Last week, we took a break.

Every single one of us – kids, grown-ups, and even our cat – needed to step away from the constant rhythm of “normal” and remember how to breathe. And that’s exactly what we did. We took a week to remember.

To remember who we are.

Why we are.

Where we are.

What we are.

This time away helped me remember why parts of us exist – the tired parts, the guarded parts, the reactive parts. The ones we try to suppress or wish away, because somewhere along the way, we were taught that they were our flaws. But they’re not. They’re signals. They’re coping mechanisms – each one created for a reason, by our own subconscious.

Anxiety, For One

Personally, this was it for me. It’s easy to view anxiety as the enemy – something to get rid of, shut down, numb, ignore. But this week reminded me: my anxiety is not trying to ruin me. It’s trying to protect me. It’s scanning for danger, anticipating chaos, preparing for the unknown. It’s doing what it was built to do – keep me safe in an otherwise unpredictable world.

And yes, sometimes it overreacts. Sometimes it fires too loudly or too often. But maybe instead of despising it, I can learn to listen to it. Sift through the noise and find the signal.

What if we started viewing all of our coping mechanisms – every quirk, every wall, every overthinking spiral – not as problems to be fixed, but as clues to our survival?

The people-pleasing? A learned way to avoid conflict.

The overplanning? A tool to prevent being caught off guard.

The detachment? A shield for a heart that’s been hurt too many times.

None of it is random. All of it came from somewhere.

So maybe the question isn’t “How do I get rid of this?”

Maybe the better question is, “What is this trying to tell me?”

We don’t have to keep every coping mechanism in its current form – some may no longer serve us, and that’s okay. But what if we approached them with curiosity instead of shame?

What if healing looked less like erasing, and more like reclaiming?

More like learning to understand ourselves instead of constantly trying to fix ourselves?

This is the journey I’d rather be on.

To breathe.

To remember.

To embrace.

And I hope, if you’re on this kind of journey too, you know you’re not alone.

Love Always,