Dream of Fighting Back

For years, my nightmares were reruns my mind never stopped airing—dark corridors of memory where I was assaulted again and again. The dreams didn’t just revisit the past; they replayed my helplessness. They held me hostage in a story I never chose.

For a long time, I woke up shaken, sweat-soaked, heart pounding like it was trying to outrun the past. I would lie there, staring at the ceiling, trying to convince myself I was safe, even while my body insisted I wasn’t. Trauma has a way of blurring time like that. It’s hard to feel the present when your nervous system is stuck in the past.

So I began writing it out with my therapist. Not to relive it, but to untangle it. To give shape to the shadows. To say, “Here is what happened,” and then slowly learn to say, “And here is who I am now.”

Putting the dreams on paper felt like cracking open a locked door. It let in air. It let in truth. It let in possibility.

And then came something unexpected: talking to my martial arts instructor about how to change the ending.

Not metaphorically. Literally.

We walked through the moments that haunted me. We broke them down, named them, reframed them. We practiced how I would move—how I could defend myself, break grips, angle my body, use my voice, create space. We practiced what my body could do when it wasn’t frozen in fear. Strength over silence. Skill over shock.

For the first time, I wasn’t replaying the trauma. I was rewriting the narrative.

In real life, I pray there is never a “next time.” But if there is, I now know something that my nightmares never showed me: I am not powerless. I am not cornered. I am not at the mercy of the story that once swallowed me whole.

And something shifted.

I still dream—but now I fight back.

The dreams haven’t vanished. But the endings are different. I am different. In the places where I used to be frozen, I now see myself moving. In the scenes where I used to collapse, I now stand up. My subconscious—once a battlefield—has started to understand that I am capable, that I am stronger than I’ve ever been, that the fear isn’t the only truth.

This isn’t about glorifying survival. It’s about honoring the quiet, steady courage of reclaiming your body, your voice, your story. Healing doesn’t erase the nightmares, but sometimes it teaches you how to walk through them with your hands open, your stance grounded, your breath steady.

And one day, maybe the dreams will stop.

But until then, I’m not running anymore.

I’m fighting back.

Triggers

Tonight, I tried to soften.

I tried to breathe slowly, to anchor myself in the present, to speak gently to the parts of me that were trembling. I did everything I’ve learned to do—the grounding, the reminders, the slow orientation back into the room. I told myself I was safe.

And still, it wasn’t enough.

There are moments in healing no one warns you about—the moments when all the coping skills in the world feel like trying to stop a tidal wave with cupped hands. When you reach for softness and your body is too overwhelmed to accept it. When the logic of “I’m safe now” disappears under the weight of old fear that still knows your name.

Tonight was one of those moments.

People talk about healing like it’s a series of successes, as if every trigger should be met with wisdom and calm responses. But sometimes I get pulled under. Sometimes the past is louder than my breath, more vivid than the room I’m standing in. Sometimes my nervous system doesn’t listen to the gentleness I offer.

And that doesn’t mean I’ve failed.

It means the trauma was loud.

It means the memory was strong.

It means my brain was doing what it learned a long time ago to survive.

Sometimes I can soften into the moment.

Sometimes I can’t.

Both are part of healing.

Tonight, I didn’t find comfort. I didn’t win the battle with my own body. I didn’t light a candle and breathe my way back into peace. I shook. I spiraled. I felt myself slipping into a place that didn’t feel safe, even though I knew logically nothing around me was dangerous.

But here is the quiet truth I’m holding onto:

Not every moment of healing will feel triumphant.

Not every trigger will dissolve.

Not every grounding technique will soothe.

And even on the nights when nothing works, I am still surviving them.

Sometimes, the win is simply staying—staying in the body, in the moment long enough to feel it pass. Sometimes the only courage I have is not giving up on myself even when I can’t calm myself.

This wasn’t a soft night.

It wasn’t a poetic night.

It was a survival night.

And survival still counts.

Even when it feels messy.

Even when it feels like failure.

Even when it feels like the past swallowed the present whole.

Healing isn’t only found in the moments you rise.

It’s also found in the moments you endure.

When the Heart Thinks and the Mind Feels

Earlier today, I was listening to a podcast about the duality of the heart and the brain—how we tend to separate them, as if one is logic and one is emotion, as if they play tug-of-war inside us. But the host mentioned that in many ancient cultures, the divide wasn’t seen as a battle at all. The heart and the brain were partners, each with their own kind of intelligence.

