we leaned on falls away. I know that place. Not as a concept… but as a lived landscape. There was a season—more than one, if I’m honest—where everything unraveled at once. Career gone. Finances tight. Grief sitting heavy in my chest after losing people I loved. A marriage breaking in ways I didn’t know how to repair. And somewhere in the middle of all that… I broke too. Not dra

Loss shakes us to our core. It leaves a hollow space where joy once lived. Yet, amid the ache, there is a path forward - a way to find light in the shadows. I want to share with you how finding gratitude after loss can become a gentle companion on your healing journey. This guide is for anyone who has felt the weight of grief and wonders if gratitude can truly bloom again. Gratitude after grief is not about ignoring pain or rushing through sorrow. It’s about embracing the fu

There is a kind of safety that cannot be locked on a door. It cannot be measured in square footage or seen in the strength of a roof. It lives in tone, in presence, in the quiet way a child is received when they are most undone. Emotional safety is not about protecting a child from life. It is about how we meet them in life. And what we give them in those moments becomes what they carry within themselves—long after we are no longer there to hold them. What Emotional Safety Te

Grief is a journey unlike any other. It twists and turns, sometimes overwhelming us with waves of sadness, confusion, and loneliness. Yet, within this difficult path, there is a gentle companion that can offer solace and understanding: poetry. When words fail, poems often speak the language of the heart. They hold space for our pain and guide us toward healing. Today, I want to share how grief healing poetry can be a powerful tool to help you navigate loss and find peace. The

I woke up to a symphony this morning. Not the sharp intrusion of an alarm clock demanding I begin again—but birdsong. Soft. Layered. Alive. A quiet weaving of sound that didn’t ask anything of me. And for the first time in my life… I didn’t wake up bracing. My body wasn’t tight. My mind wasn’t already reaching. My hands weren’t curled, preparing to grasp for another inch of progress. I just… woke up. And there it was. 444. Not just a number—but a pause. A breath. A quiet