Unaltered Voices

During one of my late-night drives — the kind where you roll the windows down and let the wind sort through your thoughts — I remembered an old “friend.” Funny how memories like to resurface just when you think you’ve buried them under healing. She and I met at church. Back then, I was still trying to convince myself that spiritual community meant safety. But what I found was a place filled with people who could call me out but never look in the mirror themselves. Accountability seemed to skip certain pews. One day after service, she called and said she needed to stop by. When she arrived, she smiled and said, “God told me to bless you.” Then she asked if I needed money for something. I said yes, my light bill. At that time, I was a single mother trying to survive, and that help truly made a difference. But the peace didn’t last. A strange energy came over me soon after. I could feel something was off, like the blessing came with invisible strings. Then she admitted she had asked he...

  As I drove around to clear my head and soak in the cool weather and beaming sun, I passed rows of beautiful homes with magnificent curb appeal. The kind of homes that make you slow down just a little. I admired the structures. The details. The symmetry. The care that clearly went into how everything appeared. Not from a place of envy. But from a place of appreciation for the beauty of it all. After passing the last home on that strip, my mind shifted. I began thinking about how homes are carefully built. How they provide a frame that often hides what’s really going on inside. How walls can be freshly painted, lawns perfectly trimmed, windows spotless, while inside, everything is quietly falling apart. And then I thought about people. How people build beautiful structures, too. Lives that look impressive. Personalities that appear confident. Images that seem whole, polished, and put together. Structures that draw admiration from the outside. Until someone wants out. Because when ...

Some wounds aren’t visible; they live in the words that were never said, the apologies that never came, and the love that always had conditions. For a long time, I believed family was sacred no matter what. I thought love meant enduring disrespect, manipulation, and guilt just to keep the peace. I thought choosing myself was selfish. But I was wrong. I learned the hard way that toxic family patterns don’t just disappear; they repeat until someone decides to break the cycle . That someone was me. Recognizing the Signs of Toxicity Toxicity doesn’t always look like shouting or violence. Sometimes it’s the silence, the way people withhold love when you don’t comply, or the subtle digs wrapped in “jokes.” It’s being made to feel guilty for having boundaries. It’s constantly second-guessing yourself because you’ve been told your feelings are “too much.” It’s the exhaustion that comes from trying to prove your worth to people who have already decided you’re the problem. When you grow up in dy...

  I was driving one day, music low, windows cracked just enough for the breeze to kiss my face. The road stretched wide ahead, quiet, open, promising. I was in my lane, minding my journey, until I saw someone flagging me down. He looked harmless enough, even kind. So, I slowed down. I stopped the car. He smiled, said all the right things. Claimed he was headed in the same direction. Spoke of shared destinations, peace, love, purpose, all the places I had written on my soul’s itinerary. I believed him. I made room for him in the passenger seat of my life. At first, the ride felt light. The conversation flowed. The miles disappeared behind us. But soon, the energy shifted. The air got heavy. His directions grew louder than my own intuition. He reached for the wheel not to guide, but to control. I found myself driving down roads I didn’t recognize, questioning how I’d ended up so far from where I was headed. That’s the thing about stopping for the wrong people: they don’t just take up...

Sometimes life gives you a full-circle moment, one that connects something you once heard, something you once lived, and something you were always meant to know. Not long ago, I was watching a video that brought me right back to a conversation my daughter and I had years ago. At the time, I didn’t realize how prophetic her words were. She said: “We come into people’s lives to heal them in some way. We mirror them so they can see themselves and shift.” At the time, I wasn’t fully walking in who I am now. I was still learning, still growing, still discovering my purpose. But as I listened to that video, hearing someone else say the very thing my daughter once told me, I realized it finally clicked . I understood. I am the catalyst. And no, that’s not about ego. It’s not about thinking I’m better than anyone else. It’s about knowing my purpose and the divine energy I’m meant to carry into this world. It’s no coincidence that my passions are life coaching and writing; both are tools that...