And that lingered with me long after the episode ended.

I thought of the Mayan worldview, how they believed the heart wasn’t just a source of feeling but the very center of consciousness. The heart was where intention lived. It’s where truth spoke first. The brain, meanwhile, was memory, story, pattern, the keeper of vision. You needed both to move through the world with clarity and meaning.

For so long, I lived as if I had to choose.

Be rational. Be emotional. Be guarded. Be open.

Pick one. Stay in the lines. Survive.

Sometimes survival made me all brain—overthinking, controlling, scanning the horizon for danger like a crow perched high above. Other times, trauma cracked me wide open, and I became all heart—raw flame, burning too hot, spilling emotion everywhere because I didn’t know where to place it.

But the longer I sat with that podcast idea, the longer I thought about the Maya, the more I realized:

I was never meant to be one or the other.

None of us are.

The heart holds a kind of knowing that can’t be explained.

The mind holds a kind of feeling that can’t be denied.

And when they work together, life becomes something fuller—less about surviving and more about experiencing.

It mirrors my crow-and-flame symbolism perfectly.

The crow is the brain:

the observer, the analyst, the survivor with sharp eyes and sharper instincts. It sees what others miss. It remembers what others forget. It protects.

The flame is the heart:

the heat, the color, the pulsing impulse to love, to hope, to rise again even after everything falls apart. It burns with truth. It transforms.

Neither is enough alone.

But together?

Together they are a whole human, a complete story, a person who can feel deeply and still make sense of the world, who can see clearly and still allow themselves to open.

The Maya understood that thousands of years ago—that the heart thinks, the mind feels, and the real wisdom is letting both speak, letting both guide.

And today, listening to that podcast, I felt something loosen in me.

Something soften.

Something click.

Maybe I am not too much.

Maybe I am not “conflicted.”

Maybe I am simply human—complex, layered, ancient in my own way.

A crow with vision.

A flame with purpose.

A woman learning how to hold both without apology.

Because the truth is, the heart and the brain were never enemies.

They were always meant to carry the weight together—

two voices, two truths, one life lived with both clarity and fire.

For When I Struggle

Today I am struggling.

There’s a heaviness that sits on my chest like wet stones, pressing me down, whispering that I can’t do anything right. That I am failing everyone around me, and failing myself.

It’s not loud or dramatic. It doesn’t announce itself with a storm. It is quiet, creeping, curling around my thoughts, threading itself into my body, making my limbs feel heavy, my heart tight, my mind taut. Every small misstep—every word I said wrong, every obligation I didn’t meet perfectly—becomes a mountain. And I carry it alone, as if the world’s expectations were my own.

I want to move. I want to act. I want to fix everything. But my body is reluctant, my mind is tangled. Even the simplest tasks feel like too much. And so I sit in it, this spiral of not enough, letting it press against me, letting it remind me that I am human.

And yet, even here, there is a flicker. A quiet, almost imperceptible pulse that refuses to be drowned out. A small reminder that struggling does not erase my worth. That being human means faltering, feeling overwhelmed, and still showing up—if only to breathe through the day.

I remind myself that the people who love me are not keeping score. They are not watching for mistakes. They do not tally my failures the way my mind does. That harsh inner voice, the one whispering that I am falling short, is not truth. It is fear wearing a mask.

So today, I soften. I cradle this struggle instead of fighting it. I let myself feel the weight without letting it define me. I let my chest rise and fall with slow breaths. I let my mind drift into the quiet corners where judgment cannot follow. One small act. One quiet moment. One pause to notice that I am still here. That I am still trying.

And in this gentle noticing, I see a fragile kind of beauty: that even in moments of despair, there is resilience. That even in failure, there is movement. That even in heaviness, there is life.

I allow myself to imagine the light returning—not all at once, not in fireworks, but in subtle ways: the warmth of the sun through the window, the sound of a voice that makes me laugh, the comfort of a quiet evening with a cup of tea, the small victories that I might not notice if I’m too focused on the mountain of “not enough.”

Today I am struggling.

Today I feel like I am failing.

And still, somehow, I am here.

Still, somehow, I am trying.

