Category: Dealing with Hardships
The Summitless Path
What an unexpected hike revealed about life’s in-between seasons Last weekend, my friends and I decided to go on what was supposed to be an easy, well-trodden mountain hike that ended with a beautiful panoramic viewpoint — perfect for people who weren’t avid hikers. But when we got there, the trail was closed due to ...
For those who can’t get unstuck (even if they want to)
The past five years of my life have felt like continuous upward momentum — an era of growth, healing, discovery and expansion (despite a few setbacks, of course). But a couple of months ago, that momentum suddenly came to a halt. It was as if my body had hit the emergency brakes before my mind ...
Post-Breakup Reflections: Healing from Heartbreak
Even the most respectful and cordial breakups are inevitably messy—not because anyone intended it, but because the resulting emotional rollercoaster is impossible to avoid. After several months of embarking on my own healing journey, I can say that the 5 Stages of Grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance) are true. And even after you ...
How to Overcome Indecision, Doubt, and Dissatisfaction with Your Life Choices
The more I've had to make life-altering decisions, the more I've come to realize that it's nearly impossible to make the perfect choice. That's because the "perfect choice" rarely exists. Every path requires sacrifice. Saying "yes" to one path means saying "no" to another, and walking through one door means leaving another one unopened. We ...
Finding Self-Respect: The Power of Walking Away
When I was younger, I used to pride myself on constantly making a martyr of myself for other people. While I do still pride myself on having the self-control to be kind to people who are not kind to me, to refuse to fight fire with fire, to stay classy when I could easily be ...
Wrestling with Reality: The Difficult Journey of Letting Go
One of the hardest aspects of going through a breakup or losing someone you love is the denial stage, when every part of you resists reality, because it is still too painful to fully accept. It's when the irrational part of you stubbornly clings on to the smallest shred of hope that maybe reality will ...
Heroic Acceptance vs. Resigned Victimhood
Years ago, when circumstances forced me to let go of an era of my life that I wasn't ready to let go of yet, I had a very symbolic dream. In that dream, I was standing on a bridge that was beginning to crumble, and I could not outrun it. Whether I liked it or ...
Lost Innocence
Although I love the person that I've become, I can't deny that there are certain aspects of myself that I wish I could revert back to, particularly in relation to my spiritual life. Sometimes I wish I could go back to the former version of myself for whom faith in God's goodness, let alone existence, ...
Healing the Fear of Making the Wrong Decision
Growing up in a religious environment, there had always been an emphasis on discerning and following "God's will" for one's life. There was this notion that God had a plan for every single one of us and that our job was to do our best to yield to that plan—ranging from following whatever vocation we ...
Top 4 Lessons I Learned from the Past Year
A part of me was somewhat reluctant to look back at the past year—not because it was particularly atrocious, but because it was tinted with a bittersweet note. Looking back at wonderful memories also reminds me of the people I shared them with who are no longer in my life in the same capacity they ...
Celine Diaz: Real Talk 