When a Storm Brings You Back to Yourself
I’ve just come home from Hawaii.
A place that lives in my body as home.
Not just somewhere I visit—
but somewhere I return to.
Hawaii is where my mother’s heart lives.
Where my Nan first took me when I was five years old.
Where something in me softened, opened, and felt alive in a way I didn’t yet have language for.
It’s never just been a vacation.
It’s been a remembering.
And this time… it rained.
Not Just Rain
A Kona low settled in—twice.
Ten days of rain in a fourteen-day trip.
And what surprised me wasn’t the weather.
It was what I felt.
Because for the first time, I didn’t instinctively move past my disappointment.
I didn’t soften it.
I didn’t explain it away.
I didn’t tell myself to be grateful and carry on.
I let myself feel it.
And what I felt wasn’t small.
I felt devastated.
A Truth I Never Learned
As I sat with that feeling, something deeper surfaced:
I never knew it was okay to feel what I was feeling.
Not fully.
Not honestly.
Not in a way that took up space.
Somewhere early in my life, I learned to adapt.
To be easy.
To be appropriate.
To not be “too much.”
Especially when it came to emotions like:
disappointment
devastation
grief
overwhelm
Those weren’t feelings you stayed with.
They were feelings you moved past.
Quickly. Quietly.
How I Learned to Cope
So I found ways to cope.
And one of those ways was alcohol.
It worked.
It softened the intensity.
It gave me distance from what I didn’t know how to hold.
It helped me exist in a body that felt too much…
without having to actually feel it.
For a long time, I thought that was the problem.
But now I understand—
It was a solution.
Sobriety Was the Beginning
When I got sober, 18 years ago, my life changed.
But sobriety didn’t automatically teach me how to feel.
It removed the numbing.
It didn’t yet give me a new way to meet what was underneath.
What I’m Learning Now
It’s only in recent years, through my work and through the Ishtara Method, that I’ve begun to understand something I was never taught:
That feelings aren’t problems.
They’re experiences that move.
That can be acknowledged…
felt…
released…
and completed.
Not managed.
Not bypassed.
Not diluted.
Completed.
The Storm Outside, The Opening Inside
So there I was in Hawaii—
In a place that holds so much love, memory, and meaning for me…
and it wasn’t meeting me the way it always has.
And instead of leaving myself in that moment—
I stayed.
I let myself feel the disappointment.
The grief.
The devastation.
Not as something dramatic or wrong—
But as something true.
Being Seen There
When I spoke this out loud in my Ishtara Series, something shifted again.
I didn’t share the polished version.
I shared the truth.
And I was met there.
Not fixed.
Not redirected.
Met.
And what was reflected back to me is something I’m still letting land:
That by owning my disappointment and devastation…
I expand my capacity to hold others in theirs.
That my honesty moved them.
That my landing mattered.
Completion, Not Coping
For most of my life, I coped.
Coping kept me functional.
Capable.
Moving forward.
But it didn’t resolve what was underneath.
This is different.
This is allowing something to move all the way through.
To have a beginning, a middle, and an end.
To no longer need to be carried.
A Different Relationship to Being Human
What I’m experiencing now is something I didn’t know was possible:
I can feel deeply…
and not be overwhelmed.
I can experience disappointment…
and not abandon myself.
I can stay present with what’s true…
without needing to escape it.
What the Rain Gave Me
There’s a version of this story that would try to tie it up neatly.
To say:
“In the end, it was perfect anyway.”
But that’s not the truth.
The truth is—
It didn’t unfold the way I hoped.
And that mattered.
And it hurt.
And for the first time in my life…
I let that be real.
What I Know Now
I started learning how to feel.
And in that—
I started coming home to myself.
If This Resonates
If you’re in a season where you’ve stopped numbing…
but you’re not quite sure how to be with what you feel—
You’re not alone.
And you don’t have to navigate that space on your own.
I’m currently welcoming a small group of women into my next Ishtara 12-Week Method Cohort (April 22)—an intimate, guided experience where you’ll learn how to:
safely feel and process emotions in the body
untangle patterns that keep repeating
complete what’s been held beneath the surface
This is deep, supported work in a small group of 6 women.
I also offer private 1:1 coaching for women who feel called to move through this work in a more personalized, accelerated way.
If you’re curious, I invite you to begin with a conversation.
→ Book a Free Discovery Call
or
→ Join a Free Introduction to the Ishtara Method
No pressure. Just a space to explore what’s here for you.