The Cringier, the Better
An Honest Take on the Healing Journey
Lately I’ve been thinking about how much pressure there is to make healing look instagrammable.
You know what I mean — the photos of someone meditating by the ocean, sipping tea on a porch, or doing breathwork in soft light with peaceful music in the background.
And don’t get me wrong, there’s a rightful place for those moments. But more often than not, they’re not what healing looks like — they’re what happens after the hard stuff.
The real healing moments are a lottttt messier.
They look like puffy eyes, snotty tissues, and crying so hard your whole face burns.
Or feeling paralyzed in your car while mustering the courage to hit “send” on a boundary-setting text that makes your entire body clench.
Or finally honoring your sacred rage in a conversation you’ve stayed silent in for too long — not because yelling is the goal, but because something in you refuses to keep swallowing the truth.
Admittedly, during the early innings of my awakening process, I used to curate my healing journey. I would only post inspiring photos and words because I thought people would take it more seriously. But now I see how much that was inadvertently reinforcing the same proverbial mask I was guiding and teaching others how to take off. It made people feel like healing had to look good — when in reality, the real moments of healing aren’t camera-worthy at all.
Here’s what I wish more people understood:
Nervous system regulation doesn’t mean you don’t get dysregulated anymore. Quite the opposite. The healing journey is one of the most dysregulating things you can do.
You’re asking your system to unlearn what it thinks is “safe” — the people-pleasing, the overthinking, the staying quiet — and relearn that it’s okay to feel hard emotions, take up space, and show up as your real self.
Nervous system regulation means you can notice when you’re dysregulated… and still stay connected to yourself.
It’s not about perfection — it’s about capacity. And that capacity gets built in the mess.
When clients tell me they feel worse than before, I always say: this isn’t a sign that it’s not working — or that you’re doing it wrong. It’s actually a sign your system finally feels safe enough to feel. All those emotions it once believed would destroy you if they surfaced? They’re coming up now because your system finally believes you can meet them.
And in those moments, my job isn’t to provide more tools or give advice. My job is to offer unfiltered presence and my nervous system as an anchor — so their system can metabolize what it once believed would kill them.
Because healing — and I mean true, embodied healing — can feel like everything’s unraveling. Like your edges are tearing. And that’s because they are — you’re quite literally stretching the edges of your nervous system.
Just like building muscle, it hurts when the fibers tear. But it’s the very tearing that expands you.
True healing almost never looks glamorous. Or polished. Or pristine.
Honestly? The messier it is, the more honest it probably is too. And that level of honesty is what actually heals at the root.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
WORTHY begins August 13
Slots are filling up! If you’ve been craving a space where you don’t have to hide the mess — where you’re not just told you’re worthy, but actually supported in embodying it — WORTHY might be for you.
It’s a 6-week ceremonial group journey that weaves nervous system work, sacred ritual, somatic practice, and real, unfiltered conversation to help you root into your wholeness and remember your worth.
We’ll move through themes like:
Returning to worthiness
Inner safety and self-trust
The sacred art of self-love
Finding your voice
Reclaiming your sacred yes
Integration through embodiment
We’ve made pricing more accessible through tiered options (the most affordable option is only available until July 31st!), and we begin August 13. Nhi and I would love to have you with us if this speaks to you. 💛
P.S. I’ll also have a few 1:1 Inner Mastery Code coaching spots opening up at the end of July. This is my deeper container for those ready to go all-in on healing at the nervous system level and reclaiming the life that’s actually meant for them. Reach out if you want to explore working together.
💪