love – Crow and Flame

Dear 2026 Me,

I hope you remember this moment—the quiet pause between who you’ve been and who you’re becoming.

This year, I don’t want to chase perfection.

I don’t want to prove my worth through exhaustion.

I don’t want to shrink, rush, or disappear into everyone else’s needs.

In this new year, I want to love myself more.

Not in loud declarations or sudden transformations, but in small, consistent ways. I want to love myself in the choices I make, the boundaries I keep, and the grace I extend when I stumble.

I want to invest in myself.

That means tending to my mental health even when it’s uncomfortable. Listening when my body asks for rest instead of pushing through out of habit. Making space for my soul to breathe, create, and feel without apology.

I want to stop waiting for permission to take up space in my own life.

I want to trust myself more—to believe that my voice matters, that my dreams are worth the effort, and that showing up imperfectly is still showing up.

There will be days I fall back into old patterns. Days when doubt is louder than hope. When fear tries to convince me that staying small is safer. On those days, I hope you remember this promise: we are learning, not failing.

I hope you are kinder to yourself than you were before.

I hope you celebrate growth instead of only noticing what’s left to heal.

I hope you protect your peace as fiercely as you once protected everyone else.

Dear 2026 me, if you’re reading this from a place of strength, don’t forget how hard you worked to get here. And if you’re reading this from a place of struggle, remember—you were never meant to have it all figured out.

Just keep choosing yourself.

Again and again.

With hope,

Your past self who finally decided she was worth the investment.

Showing Up for Myself

Last night, panic wrapped itself around my throat and reminded me how easily my body forgets the difference between now and then. My breath shortened. My vision blurred. The room slipped out of focus, and the voices around me became distant, unreachable. Every instinct told me to leave. To run. To apologize for taking up space. To say, I can’t do this.

I’ve listened to that voice before.

It tells me that leaving is safer. That shrinking is easier. That disappearing is kindness—to others and to myself.

But last night, I stayed.

Not because I wasn’t afraid. Not because I suddenly felt strong. I stayed because I recognized the familiar fork in the road: self-protection or self-abandonment. And I’ve learned, slowly and painfully, that they are not the same thing.

Showing up for myself didn’t look heroic. It didn’t look calm or graceful. It looked like shaky breaths and grounding my feet against the floor. It looked like reminding my nervous system, again and again, that I was safe enough. That I was capable enough. That this moment did not get to rewrite my story.

There’s a quiet kind of bravery in staying when everything inside you is begging to flee. In choosing presence over escape. In trusting yourself to endure discomfort without betraying your own worth.

Healing doesn’t mean panic never shows up. It means that when it does, I no longer disappear to appease it. I don’t punish myself for struggling. I don’t hand my power back to fear.

I show up.

Sometimes that means asking for help. Sometimes it means sitting with the discomfort and letting it pass. Sometimes it means whispering, I’ve got you, to the parts of myself that learned long ago that survival meant silence.

Showing up for myself is choosing to believe that I am not fragile—I am learning. That I am not failing—I am practicing. That I am allowed to take up space even when my hands are shaking.

Last night, I didn’t run.

And that mattered.

Because every time I stay, I build trust with myself. Every time I choose presence over panic, I remind my nervous system that I am no longer alone inside my own body.

This is what healing looks like for me.

Not the absence of fear—but the refusal to abandon myself when it appears.

Coping isn’t Weakness, It is Wisdom

There are days when simply existing feels like work.

Not because anything is wrong, but because my nervous system is loud. Thoughts race. My body tightens. Old stories surface without warning. On days like this, coping skills aren’t a bonus—they’re survival tools.

For a long time, I believed coping meant failure. That if I needed strategies, I must not be healing fast enough. I know now that isn’t true. Coping is how we stay present while healing unfolds.

Sometimes coping looks like grounding. When my mind pulls me into what-ifs and worst-case scenarios, I anchor myself in the present moment. I name what I can see, hear, and touch. I press my feet into the floor. I remind myself: right now, I am safe. The crow teaches awareness—watch first, react later.

Sometimes coping is breath. Not deep, dramatic breaths—but slow, intentional ones. Longer exhales. A quiet cue to my body that I am not in danger. Fire settles when it is contained, not when it’s smothered.

Sometimes coping means setting boundaries. Stepping back. Saying no. Logging off. Resting without justification. This one is hard for me, but necessary. The flame burns brightest when it isn’t consumed by everyone else.

