September 16, 2026
I drove home from my family reunion in June feeling about seven years old.
I was only there for three days, and yet that's all it took for me to embody roles I thought I'd outgrown decades ago. Insecurities from my past that I’d sworn were dealt with suddenly came to the surface.
If you think you're enlightened, go home and spend time with your family (Ram Dass).
Honestly, it was such a shock that I worried what it meant to suddenly feel like my past Self. But as I drove home, the heaviness began to lift. I walked through my own front door, entered my own sacred space, and started to come back to myself.
That coming back to yourself is what I’d like to explore, because it’s something we all need, whether a family reunion is involved or not.
I’ve spent decades building my personal practice and unraveling conditioned patterns, yet that all seemed to disappear in a matter of hours.
There wasn’t a major argument or event that caused the internal shift from “centered” to “what is this?” It was the little digs here and there. A handful of small comments. The old patterns a family falls into when they’re around one another. Then on the last day of my trip, something happened that I still don't care to talk about, and by the time I got in the car I was reeling.
This is how it goes for most people, by the way. We visit with people from our pasts, so our past Self (the Self who developed the relationship) takes over. But no one goes home to visit their parents and turns into a seven-year-old instantly. It happens bit by bit, then when you leave, you might start questioning your identity. Because the Self you were during the short visit doesn’t fit with the Self you are the rest of the year.
What surprised me wasn't that the old wounds were still alive. I know they're still alive because patterns developed as children run so deep we carry bits of them our entire lives (I've written before about how much our family lineage influences our current world, even how we choose to love). But I was surprised by how much I embodied those wounds in as little as three days. I wasn’t simply observing and flowing through it. I was in them.
Clients often want me to get rid of something that’s causing problems, like anger or grief or sadness. I understand completely because who loves dealing with these feelings? Yet I still have to tell them the truth, which is that getting rid of emotions is not healing.
Feelings can’t simply get removed like taking out a splinter. If someone says their trauma is “gone,” it only means they suppressed it and refused to accept what already happened. We can't change the past. Those insecurities and emotions and tender places live inside us, and they’ll go on living there because, as the popular saying goes, we “cannot unsee.”
We understand all of this perfectly well when it comes to bodies. If a person loses a leg, nobody waits around for the leg to grow back. We adapt, we figure out how to support our changed body, and we get on with living. When we face challenges, like going up stairs, we don’t crumple and exclaim, “I thought this issue was deal with!” We know we’re missing a leg now and challenges will come up because of that, but we’ll figure it out.
Yet, when the injury is emotional or psychological, we behave as though it ought to simply resolve itself and go away completely, provided the person tries hard enough.
I’m sorry to tell you: everyone has an amputated leg somewhere inside them. Every one of us.
That wounded place is part of you, and yes, it can be a pain sometimes, but it also has gifts to share. I was the one who got put down in my family, which is exactly why I root for the underdog now. And it’s why I can offer support to a client in the worst hour of their life without needing them to hurry up and feel better. My compassion has a source, and the source isn’t a happy story. Still, I’m thankful for the gift I can now share with others.
Healing isn’t a destination, more like a new perspective. Old patterns will come back from time to time, and you’ll know you’ve reached a certain level of healing when you notice them creeping back in. Each time you notice and use your tools, you’ll bring a little more presence to yourself.
This is what healing is: acceptance, awareness, knowing you have the strength and resilience to flow through old patterns and trauma when they arise.
The tool that helped bring me back was (surprise!) breathwork.
When I got home, I laid on the floor, soaking in the positive energy of my space, and did a breathwork session. I let the whole reunion move through me instead of digging in. This is what breathwork is for. It doesn't ask me to understand what happened right away or explain it to anyone. It just un-sticks energy and brings me back to my center.
My home also played a major role in releasing the insecurities and old conditioning, because it’s something I chose. It’s me. Walking into that house after three days of being the Self my family remembers shifted me back into the person I am now.
My house is a resource.
Most of us don't use that word about our own lives, do we? We say “I like hiking,” or “I love my friends,” or “My house makes me happy.” But all of those are resources we can use during times of struggle, because they remind us of the Self and life we choose.
My friends are resources, especially the ones who have been with me through twenty years of raising kids, through breakups, and through work that took off and work that fell apart. They'll tell me things I don't want to hear and love me completely.
Hiking (for me—I’m not saying you have to love hiking) is a resource. Nature rejuvenates me and movement out in the fresh air clears my head.
I have many other resources and so do you! Wherever you’ve built a life, whatever you enjoy doing, and the people offering you support now… those are all resources that can bring you back to a centered state. All these beautiful resources can re-connect you with yourself when you start to feel off.
Of course, of everything on my list, breathwork is the one I lean on hardest. I can use it anywhere, anytime I need it, and it doesn't require anyone else to be available. It doesn't require me to be in a good mood, or in a particular place, or to have anything figured out yet. I only need ten minutes and my own lungs.
Using it as a daily practice is even more powerful. That’s what coming back to yourself has come to mean for me: a reliable way home.
My Inspired Breath breathwork membership exists for exactly this reason. There are more than forty recordings in the library, with sessions running from ten minutes to forty-five. And we do live journeys every week. There’s also a community of people breathing alongside you. The cost is low because I wanted it to be something people could actually keep up regularly. It could absolutely become your next resource.
You can see everything it includes here.
In my longer Family Constellations sessions, one of the first things I do with a client is help them get clear on what their resources actually are.
The point is awareness. When you're in that regressed, childlike state, the one where you feel small and powerless, you almost never think to reach for help. But if you've spent weeks getting familiar with your own resources, you’ll start to have more and more awareness when you fall into that regressed state. You’ll start reaching out, whether that’s calling a friend or taking a moment to breathe with intention.
When you can get in the habit of reaching for your resources, you’ll get better and better at shifting out of that small place and back into your full size.
This can take time and effort, but there’s another way that might get you there a little faster. It requires escaping from your daily life, and stepping so far outside your ordinary busyness that you can hear yourself again. That's why I love retreats, and it's why I keep saying yes to facilitating them.
Our women's retreat here in Sedona is October 2nd through 5th, so it’s coming up fast! It will be four days of breathwork, movement, sacred ceremony, hiking, meals from a private chef, and a small group of women doing the same work beside you. If this is the season for that, you can find everything here: Embodying the Sacred Feminine Retreat.
If you’re facing a family reunion or you’ve just experienced something that brought up old pains, I want you to know that getting pulled into an old Self and old patterns isn’t a failure. You’re not at square one.
What you need is a way back. So make your list of resources. Notice what people, places, or tools genuinely return you to yourself, and, always, give yourself compassion.
If you'd like some support figuring out what belongs on your list, I'd love that. Book a FREE 15-minute discovery session with me, and let's talk.
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