And that—this fragile, slow, determined trying—is not failure. It is living. It is breathing. It is proof that even in the darkest moments, I am present. I am real. I am enough.

The Strength to Be Soft

There was a time when I believed strength meant never needing anyone.

If I could carry it all, hold it all together, and never ask for help — that meant I was strong. If I could keep my voice steady, my smile convincing, my pain buried deep enough that no one could touch it, then I was safe.

I wore control like armor, perfection like a medal of honor. Every detail, every plan, every emotion managed — because if I let go, even for a second, everything might fall apart. I might fall apart.

Hyper-independence became my survival. It wasn’t confidence; it was self-preservation. It was the belief that the only person I could rely on was myself — because depending on others had once led to disappointment, abandonment, pain.

So I learned to be the strong one. The capable one. The one who didn’t flinch, didn’t falter, didn’t cry in public. The one who built her life with her own hands, brick by brick, wall by wall.

But here’s what I know now:

Walls keep you safe, but they also keep you lonely.

Control feels like protection until it becomes isolation.

Perfection feels like purpose until it becomes a prison.

Metal becomes strong not by resisting flame but by being reshaped within it. There’s a difference between steel that’s brittle and steel that’s tempered. One breaks under pressure. The other bends, flexes, adapts — because it’s been through the fire and come out changed.

I was brittle for years. I mistook my rigidity for strength. I thought if I just held on tighter, I wouldn’t break. But life, in its mercy, has a way of teaching softness through breaking us open.

Grief cracked me.

Loss hollowed me.

Love — real love — softened me.

And in that softening, I began to see that what I once called weakness was actually the most courageous act of all: to stay open, to stay kind, to let myself be seen without the armor.

The crow teaches this too. She is clever and resilient — but she also knows when to soar and when to rest. She doesn’t spend her life gripping the branch in fear of falling. She trusts her wings. She knows that flight isn’t control; it’s surrender to the wind.

I am learning that kind of trust.

To let life move me instead of trying to hold it still.

To believe that I can bend and not break.

To accept that sometimes, the truest strength is in the softening.

Softness, I’ve realized, is not the absence of pain — it’s the willingness to feel it. It’s the decision to stay human when it would be easier to harden. It’s crying when you need to. It’s saying “I can’t do this alone” and believing that doesn’t make you weak.

It takes strength to unclench your fists.

To stop fighting the world long enough to let it touch you.

To stop striving for perfection and start reaching for peace.

It takes strength to stay soft when you have every reason not to be.

There are days I still catch myself slipping back into old habits — reaching for control when I’m scared, hiding behind independence when I feel small. My instinct is still to fix, to manage, to perfect. But now I catch it. I breathe. I remind myself that I am safe even when I’m not in control.

I remind myself that survival taught me how to be strong — but healing is teaching me how to be soft.

There’s a quiet bravery in that shift. A surrender that isn’t giving up, but giving in — to trust, to love, to life itself.

Softness doesn’t mean I no longer have boundaries. It means I honor them with compassion instead of fear. It doesn’t mean I let everyone in. It means I let myself out — out of the armor, out of the constant vigilance, out of the illusion that I must carry everything alone.

Today, the flame that once burned me now refines me. The crow still perches on the edge of that heat, black feathers gleaming in the firelight, watching as I melt down what no longer serves me.

And when I emerge, I am not brittle anymore. I am tempered.

Soft, but unbreakable.

Gentle, but fierce.

Open, but grounded.

Because the strength it takes to stay soft — after everything that tried to harden you — is the kind of strength that builds worlds, that heals hearts, that transforms survival into living.

It is the strength that doesn’t shout, but breathes.

Doesn’t command, but trusts.

Doesn’t fight to prove it’s strong — because it already knows it is.

When the Storm Demands to be Felt

There are nights when the ache inside me feels too big for my body —

a storm that rises from somewhere deep,

demanding to be seen, demanding to be felt.

It comes as fire under the skin,

as the whisper of pain that promises focus,

as the thought that maybe, just maybe,

if I could hurt on the outside,

the chaos inside would finally quiet.

It’s not about wanting to disappear.

It’s about wanting to stop spinning, stop spiraling, to anchor myself.

To find something solid,

something real enough to hold on to

when the ground feels like it’s dissolving beneath me.