Other times, coping is movement. Stretching tension out of my shoulders. Walking without destination. Letting my body release what my mind keeps holding onto. Trauma lives in the body—so healing must visit there too.

And some days, coping is kindness. Speaking to myself the way I would to someone I love. Allowing imperfection. Allowing exhaustion. Allowing the truth that I am human, and that is enough.

Coping skills don’t erase pain. They don’t make life neat or easy. What they do is create space—space to breathe, to choose, to stay with ourselves when leaving would feel easier.

So if today you’re leaning on coping skills, know this: you’re not broken. You’re listening. You’re adapting. You’re surviving wisely.

The crow does not shame itself for pausing on a branch.

The flame does not apologize for needing shelter.

Neither should you.

Holidays Are Too Much.

The holidays are supposed to be magical.

They’re supposed to glow and sparkle and feel full—full of joy, full of connection, full of meaning. We’re told to be on all the time. To perform happiness. To create moments worthy of memory and photographs and social media posts. To spend money we don’t have on things we don’t need in order to prove our love.

And if we don’t?

If we’re tired, overwhelmed, grieving, triggered, broke, or simply empty?

Then it feels like we’re doing the holidays wrong.

There is so much pressure to fill every second of this season. Fill the calendar. Fill the house. Fill the silence. Fill ourselves until there’s no room left to breathe. We’re expected to consume—food, gifts, experiences, emotions—until exhaustion becomes the background noise of December.

For those of us carrying trauma, anxiety, or deep grief, the holidays don’t arrive softly. They crash in loud and demanding. Old memories surface. Expectations tighten around the chest. The nervous system stays braced, waiting for something to go wrong while everyone insists this is the most wonderful time of the year.

It’s exhausting to hold that contradiction.

What if the holidays don’t need more magic?

What if they need more honesty?

What if it’s okay to be quiet this year? To opt out of traditions that drain instead of nourish? To say no to gatherings that feel unsafe, to simplify meals, to skip the decorations, to let the season be smaller than advertised?

Rest is not a failure.

Not celebrating “hard enough” is not a moral flaw.

Surviving this season is enough.

Maybe the truest magic isn’t found in doing more, buying more, or forcing joy—but in protecting your nervous system. In choosing softness. In giving yourself permission to exist without performing.

If the holidays feel like too much, you are not broken.

You are listening to your body.

And that, quietly, is an act of resistance.

The Crow Doesn’t Leave

There’s no magic wand where one day your PTSD is gone. You don’t just wake up healed, whole, untouched by what carved its marks into you. Healing isn’t a finish line or a tidy before-and-after. No—healing is a journey made of forward steps and backward ones. It’s a dance you didn’t ask to learn, and after a while, dancing becomes exhausting.

Last night, I was triggered.

Panic rose fast, sharp and suffocating. It gripped my throat, curled around my lungs, and settled on my chest with the weight of an anvil. Every breath felt earned. Every second stretched thin. My body reacted before my mind could reason, as if danger still lived in the room with me.

I wanted to scream. Instead, I bit my lips and tongue, holding back the sobs, trying to stay quiet, trying to stay contained. I focused on my breathing like I’ve been taught—counting, grounding, reaching for the tools I’ve gathered over years of trying to survive myself. But the fear kept tightening, panic drowning out logic, memory overpowering the present.

Eventually, the urge came—the familiar, shame-laced instinct to hurt myself just enough to snap back into focus. To feel something I could control. To anchor myself in pain instead of terror. And even knowing why that urge exists didn’t make it disappear.

In those moments, the old voices came rushing in too.

You’re weak.

You should be past this by now.

You’re failing at healing.

I felt worthless. Like a failure. Like all the work I’ve done—therapy, reflection, growth—meant nothing because here I was again, shaking, unraveling, exhausted by my own nervous system.

This is where the Crow appears.

The Crow is not gentle reassurance or blind optimism. The Crow is witness. It perches in the dark and does not flinch. It knows what survival looks like up close. It reminds me that naming the storm is not the same as being consumed by it.

And the Flame—quiet, stubborn, flickering low in my chest—did not go out. Even under the weight of panic, even when fear pressed hard against my ribs, the Flame remained. Not roaring. Not triumphant. Just alive.

Healing doesn’t mean you never get triggered again. It means you learn how to sit beside the ashes without setting yourself on fire. It means you learn when to let the Crow keep watch while you rest. It means trusting that a small Flame is still enough light to find your way back to yourself.

