emotional healing

Where the Wind Lays It Down

Posted on by Kerri Elizabeth


“The forest never asks the storm why it came; it simply bends, sheds, and begins again.”

The wind bends through the trees

in a language only the leaves understand,

a soft push, a whispered lifting,

a reminder that even the heaviest branches

can sway.

Above me, the sky is stitched in blues

deep as secrets in one breath,

light as forgiveness in another.

The pines stand like sentinels,

their green unwavering,

while some branches hold the yellow

of quiet endings.

Others are bare,

their story already returned to the earth.

Light slips between the gaps,

casting shapes across the grass,

the way truth sneaks through silence.

A bird trusts my open hand,

takes a peanut,

and disappears into the moving green.

All around me

cones scattered like unwritten sentences,

blackberries winding their own wild paragraphs,

shadows folding and unfolding

as clouds wander by

chaos and peace live side by side,

neither asking permission of the other.

Here, betrayals fall like pine cones.

They hit the ground with a weight

you cannot always hear,

but you can feel.

Left long enough,

the sharp edges soften,

they sink into the soil,

they turn to compost.

Not gone,

but changed.

And yet,

in the curated corners of the world,

none of this is written.

Only the polished pictures remain,

smiles framed without the ones

who bore the weight.

The heavy lifters left outside the lens,

while those untouched by the labor

stand centered in the frame,

as if they had carried it all along.

But the forest keeps the full story.

It holds the fallen and the standing,

the loyal roots and the broken limbs.

It tells me:

Feel the break.

Release the weight.

Root again.

And so I lay it here,

at the feet of the pines,

where wind can carry what I cannot,

where the ground knows

how to turn even the deepest cuts

into something that can grow again.

~Kerri-Elizabeth~

The unraveling, the walk through the parts of the forest no one shows on social media!!!

The Day of Allowing

Posted on by Kerri Elizabeth

“When you stop resisting what you feel, the storm becomes part of the sky.”

This day carries two worlds.

One is quiet, a field wrapped in ferns and trees, where the grass breathes beneath my feet and small wildflowers bow in the breeze. The air holds no hurry, only the slow turning of the sun across the sky. It is a place away from the hum of preparation, away from voices, away from the invisible weight that gathers in the presence of too many expectations.

The other world waits at the lake. There, the water glistens like it is holding its breath, catching light in sharp silver fragments. The sound of laughter drifts across the surface, tangled with movement and unspoken tension. It is close enough to touch, yet far enough that I can step away, returning to the stillness where silence settles like a friend beside me.

Between these two worlds, something significant unfolds. A gathering large enough to stir deep currents, filled with people whose histories are intertwined with mine, some bound by love, others by fracture. There are unspoken allegiances here, silent decisions to stand beside one person by turning away from another. There are those whose eyes meet mine with warmth, and others who cannot look at me at all. Words are not always spoken, yet judgments travel in the tilt of a chin, the pause in a greeting, the space someone leaves between us as they pass.

It is a peculiar vantage point — to be so close I could reach out and touch the edges of it, yet far enough to choose not to step inside. From here I can see the weaving of loyalties and the severing of ties. I can watch the way people navigate the discomfort of proximity, the way some drift toward neutrality while others seem easily pulled by the tide of someone else’s version of the truth.

What might have once been painful has become, in its own way, a blessing. Distance has given me a clearer view of human nature — of how quickly stories can take root, how easily one can become a stranger in a place they once belonged. It has shown me the cost of bending to keep the peace, and the rare beauty of standing still while the world decides where it wishes to place you.

Last night, as we sat talking, we saw what we thought was a distant light. But it was the moon, full and magnificent, pouring its glow through the trees. Its brilliance turned the night into a silver dream, so bright it felt as though it was speaking directly to us.

And what I love most is that my husband is walking his own path through this day, just as I am. We give each other the freedom to feel without asking for explanations. No one tells the other how to stand, how to think, how to carry the weight of this moment. We trust that however the other needs to be is enough. No conditions. No corrections. Just the grace of allowing.

Allowing has become my quiet revolution. If I want cookies for breakfast, I will. If I want to plant flowers with dirt under my nails, I will. If I want to wander in circles or sit perfectly still, I will. If I want to cry until my chest aches, I will. I am learning that feelings are not fires to be put out. They are rivers to be followed, their currents sometimes wild, sometimes slow, but always moving me toward a wider sea.

When I allow myself to feel, the anxiety loosens sooner. The urge to resist fades. Even the ache softens because it is no longer trapped. And sometimes, in the middle of it all, I find beauty I would have missed if I had tried to control the moment. The way the moon’s light slips between branches, the way a fish breaks the surface of the lake, the way the air feels before rain.