But I am learning — slowly, tenderly —

that I can survive the storm without letting it swallow me whole.

That control doesn’t come from pain.

It comes from staying.

It comes from breathing.

Urge Surfing — Riding the Wave

The urge comes like a wave — rising high,

crashing through every corner of my chest.

It tells me it will never end.

But it will.

It always does.

So I stand in the surf.

I breathe.

I name it: This is an urge. It will pass.

And I let it roll through me,

knowing I am the ocean too —

vast enough to contain it,

strong enough to wait for the calm.

Breathing Through Panic

When the air thins and my heart claws against my ribs,

I turn to breath — the most ancient lifeline I know.

Inhale — count to four.

Hold — count to four.

Exhale — count to four.

Again and again until the tremor softens.

Until my body remembers that it is safe to stay.

Until I remember that I am not dying —

I am simply feeling.

Distraction and Redirection

When the storm rages too loudly, I shift my focus.

I hold an ice cube until it melts against my palm —

a reminder that sensation can be temporary and gentle.

I wrap myself in a blanket and let it become armor.

I paint or write or move my body through the air,

trying to turn pain into motion, into art, into breath.

I whisper to myself:

You are not the storm. You are the sky that holds it.

Grounding in the Present

When I drift too far, I come back through my senses.

Five things I can see — the light, the shadows, the small mercies.

Four things I can touch — fabric, wood, heartbeat, skin.

Three things I can hear — wind, breath, my name in memory.

Two things I can smell — rain, earth.

One thing I can taste — the salt of survival.

And here I am again.

Alive.

Still here.

There is no shame in the ache that makes you reach for control.

There is no weakness in needing help to stay safe.

If the storm feels too heavy, please reach out —

you do not have to hold it alone.

In the U.S., you can call or text 988,

the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline,

day or night, when the sky feels too dark to stand beneath.

You are made of endurance and breath and light.

You are learning to live through the storm

without letting it define you.

That is not just survival —

that is grace.

Choosing Joy

This season, I’ve been reflecting on how healing doesn’t always look like strength or certainty. Sometimes, it looks like softness — like finally allowing yourself to feel joy without fear, to sit in the light without waiting for the dark to return. This piece is about that shift, about learning to receive love and happiness as deeply as I once held pain.

I have cried happy tears more this year than ever in my life.

Not because everything finally made sense, but because I stopped demanding that it had to.

Because I let myself feel the warmth without flinching, the softness without suspicion.

Because for the first time in a long time, I allowed myself to believe that I deserve love, joy, and peace — not someday, but now.

For so many years, my tears were born from pain. They carved quiet rivers through nights that felt endless. I learned to brace for loss, to expect the world to take before it gave. But something shifted in me — slowly, gently, almost imperceptibly — like dawn creeping across a horizon that had forgotten the sun.

The crow in me remembers the dark — the weight of survival, the silence after endings, the ache of dreams buried before their time. She is watchful, wise, unafraid to face the shadows. But beside her burns the flame — wild and tender — reminding me that light has always lived inside me. That even in the ruins, beauty still rises.

This year, I let that light touch me.

I didn’t turn away. I didn’t say I was fine and swallow the joy before it could bloom. I let it fill me — awkwardly at first, like learning a new language of hope. I laughed until tears came, and I didn’t apologize for it. I stood in moments of love, and instead of waiting for the hurt, I stayed.

These happy tears are not fragile.

They are proof of healing, proof that my heart has found its rhythm again.

Proof that I can sit inside a moment of goodness and not shrink from it.

The crow gathers what was lost.

The flame illuminates what remains.

And I sit between them — open, grateful, alive — learning that joy, too, can be sacred.

Because I have cried happy tears more this year than ever in my life,

and each one feels like coming home

to the part of me that finally believes

I was always worthy of the light.

Feed My Soul

Some days, I am miserable.

The world feels heavy and unkind,

and I find myself believing the lie

that nothing will ever get better.

Then I look closer,

and I see what I’ve been feeding myself.

Negativity, dressed up as connection.

Scrolling through outrage,

through perfectly curated despair.

Social media hums with noise,

every post a spark meant to ignite my emotions,

and I let it.

Television blares stories of chaos,

shocking plot twists dressed as entertainment.

Even the songs I hum along to

ache with heartbreak and anger.

And I consume it all —

morning, noon, and night.