Some nights, healing looks like progress and clarity and peace.

Other nights, it looks like sitting on the floor, breath shallow, heart racing, whispering I am safe, I am here, this will pass.

Both are part of the journey.

If you’re reading this and it feels familiar—if your body still remembers things your mind wishes it could forget—you are not broken. You are not weak. You are not failing.

You are a survivor carrying a watchful Crow and a living Flame.

And even when the dance is exhausting, even when you stumble backward, the Flame still burns—and the Crow does not leave.

🖤🔥

I’m Not Making Myself Small Anymore

For a long time, I believed the problem was me.

I believed it because I was told—sometimes gently, sometimes cruelly—that I was too much. Too intense. Too emotional. Too driven. Too honest. I was told my presence made others feel inadequate, as if my light was something I should dim so they could feel comfortable standing beside me.

So I tried to become less.

I learned how to fold my needs inward. I learned how to quiet my excitement, temper my grief, soften my truth. I learned how to carry other people’s discomfort as if it were my responsibility. If someone felt small, I assumed I had taken up too much space.

Looking back, I see how deeply that shaped me.

In those relationships, I confused love with self-erasure. I confused compromise with disappearance. I thought being “easy to be with” meant abandoning the parts of myself that were inconvenient, powerful, or messy.

But growth has a way of revealing the cost.

Every time I made myself smaller, something in me went cold. The flame didn’t go out—it just learned to hide. And the crow, that inner voice that knows truth, grew quieter each time I ignored it in favor of keeping the peace.

What I’m learning now is this:

Someone else’s inadequacy is not proof of my excess.

My depth is not a flaw. My passion is not an attack. My healing, my ambition, my self-awareness do not exist to make anyone else feel less than. If my wholeness threatens a relationship, it was never asking me to be myself—it was asking me to be manageable.

Not making myself small doesn’t mean I stop caring about others. It means I stop betraying myself for their comfort. It means I choose honesty over harmony when harmony requires my silence.

I am allowed to take up space in my relationships.

I am allowed to grow, even if others do not.

I am allowed to outgrow people who only loved me when I was diminished.

This is not bitterness. This is clarity.

The crow does not pluck its feathers to soothe another bird’s insecurity.

The flame does not apologize for its heat.

So I am learning to stand in my full shape. To let my voice carry. To let my presence be what it is—neither sharpened nor softened for approval.

If that makes me “too much,” then perhaps I was never meant for small spaces.

And I am finally brave enough to choose spaces that can hold me.

When the Fire is Surrounded by Ghosts

It’s been a rough and emotional few days.

I’m really struggling.

The holidays have a way of tightening everything at once. Time feels compressed. Expectations multiply. There’s pressure to show up, to give, to create magic, to be grateful, to keep moving—even when you’re already exhausted. I find myself trying to do everything: write, draw, train, heal, rest, connect, keep promises, chase dreams, and somehow still be okay.

And when I can’t do it all, the voice shows up.

The one that tells me I’m not enough. That I’ll never be good enough. That I’m failing at being an author, an artist, a human. It doesn’t just criticize the present—it drags the past into the room, too. Old trauma. Old fear. Old moments that my body remembers even when my mind would rather forget.

Stress opens the door for ghosts.

Last night at mixed martial arts, that door swung wide open.

I had to train with a male partner who wasn’t the instructor. There were only three of us in class. They were patient. Kind. Respectful.

But my nervous system didn’t care about logic. My body didn’t register kindness—it registered threat.

I was wound so tight I could barely remember the moves I know. My mind went blank. My muscles felt unfamiliar, like they belonged to someone else. It felt like my very first day all over again, standing in a place where I wasn’t sure if I was safe.

I was terrified that if he put a hand on me, the memories of a past assault would slam into me without warning. Not as thoughts, but as sensations. As panic. As the past pretending it was the present.

Part of me wanted to say, I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to relive this again.

But another part of me—the part I’m trying to listen to more—knows that growth doesn’t happen only in comfort. If I never train with others, if I never step into discomfort, I won’t learn. I won’t grow. I won’t build trust in my body again. I won’t reclaim the parts of myself that trauma tried to steal.

My instructor kept reminding me,

“Breathe out. Don’t let yourself get stressed. You’ve got this. Breathe out.”

So I became my own anchor.

You’ve got this, Amanda. Breathe out.