So today, I am here. In both worlds. In all my colors. Moving as I need to move. Breathing as I need to breathe. And in the allowing, I find a freedom I have waited my whole life to meet.

I am the field and the lake,

the stillness and the storm,

and I am free to be both.

~Kerri-Elizabeth~

When the Holding Softens

Posted on by Kerri Elizabeth

“Love without needing to be heard. Witness without needing to be seen. This is the way the heart learns to let go without breaking.”

There is a quiet shift that arrives when the nest no longer holds the noise, the rhythm, the needs of others,but the heart still holds everything.

Not the same everything. Not the packed lunches or the sleepless nights or the doorways filled with shoes.

But the echoes.

The scent of memories.

The weightless presence of all that was, still moving through all that is.

It comes quietly, without applause.

Like fog over still water, blurring the lines of who you were and who you’re becoming.

The role of “mother” does not disappear.

But it loosens.

The edges fray.

And what remains is not a void, but a sacred space.

A space you were never taught to hold.

This is not the story of being forgotten.

This is the story of becoming.

Of learning to love in a new way.

Without grasping.

Without needing to be needed.

You learn to love like the tide loves the shore—arriving gently, without demand.

You stop fixing, and start witnessing.

You no longer chase understanding.

You offer presence instead of proof.

Some days it feels like grieving.

Like a door closed too softly to notice it shut.

Other days it feels like freedom.

Like your name returning to your own mouth.

You learn to notice when your presence holds too much weight,

when your words carry more pressure than peace.

You practice softening.

You practice stepping back without stepping away.

Sometimes they don’t call.

Sometimes they rewrite the story without asking you to hold a pen.

Sometimes love looks like letting go of the version of closeness you once knew.

But here’s what remains:

The roots are still in the earth.

The sky still knows your prayers.

And you, the one who gave and gave and gave,

now turn inward

to the woman inside the mother,

to the soul behind the role.

You are not waiting for them to return.

You are returning to yourself.

The Weightless Way

Let it be light,

the way you love them now.

Not a weight,

not a wound,

not a wish pressed too tightly

into their becoming.

Let it be the way the sun loves the morning—

with presence, not pressure.

Let it be the way the tide meets the shore—

without clinging, without asking for anything back.

Let your hands rest.

They’ve built enough altars.

They’ve held what they could not keep.

Now they open.

Not in surrender

but in blessing.

You are not what you were to them.

You are what remains when all roles dissolve—

and that,

that is everything.

What If It Wasn’t Bad? Rethinking Pain as a Pathway to Presence

Posted on by Kerri Elizabeth

We’ve been taught to run.

Taught that pain is something to fix.

That discomfort means something’s gone wrong.

That a heavy feeling in the chest or a longing in the heart must be pushed away, stuffed down, or labeled as “bad.”

But what if that’s never what it was?

What if that ache is awareness?

A sacred nudge toward what wants to grow?

What if the longing is not lack, but a compass pointing toward change?

What if pain isn’t a punishment, but a messenger—

not to escape, but to engage?

We often assume pain is the opposite of progress.

But the truth?

The most profound art,

the most enduring love,

the richest wisdom,

and the most awe-inspiring growth

has always begun in the soil of the not-so-glorious.

It is not from our perfectly curated moments that truth emerges.

It is from the cracks, the tremors, the missteps, and the quiet spaces where the world doesn’t quite make sense.

That’s where clarity lives.

That’s where strength is forged.

Not in the absence of hurt,

but in walking through it with a willingness to see what it’s really offering.

Pain and growth are dance partners.

They collide regularly—and on purpose.

We waste so much energy trying to disappear the discomfort,

instead of listening to it.

Instead of witnessing its tears.

Instead of offering it presence.

We try to escape it.

Numb it.

Shame it away.

But what if you can’t escape because you’re not supposed to?

What if it’s not a mountain, just a hill—and turning back now means you’ll never know what the view looks like from the other side?

When we panic, when we waiver, when we doubt our capacity to feel,

we shrink back into survival.

Into the belief that we won’t make it if we truly let ourselves feel what’s here.

But observe.

Just observe.

That’s where transformation begins.

That’s where the words are born,

the lessons etched into time,

the wisdom passed through generations.

Let’s not be so quick to fix what hurts.

Let’s not retreat so quickly that we miss the beauty within the breaking.

Because in skipping over our destination points—just because we were told they were wrong—we miss the waypoints of our becoming.

~Kerri Elizabeth~

Instead, ask:

Does this pain grow me or hold me in place?

Is this discomfort guiding me closer to myself or pulling me away from what’s true?

When you stop escaping and start observing,

you may find that what you feared was destroying you

is actually delivering you

into more of who you are.

