Behind the Scenes of Healing Outloud

When I returned home, I had already started writing again.

Not constantly.
Not with some grand plan.

Maybe a poem once a week.
Journal entries here and there.
Small reflections written quietly in the middle of trying to survive my own life.

At first, returning home felt like slowing down against my will.

I had spent so much of my life moving — professionally, emotionally, mentally — that stillness almost felt uncomfortable. But somewhere between helping take care of Grandma, sitting with my own thoughts, and no longer constantly running from myself, something began to change.

The slower pace gave me space.

Space to think.
Space to reflect.
Space to ask questions I had avoided for a very long time:

What is?
What was?
What could still be?

And somewhere in that space, Healing Outloud began to take shape.

Not as a business plan.
Not as a brand strategy.
But as a decision.

A decision to tell the truth.

Not the polished version.
Not the version that makes me look wiser or stronger than I was.
Not the version where healing happens all at once.

Just the truth.

Sometimes that truth looked like grief.
Sometimes addiction.
Sometimes shame.
Sometimes hope returning in very small ways.

When I started putting together From the Middle, I thought I was simply organizing poems.

I did not realize how much healing would come from allowing myself to be seen one piece at a time.

Not in a perfectly linear story of:
“This is where I was.
This is what happened.
This is where I am now.”

But through individual moments.

One poem.
One truth.
One reflection at a time.

Along the way came the journal.
The coloring book.
The quieter projects.

Things that mirrored what I was actually doing in my own life while learning how to regulate again. While choosing sobriety. While rebuilding relationships. While learning that healing is often less dramatic than people imagine.

Sometimes healing looks like writing.
Sometimes it looks like sitting with your grandmother in the quiet.
Sometimes it looks like making coffee, watering plants, organizing thoughts, or simply staying present long enough to feel your own life again.

And the work still continues.

The writing continues.

Not because I have everything figured out — but because I do not.

Because there are still truths unfolding.
Still reflections arriving.
Still pieces of myself returning slowly over time.

Healing Outloud was never meant to be a story about having all the answers.

It was — and still is — about being willing to tell the truth while learning to live them.

Reflection

What parts of yourself only became visible once your life finally slowed down enough to notice them?

Begin Where You Are

You do not need to have your entire story figured out before you begin telling the truth about where you are now.