And instead of asking Why is this so hard? I asked better questions:

What do I need right now?

Where are my feet?

How can I protect myself in this moment?

That shift—tiny as it was—mattered.

This is what healing looks like during the holidays. Not peace and joy wrapped in perfect bows, but navigating crowded calendars, emotional landmines, and resurfacing memories while still trying to show up for the life you’re building.

Some days the flame roars.

Some days it flickers.

And some days it feels like it’s surrounded by ghosts.

But I’m learning this: the presence of fear does not mean the absence of strength. Courage doesn’t mean I wasn’t scared—it means I stayed present anyway. It means I breathed. It means I didn’t abandon myself.

If you’re overwhelmed right now—by the season, by expectations, by the weight of who you’ve been and who you’re trying to become—know this: you’re not weak for struggling. Stress has a way of waking old wounds, and that doesn’t mean you’re failing. It means your nervous system is asking for care.

The fire doesn’t have to burn brightly to be real.

Sometimes surviving the night is the victory.

🖤🔥

Talk to Yourself Like You Would Talk to a Friend

Talk to Yourself Like You’d Talk to a Friend

If you were sitting across from me right now, I know what I wouldn’t say.

I wouldn’t tell you that you’re weak for feeling this way.

I wouldn’t rush you to “fix it.”

I wouldn’t list everything you should be doing better.

If you were sitting across from me right now—shoulders heavy, eyes a little tired, carrying things you don’t know how to put down—I know exactly how I would speak to you.

I wouldn’t start with advice.

I wouldn’t try to reframe your pain into something more palatable.

I wouldn’t tell you to be grateful, productive, or stronger than you already are.

I would start by listening.

I would let you say the same thing more than once if you needed to. I would understand that repetition isn’t weakness—it’s the nervous system asking to be heard. I would see how much effort it’s taken just to keep moving through the days, and I would name that effort out loud so you didn’t have to keep proving it.

So why is it that when the conversation turns inward, the tone changes?

Why do we speak to ourselves in ways we would never speak to someone we love?

I’d say: Of course you’re tired.

I’d say: Anyone carrying this much would feel heavy.

I’d remind you that struggling doesn’t erase your strength—it reveals how hard you’ve been trying.

So why is it that when the voice turns inward, it becomes sharp?

Why do we offer ourselves only criticism when what we need is care?

Talking to yourself like a friend doesn’t mean lying or pretending everything is fine. It means speaking with honesty and compassion at the same time.

A friend would say:

• “You’re allowed to rest without earning it.”

• “This moment doesn’t define your entire story.”

• “I’m proud of you for showing up at all today.”

A friend would sit with you in the discomfort instead of demanding you rise above it immediately.

When the inner critic starts narrating worst-case scenarios, try this: pause and ask, What would I say if this were someone I love? Then say that—even if your voice shakes, even if you don’t fully believe it

The inner voice often learns its language in places where softness wasn’t safe. It borrows words from survival—from pressure, urgency, and self-correction. For many of us, being hard on ourselves once felt necessary. It felt like protection. Like if we stayed vigilant enough, critical enough, we could prevent future pain.

But that voice doesn’t know when the danger has passed.

It keeps scanning.

It keeps tightening.

It keeps asking for more.

Talking to yourself like you’d talk to a friend isn’t about silencing that voice or shaming it into submission. It’s about introducing a second voice—one that knows how to stay.

A friend would say:

You’re not broken for feeling this way.

You’re responding normally to things that were not easy.

You don’t need to justify your exhaustion.

A friend wouldn’t rush your healing or demand clarity before you’re ready. They wouldn’t turn a bad day into a character flaw. They would understand that some seasons are about endurance, not expansion.

When you mess up, a friend doesn’t reduce you to the mistake.

When you’re overwhelmed, a friend doesn’t ask why you can’t handle more.

When you’re quiet, a friend doesn’t assume you’ve disappeared.

They stay curious. They stay kind.

So when your thoughts begin to spiral—when the inner critic starts narrating worst-case outcomes or rewriting your history into a list of failures—pause. Not to argue with yourself, but to soften.

Ask gently: What would I say if this were someone I love?

Maybe the answer is:

“It makes sense that this hurts.”

“You’re allowed to rest here.”

“This moment doesn’t cancel everything you’ve survived.”

Say it anyway. Even if it feels awkward. Even if your body resists it. Compassion doesn’t need to be loud to be powerful—it just needs to be consistent.