“Listening to Your Inner Knowing: Healing Through Stillness and Truth”

Posted on by Kerri Elizabeth

More than one growing together with its own definition, not to be the other, but instead to highlight both dark and light to show up in the middle as the sunrise and sunset, that is where beauty shines.

We trust so many things without ever touching them.
Without holding them up to the light,
without asking how they feel in our own body,
our own heart,
our own knowing.

We trust because it’s easier, faster —
because we’re tired.
We’ve been taught to trust what’s already packaged and repeated.
To scroll, absorb, accept.

But not everything you’re given is meant to be yours.
And not every truth belongs on your skin.

Years ago, a man watched water in a moonlit stream.
Not through a microscope,
but through the lens of stillness,
and the wild reverence of someone who listened to nature.

Viktor Schauberger.
A name many will never hear.

He followed the movement of water like it was alive —
and it is.

“They call me deranged… But if I am right and science is wrong… may God help mankind.”

He wasn’t just speaking of water.
He was warning us.
That intuition, when silenced, becomes prophecy unheeded.
That nature, when ignored, will find other ways to speak.

We’ve forgotten the language of touch, of sense,
of sitting still long enough to let our own nervous system
guide us back to center.

We fear the plants we were told not to touch.
Even now, after they’ve shown their healing.
We wait for permission to use what was already gifted
by the earth, by God, by the breath that first woke us.

We trust what’s loud,
and overlook what’s ancient.

And it’s no wonder.

We are not living in stillness.
We are surviving in stimulation.

There’s a flood of voices,
each one offering the cure, the fix, the next best way.
One day you’re saved.
The next day you’re wrong.
Everything changes by the algorithm’s pulse.

How do we live inside that noise
and still hear what’s true?

The answer doesn’t come from more knowing.
It comes from returning.
To yourself.

Not the version that’s always learning, always pleasing, always pushing —
but the version that still sits under trees and breathes in silence.
That part of you who remembers.
Who already knows.

You can’t buy that knowing.
You can’t find it in someone else’s steps.
It only lives where you do.

Sit still, even if it’s uncomfortable.
Turn off the sounds.
Step into the trees.
Let nature speak without interruption.

You may feel fear at first —
the fear of your own thoughts,
your own emptiness.

But that emptiness isn’t hollow.
It’s sacred.
It’s where the voice of your Creator still hums.
Not loudly. Not demandingly.
Just… waiting.

We all carry spaces we haven’t touched yet.
Places inside we’ve filled with someone else’s story.
Beliefs that don’t fit.
Triggers that haven’t been soothed.
Emotions we never learned how to sit with.

But if we want to heal —
if we want to truly know —
we have to stop outsourcing ourselves.

You can’t be loved in your fullness
if you don’t first live there.

 On Love, Wholeness, and Belonging

We barely know how to be in relationship anymore —
not because we don’t want love,
but because love has been layered with fear.

We’re taught that to keep someone close, we must please them.
That love means sacrifice of self,
and that rejection is the cost of being honest.

We start to doubt ourselves.
To assume others must think what we think.
To believe that two becoming one
means we lose something essential in order to belong.

But true belonging doesn’t come from ownership.
It isn’t found in control or in bending to stay wanted.

One and one do not become one.
One and one remain two whole beings —
choosing to walk together,
flowing like river and earth,
like tree and fruit,
each shaped by the other
but never demanded to be less than what it is.

Yes, we intertwine.
Yes, we influence.
But the gift of love is growth,
not reduction.

Two become more when they remain whole.

 Where It All Flows Together

We are made of contrast.
We are not just joy or just pain.
We are the weaving of both —
the ache and the awe living side by side.

Love isn’t just soft.
Sometimes it’s sharp.
It shows us where we’ve gone missing inside ourselves
and invites us to return.

Pain isn’t punishment.
It’s often the invitation.
A crack that lets the new voice echo through —
the one we’d silenced for far too long.

There is light.
And there is shadow.
Both belong.
Both speak truth.

Grief isn’t the opposite of healing.
It is healing,
when we let it move through us
instead of freeze within us.

And joy — real joy —
isn’t shallow.
It’s made deeper by all the places we’ve been
where joy was far from reach.
It’s not the skipping over.
It’s the rising after sinking.

We rush so quickly —
through minutes, through meaning —
as if depth will wait for us.
But truth lives in the slow.
In the pause.
In the breath that asks,
“Do you feel this?”

To be whole,
we must let it all flow together.
Not filtered.
Not compartmentalized.
But lived.

Awareness is the alchemy.
It’s not that we must choose light or dark,
joy or sorrow, love or sadness
It’s that we become the space that allows them to coexist
without shame.
That is where truth resonates —
in the fullness of the human experience
embraced without fear.

 Can you hear that? Dont trust me, instead listen for yourself.