No wonder my soul is starving.

We absorb what surrounds us.

We mirror the ache of the people beside us,

reflecting pain like sunlight off glass —

bright, relentless, and blinding.

So I remind myself:

Be gentle with what you take in.

Be mindful of what you feed your spirit.

Unplug.

Pause the noise.

Turn off the accounts that drain you,

the shows that fill you with sorrow,

the songs that make your heart ache for things long gone.

Instead —

play your feel-good list.

Hum joy back into your bones.

Step outside and let the sky feed you peace.

Let silence be sacred.

Let creativity flow through you

like water cleansing the dust from your edges.

Sometimes the simplest healing

is in choosing what you allow to enter.

Your soul deserves sweetness,

light,

and renewal.

And when you feed it love,

you begin to bloom again.

Dear Future Me,

Dear Future Me,

I want you to remember this.

That after everything — the storms, the silence, the ache that hollowed you out — you found your way back.

Even when the world blurred and the map of your life seemed written in disappearing ink, you kept walking.

It took years.

It took tears that fell quietly in the dark and mornings when getting out of bed felt like carrying the weight of the sky.

But you did it. You came home to yourself.

There was a time when you forgot what light felt like,

when laughter didn’t reach your eyes,

when you questioned if healing was even meant for you.

But slowly, piece by piece, you remembered.

You began gathering the fragments — the forgotten parts, the ones buried under shame or fear —

and you whispered to each one: you still belong to me.

You found parts of yourself in art — in brushstrokes and ink, in the way colors bled together and still made something beautiful.

You found yourself in nature — in the steady rhythm of the wind, in the patience of trees that refused to rush their growing,

in the way sunlight filtered through leaves like forgiveness.

You began to see yourself reflected there —

not broken, not ruined — but becoming.

You learned that finding your way back wasn’t about returning to who you once were,

but about becoming who you were always meant to be.

You softened in places that once felt hardened,

you grew roots where you once only ran,

and you bloomed quietly, not because life suddenly became easy,

but because you stopped abandoning yourself.

You look at your scars now — the visible and the hidden — and you love who you are, even with them.

Especially with them.

They are proof of the journey, of how many times you’ve been shattered and still chosen to rebuild.

You learned that healing isn’t erasing the past; it’s carrying it gently,

like a story that made you who you are.

So when life feels heavy again, when the noise drowns out your heartbeat —

pause.

Take a breath.

Remember how you survived the impossible.

Remember how the ashes became soil for your roots.

Remember how you found your way back — not all at once, not perfectly, but honestly.

You found your way back to you.

And you love her now — the whole, wild, scarred, radiant truth of who you are.

More Than I Could Handle

They say, “God doesn’t give you more than you can handle.”

They say, “Your struggles make you stronger.”

But I’m here to tell you — it was more than I could handle.

I could not keep going.

There came a point where my mind, my body, and my spirit fractured under the weight of it all.

My brain did what it had to do to keep me alive — it built walls, it buried memories, it softened edges I wasn’t ready to see.

My stomach rebelled, my nerves fired nonstop, my body screamed the words I couldn’t find.

I disassociated, floating somewhere between reality and oblivion, because existing in my body felt unbearable.

This wasn’t strength. It was survival.

And survival is not pretty or graceful or something that can be tied up in a neat little saying about resilience.

It was more than I could handle — and that doesn’t make me weak.

It makes me human.

The truth is, our minds and bodies are wired to protect us when the pain becomes too much.

Sometimes we shatter so that we can be rebuilt differently, safely, slowly.

Sometimes survival is the bravest thing we do.

People love to romanticize pain, to dress it up with purpose — as if every scar must be redeemed with wisdom, every heartbreak rewarded with strength.

But some things just hurt.

Some things simply are.

And we don’t owe anyone a story of strength to justify our suffering.

Am I stronger because of it?

Maybe. Maybe not.

Strength isn’t always the lesson.

Sometimes the lesson is that I deserved better.

Sometimes the lesson is that I was already enough before the breaking.

But this much I know for certain:

I survived.

My survival rate for hard days is currently one hundred percent.

And that, for now, is enough.

Takeaway:

You don’t have to find meaning in every wound.

You don’t have to be stronger because of what hurt you.

Sometimes, surviving is the miracle.

And today, that’s worth honoring.