The crow does not abandon itself for being cautious.

The flame does not shame itself for flickering.

They adapt. They endure. They remain.

You don’t grow by becoming harder on yourself. You grow by becoming safer with yourself. By creating an inner space where honesty doesn’t lead to punishment, and vulnerability isn’t something you have to recover from.

Today, let your inner voice be a place you can land.

A place that doesn’t demand perfection to offer belonging.

A place that speaks to you the way a true friend would—steady, patient, and unwilling to leave.

🖤🔥

A Body I Can Trust

🔥 A Body I Can Trust 🔥

Skechers Hot Chocolate Run — This Morning’s Lesson

This morning, as I dress for a run out in the cold and prepare for Skechers Hot Chocolate Run, I felt that familiar flicker inside me—the one that was once only doubt, only fear, only the quiet whisper that said, “This isn’t for you.”

For most of my life, I thought physical challenges belonged to other people. People with “runner’s bodies,” people who trained from childhood, people with natural athletic talent or discipline I assumed I didn’t have. I quietly carried the belief that obstacle courses, races, and endurance events were a world I could admire from a distance but never enter.

But that’s the thing about stories:

They don’t change until we decide to pick up the pen.

Every time I sign up for a race now, it’s not about finishing times or medals or proving anything to anyone else. It’s an act of reclamation. A rewriting of an old, inherited narrative that told me what my body couldn’t do before I ever had a chance to ask it what it could.

I race to challenge myself.

To challenge the version of me who didn’t believe she belonged here.

To challenge the old voice that spoke in limits instead of possibilities.

Each mile becomes a conversation with my body—one where I finally listen. One where I finally speak kindly. One where I build trust in the place where trauma once lived, where shame once echoed, where self-doubt once shaped my identity.

Running is becoming my rebellion.

My declaration of self-love.

My proof that I am allowed to take up space, to sweat, to struggle, to try, to grow.

And today, in the cold air of the Hot Chocolate Run, theres a shift, small but powerful. A mindset evolving. A narrative reshaping. A body remembering it is capable. A spirit remembering it is allowed.

Instead of “I can’t,” there is a new language forming:

I can. I will. I am.

I’m learning that showing up is the victory.

Crossing the start line is courage.

Crossing the finish line is transformation.

The Crow in me observes—sharp-eyed, intuitive, turning every challenge into wisdom.

The Flame in me rises—steady, warm, determined, burning away the old beliefs to make room for something stronger, truer, and deeply mine.

Today is not just a race.

It is another step toward a life where my body is not my enemy, but my partner.

Where movement isn’t punishment, but empowerment.

Where I prove to myself, again and again, that I belong in spaces I once thought were for “other people.”

Because I’m not “other people.”

I’m me.

And that’s enough.

🔥 Crow & Flame

Rewriting the story. One mile, one breath, one brave moment at a time.

Return Home to Yourself this Season

There comes a time each year when everything in nature begins to pull inward.

The leaves fall. The air sharpens. The days shorten until they feel like a long inhale.

Nothing is rushing anymore.

Nothing is trying to bloom out of season.

Winter teaches a truth we tend to forget:

there is a sacred rhythm to being human, and you are allowed to retreat.

Somewhere along the way, many of us learned that slowing down means we’re falling behind.

That if we don’t stay constantly productive, constantly available, constantly “on,”

we are somehow less worthy.

But nature disagrees.

Winter is the season of returning to yourself—

the gentle, necessary act of gathering your energy back from the world

the way a crow gathers scraps of light, shiny fragments of self,

carrying them home to the quiet safety of its hidden nest.

This is the time to notice what parts of you are tired.

What parts are overstretched.

What parts have been performing for too long.

What parts need warmth, not pressure.

And in the dimness, there is a flame.

Not a roaring bonfire—just a small, steady ember.

The kind that doesn’t demand attention,

but offers comfort simply by existing.

This ember is your inner life: your intuition, your rest, your truth.

It glows brighter when you step back from the noise.

It steadies when you stop trying to prove yourself.

Returning to yourself isn’t dramatic.

It’s subtle.

It’s sitting in silence long enough to hear what your body has been trying to say.

It’s choosing presence over performance.

It’s letting the world move at its frantic pace while you move at your own.

This season is an invitation:

Slow down.

Reclaim your energy.

Come home to yourself without apology.

The crow knows when to fly and when to nest.

The flame knows when to burn bright and when to simply glow.

And so do you.