The voice that created you —
is still there.
Still speaking.
Not through screens,
but through wind.
Through intuition.
Through breath.

Can you hear it?

-Kerri-Elizabeth-

Walking Through the Perception of Pain

Posted on by Kerri Elizabeth

BE AWARE OF HOW YOU SEE YOURSELF, THATS THE SAME VIEW YOU SEE THE WORLD THROUGH.

There comes a time when running no longer works—
when the ache doesn’t lessen with distance,
when the echo of pain waits for you at the next bend.
It is not weakness to pause.
It is strength to stay, to look directly into the eyes of discomfort
and ask it: What are you here to show me?

Walking through the pain is not about conquering it—
it’s about knowing it.
Seeing its colors, hearing its rhythm,
feeling the way it shifts your breath, your stance, your gaze.
Sometimes it’s a loud throb that demands your attention,
other times it’s a subtle whisper,
a pulse in the background of your choices.

Is it really pain—or is it the story you were told about pain?
Do you respond out of memory, out of programming,
or from presence, clarity, and truth?

Pain can be an ally in transformation
when we stop anticipating its arrival with fear
and start witnessing it as a bridge—
an invitation to expand.

Ask yourself:
– Why am I walking away?
– Am I avoiding hurt, or avoiding growth?
– Can I stay here, still and strong,
not to suffer but to see?

Life will test you.
That’s a promise.
But how you define those tests is up to you.
Are they punishments—or portals?

You can do hard things.
With grace.
With steady breath.
With the knowing that pain
is not your identity
but a teacher passing through.

When you choose to walk through it,
you walk into a new version of yourself.
One who didn’t skip the chapter,
but read it aloud
and found truth in its lines.

Let others react how they do—
some will shut down, some will turn away,
some will lash out.
That doesn’t define your path.
Let your response be rooted in wisdom,
not reflex.
Let your heart rate be a compass,
not a warning siren.
And let your stillness reveal
the power you’ve always had.

Poem: The Walk

I walked not because I had nowhere to go,
but because I had somewhere to arrive within.
The road cracked beneath my bare feet—
not to injure me,
but to open what I buried long ago.

Pain was not the enemy.
It was the door.
And I—
I became the key.

I stopped naming it sorrow
and started calling it strength.
I stopped listening to fear
and started listening to breath.

Every tremble became a prayer.
Every pause, a song of endurance.
I walked, not to escape,
but to enter.

Not to fight,
but to finally feel.

-Kerri-Elizabeth-

Becoming Me: From Movement to Meaning

Posted on by Kerri Elizabeth

There was a time when health meant how much I could do, how much I could carry, how long I could push before resting. I worked out with intensity, studied every herb, food, and method that could improve strength or reduce fat. The knowledge I gained was real, the discipline was real—but the peace was missing.

What I didn’t realize then was how much I was bypassing the essence of health: how I felt.
Not just physically—but emotionally, spiritually, soulfully.

I’ve always loved creating things by hand. Oils, salves, teas, tinctures, healing masks from spring water and clay, or wild herbs from trails I walked barefoot. Nature was always whispering truth—I just wasn’t still enough to fully listen.

While I still love fitness, clean food, herbal medicine, and conscious care for the body, I no longer confuse output with worth. I no longer miss the sacred moment just to be—to breathe, to rest, to listen.

I’ve learned that beauty is not just in appearance.
It’s in presence. It’s in the natural glow that comes from joy, peace, connection.
Rosing cheeks and clarity in the eyes can come from a moment in the sun, a homemade mask from riverbed mud, or laughter with someone you love.

I’ve also realized that listening deeply—especially to my children’s perspectives—requires that same presence. Each of my children experienced their childhood differently. Some of their stories don’t match mine. But I’ve learned to hear them, to honor their voices without needing to defend or reshape mine. That, too, is healing.

I no longer try to fix everything or keep everyone close.
Instead, I honor where we all are—right now.
I’ve chosen to be me.
Not a version of what anyone else needs, but an honest, whole, and healing version of who I am becoming.

The Truth of Wellness

I used to measure wellness
by how much I could carry,
how much I could do
without breaking.

I didn’t know
that strength
wasn’t in the weight I lifted,
but in the grace
of letting go.

I’ve found more beauty
in riverbeds and spring mud
than any sculpted space indoors.
The color in my cheeks
comes now from earth and breath,
from silence and wind,
from honoring my body
instead of managing it.

Now I listen—

To the garden as it teaches,
to the ache of my heart
that just needs time, not judgment,
to the knowing that rises
when I’m still enough
to receive it.

Healing isn’t a product.
It’s presence.
It’s allowing life
to move through me
without needing to control
how it looks.
It’s feeling good—
and letting that be enough.

-Kerri-Elizabeth-